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In the end, a musical becomes of it. This notification of the recycling chain in the showbiz also applies to the charity spectacle “Live Aid”, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer. The double concert, which was occupied by superstars, took place on July 13, 1985 in the old Wembley Stadion in London and in Philadelphia. The first big pop music happening by satellite TV was followed by 1.9 billion people worldwide. A mega donation gala for the hunger aid program in Ethiopia by Mastermind Bob Geldof.
Just in time for the anniversary day in July, the legendary fabric is now coming back to the London theater district of Westend. In the Shaftesbury Theater there will be a gala performance of “Just for One Day-The Live Aid Musical”. The BBC builds a special program around it. A new single coupling from the accompanying album with cover versions from Elton John to Bob Dylan has just been published.
“Highly flying voices and pancake flat characters”
The implementation as a revue was able to premiere in mid -February 2024 in the venerable Old Vic Theater. The musical experts were enthusiastic. The music criticism etched: “Highly flying voices and pancake flat characters,” headlined the “Guardian”.
In the run-up to the 2025 celebrations, Sir Bob Geldof (73) sat down on his bike and granted the “NME” an interview about his “Never Ending Project”. A good dozen terrible news from the crisis regions of the world would continue to achieve him every day. “It works for 40 years now. ‘Band Aid’ is a living thing for me that never ends. And now the year of the anniversaries is for me.”
His Irish ex-punk band Boomtown Rats is 50, his wife, the actress Jeanne Marine turns 60, “Band Aid” 40, the successor version “Live 8” 20. “I’m damn again if it is all over to be honest, says Geldof.
“How can you still pay attention to what is happening in Sudan?”
How was it for yourself to see yourself on the musical stage? “Even if you know that the guy is up there yourself, it doesn’t take long for you to only see it as a figure. You can’t think: ‘Oh, he doesn’t give me very well’ or ‘I am not at all’ because you don’t know yourself from the outside.”
When asked where the world is after more than four decades of its activism, he takes out to be all -round. A picture of disillusionment. As a long-term campaign, “Live AD/Band Aid” would have recorded around £ 50 billion for the poorest people in the world. “Something like that is no longer possible. Especially because people are so scared and exhausted that they hardly have the emotional range to deal with terror in Ukraine or horror in Gaza. How can you still pay attention to what happens in Sudan?”
He can only shake his head through the Trump government: “It is simply incredible. I have visited these countries many times and too often stripped through the horrors of the world. It makes me understand that the USA IIT website was switched off on February 5, 2025, so that in Kenya at least tens of thousands of health workers immediately and without warning were lost their job the next morning.”
During a performance of the live AID musical, he would have stood in the lobby and listened to the people: “You said; ‘Why don’t someone do something like that again? Someone will do it.’ But I’m skeptical there. ” Back then, he and his team had luck and momentum on their side. “The social and political constellation made it possible!”