global jukebox (12. 577)

Inspired by the success of the Band Aid supergroup’s charity album from a half-a-year earlier, though with the same attendant criticism, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure staged their dual-venue benefit concert to raise funds for relief of the devastating famine in Ethiopia on this day in 1985 with bands playing at both Wembley Stadium and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Whilst prompting decades of debate regarding the organisers’ methods and impacts—from prioritising humanitarian aid in foreign policy and focusing the world’s attention on the plight of the poor in favour with dissenters arguing that monies raised were diverted from real and sustaining support and further delayed the West coming to terms with its parochial and patriarchal tendencies and disabuse itself from the real factors behind inequity and the injustice of colonialism under a different guise. Proclaiming music to be the lingua franca—not English, nonetheless, Geldof, at the suggestion of Boy George, whom had also taken part in the recording of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,”orchestrated a rather amazing spectacle with an enduring legacy. Mick Jagger and David Bowie had originally planned a transatlantic duet (see previously) though synchronisation problems ultimately lead to a compromise. Phil Collins did in fact play at Wembley, ferried by helicopter to Heathrow and took a Concorde flight to Pennsylvania and performed also at JFK, encountering Cher on the plane—who was unaware of the concert but was convinced to tag along and sing in the finale, an encore of the anti-hunger anthem “We Are the World.” Queen’s twenty-one-minute performance of a medley of hits was voted the greatest live gig in music history, Freddie Mercury many times leading the audience in unison refrains and his sustained cry of “Aaaaay-O” described as the “Note Heard Around the World.” The US event was hosted by Jack Nicholson and included acts by Madonna, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Tina Turner with reunions of the bands Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Black Sabbath, The Beach Boys and Led Zeppelin.