Live Aid at 40: When Rock 'n' Roll Took on the World
Season 1 Episode 1 of 3
The behind-the-scenes story of the 1985 charity concerts in London and Philadelphia, looking at this historic event and its legacy in Britain, the US, Ethiopia and Africa as a whole. In late October 1984, a BBC news report about a biblical famine in Ethiopia inspired Bob Geldof to collaborate with Midge Ure on a pop song that would mobilise not only Britain but also the United States, raising millions for charity, as Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? single catapulted Geldof into the complex worlds of aid, charity and African politics. Featuring archival footage and specially filmed interviews with Geldof, Ure, Bono and Sting, as well as such key figures such as the Ethiopian ministers responsible for aid, the head of US AID and two survivors of the famine.