Live Aid: 41 years on when, just for one day, music made a difference

Decades have passed since I last watched them - a memory of a moment in time when music really made a difference.

Forty-one years ago, on July 13, 1985, I sat glued to the telly, watching a live show that defined its era. The ‘60s had Woodstock, the ‘80s had Live Aid. The journey from peace and love to famine and telethons is incomprehensible, but it still stands as a truly phenomenal event which captured the imagination of everyone.

Next year, Live Aid comes full circle with a new musical, Just For One Day, coming to the Playhouse Theatre in Edinburgh, and it’ll be strange to see something I lived through recreated on stage.

If it captures even just one tenth of the magic that was in the air that day, then it will have done its job.

Live music has been part of my life since my days as a teenager, and nothing still beats the thrill of being in a venue, or stadium, watching it fill up and sensing the buzz that grows in the countdown to the band hitting the stage.

Live Aid takes me back to my wee Scottish Special Housing Association rented house in Dagleish Avenue, Cumnock, on a sofa donated by family friends, with snacks and drinks, as well as a remote control which had to be plugged into the rented telly. The wire was just long enough to reach my seat.

Wembley might have been hundreds of miles away, but this was still a gig everyone felt part of. I missed the opening acts thanks largely to the night before - the newsroom was on the lash in Bobby Jones nightclub, Ayr’s version of Jackie O. It looked as 80s as it probably sounds.

My hangover survived the 15 mile bus journey back to Cumnock just in time to catch Elvis Costello doing ‘All You Need Is Love’ before getting myself propped up for a marathon viewing.

From Charles and Di taking their seats in the stadium - and dressed as if they were hosting a garden party - to an exhausted Bob Geldof being hoisted aloft at the finale, this was a gig that surpassed anything we’d ever seen.

We all know Queen’s career-reviving event defining performance because it is the go-to footage for every broadcaster. Freddy Mercury’s command of the audience remains a masterclass to this day, but there were many other highlights. Sets from U2 and David Bowie were compelling, and Tina Turner and Mick Jagger’s glorious old time rock ‘n’ roll hammed-up duet across the pond showed an entire generation of musicians what it meant to own the stage.

And then there was that unique sense of community. In Bob (Geldof) we trusted. The gobby punk who once tore up a picture of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John on Top Of The Pops to celebrate the Boomtown Rats booting them off the number one slot in the charts became the most unlikely CEO of the greatest gig of modern times.

When he slammed the table, and swore live on air to kick-start more donations, it electrified the afternoon and became one of the misquoted moments in entertainment.

I remember all the talk back then of Live Aid becoming an annual event, but it missed the point. This was an immediate response to an immediate need.

Forty-one years on, it still feels special.

Listening again those sets by U2 and Bowie simply reminds you of the power of music to be a catalyst for good, and for change.