Trivia for
Live Aid (1985) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

• After performing at Wembley Stadium in England, Phil Collins had only a few hours to make another appearance in Philadelphia. He crossed the Atlantic on a Concorde.
  
  
• Several groups who had not performed together in years reunited for the concert. Among them were The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Led Zeppelin (with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson filling in for the late John Bonham) and Black Sabbath.
  
  
• Live Aid holds the record for the most watched television special in history.
  
  
• This was the last major appearance for both the Boomtown Rats.
  
  
• One artist that did appear onstage during the London finale but went relatively unnoticed was Yussef Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens). He had even written a song for the show, but due to time constraints didn't perform it.
  
  
• During his performance, Bob Dylan made a statement that some of the proceeds from Live Aid should go to help the American farmers that were in danger of losing their farms. This offhand remark later inspired Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, who didn't perform at Live Aid, to start up the annual Farm Aid concerts.
  
  
• The concert also marked the return of Teddy Pendergrass to the concert stage three years after becoming paralyzed in a near fatal automobile accident.
  
  
• Originally, Mick Jagger and David Bowie were to perform a duet of Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" with Jagger in Philadelphia and Bowie in London. However, when they realized that it would be technically impossible, they decided to make a video and single of the song. It later became a top five hit and the proceeds were donated to the Live Aid Trust.
  
  
• Prince was asked to perform at the concert, but he had decided to "retire" from live performances at the time. However, he did record a song and video "The Tears in Your Eyes" for the event.
  
  
• Even though the broadcast focused on the concerts at Wembley Stadium in England and at J.F.K. Stadium in Philadelphia, there were also shows in Germany, Japan and Australia.
  
  
• 'David Bowie' was supposed to perform more songs during his set; however, he cut his set short so that a short film showing the plight of the Ethiopian famine victims could be shown.
  
  
• Even though several bands had reunited for the show, one band that was asked to but didn't was the Beatles. The surviving members of the band were asked to perform with Julian Lennon filling in for his father John, but they declined.
  
  
• Wham! (George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley) was scheduled to perform after Elton John, but couldn't due to Elton's set running over its allotted time. However, Elton did invite the duo to perform with him on the song "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me".
  
  
• Artists who were invited to perform but didn't were Tears for Fears, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson.
  
  
• A generator exploded during The Who's number, causing the satellite link to be lost.
  
  
• During The Who's set, a red warning light at the front of the stage flashed to alert the band that their time was up. In response, Pete Townshend stepped on the warning light, broke it, and the band played for five extra minutes.
  
  
• During Paul McCartney's performance his mic went out. He said years later that, during the performance, he was thinking of changing the lyrics to his song "Let It Be" from "There will be an answer" to "There will be some feedback, Let it be"
  
  
• Phil Collins wasn't the only artist to perform twice during the show. John and Andy Taylor performed not only with Duran Duran, they also performed earlier that day with their side project the Power Station. Also, Crosby, Stills and Nash played earlier that afternoon and reunited with Neil Young, who also performed that day doing a solo set.
  
  
• Hall and Oates were Mick Jagger's backing band during his infamous performance with Tina Turner.
  
  
• Even though there were a mixture of American and British acts performing at the Philadelphia portion of the show, no American acts performed at Wembley Stadium.
  
  
• In America, much of the concert was broadcast by MTV, while the last 3 hours was broadcast by ABC. Radio stations also broadcast the concert.
  
  
• London and Philadelphia were the sites for the main concerts, but lots of other benefit concerts were happening all over the world the same day in places like Austria, Russia, Germany, Australia, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Japan.
  
  
• Organizer Bob Geldof has been quoted as saying that he felt Queen had the best sound, the best show of the entire event. Geldof was in the booth at Wembley helping to organize the chaos, and happened to pause for a moment. He overheard the music, and realized that it was noticeably better than it had been all day (technical problems were rampant). He asked, "Who is that?" and the answer was "Queen". He stopped working for several minutes, captivated by the show.
  
  
• Led Zeppelin refused to let their performance be included when the DVD was released in 2004. However, the band members did decide to donate money to the charity.
  
  
• Besides Led Zeppelin, other artists who performed at the concert but weren't included on the DVD of the event were The Hooters, Billy Ocean, The Power Station and Rick Springfield.
  
  
• For several years Bob Geldof refused to release the concert on video of any form. He felt that the concert should be remembered as a once in a lifetime event and only viewed once. However, when several bootleg copies began turning up over the years, Geldof finally decided to release the concert on DVD with the proceeds going to the Band Aid Trust.
  
  
• U2 were planning to play three songs, but when Bono jumped off the stage to dance with a girl from the audience, this caused the song to overrun, so they dropped the third song.
  
  
• As part of Geldof's insistence that it should be a one-off event, the TV companies responsible for the outside broadcasts in London and Philadelphia were under strict instructions to destroy all the recordings of the show. The BBC ignored this stipulation, kept its tapes and archived them but ABC dutifully destroyed its own material. This meant that when the Trust decided to release the concert on DVD, all the Wembley footage was available (including multi-tracked audio), but recordings of the Philadelphia sets had to be assembled from B-roll tapes, the BBC's own copies of the satellite-linked sections and material that had been archived by MTV.
  
  
• During the Boomtown Rats performance of the song "Rat Trap", Bob Geldoff accidentally yanked out the cord from his microphone and as a result the audience didn't hear him sing for a good portion of the performance. This resulted in the song not being included in the DVD release.
  
  
• Big Country was on stage for the finale of the Wembley Stadium portion of the concert, but they did not perform by themselves on that day, as it was thought at the time that the band had broken up. So when the band showed up on the day of the concert, people merely thought they had come to just show their support for the show.
  
  
• Queen almost didn't perform due to the fact that Freddie Mercury was afraid that their performance was going to be seen as a political statement. Bob Geldof eventually convinced the band that there was nothing political about the concert.
  
  

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