On July 13, 1985, for 16 hours a concert was held simultaneously at JFK Stadium Philadelphia and at Wembley Stadium in London.
Live Aid raised more than $125 million to fight famine in Ethiopia.
In Philadelphia, 100,000 people attended on a hot and sunny day. It was so hot, the Philadelphia Fire Department sprayed water into the crowd.
Somewhere around the time that Judas Priest and Bryan Adams were scheduled to perform, at 11:30 a.m., emcee Chevy Chase made an announcement from the stage.
“If Steve Fallon is here, we would like him to go over to that balloon over there. Steve Fallon, we have found a donor in Boston, please go to that balloon,” Chase said.
Steve Fallon was there and made his way to the hot air balloon where he was met by Mary Smotrys, a concert aide.
Fallon, 25, of Waltham, Mass., was going to be whisked away by police to the airport headed to Boston where a new kidney waited for him.
People magazine reported in August 1985 that Fallon “had nephritis, a condition that erodes kidney function.” Fallon was on dialysis three times a week.
Attending the concert was supposed to be a morale booster for him.
Fallon’s father received the first message about the kidney then got on the phone calling everyone he could think of that could help to reach his son.
Stephen Fallon made it to the hospital and received the kidney during a four-hour surgery.
Meanwhile, the concert went on.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana opened the Wembley concert while Joan Baez opened the show in Philadelphia by saying, “Good morning, children of the 80s, This is your Woodstock, and it’s long overdue,” Baez said, according tohistory.com.
The concert was globally linked by satellite and watched on television by an estimated 1.9 billion people.
The concert was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money to battle the Ethiopian famine as a follow-up to the Band Aid event the year before.
About 72,000 people attended the London event while about 100,000 attended in Philadelphia. The event raised more than $125 million.
According tohistory.com, “Geldof had traveled to Ethiopia after hearing news reports of a horrific famine that had killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and threatened to kill millions more. After returning to London, he called Britian’s and Ireland’s top pop artists together to record a single to benefit Ethiopian famine relief. ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ was written by Geldof and Ultravox singer Midge Ure and performed by ‘Band Aid,’ an ensemble that featured Culture Club, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, U2, Wham!, and others. It was the best-selling single in Britain to that date and raised more than $10 million.”
In the United States the song also was a hit and inspired artists here to come together to perform “We Are The World,” written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson. The USA ensemble included them, Geldof, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder.
That led Geldof to propose the Live Aid concert, which was organized in just 10 weeks. More than 75 acts performed including Queen, Sting, Duran Duran, U2, Tom Petty, Santana, Bryan Adams, David Bowie and Run DMC.
Those appearing in Philadelphia included Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Beach Boys, Hall and Oates, Bob Dylan and Phil Collins.
Collins performed in Philadelphia after performing at Wembley earlier in the day. He flew by Concorde from London.
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