One day in late 1984, two of america's best-mixed black men were doing something.
One of them is 51-year-old gold medal musician Quincy Jones. He was the first black-American ever to work as an executive at a major music company and was nominated for 77 Grammy Awards in his lifetime.
The other was 25 years younger than him, but was many times more well-known than he was.
MJ – Michael Jackson.
The most well-known music superstar in the world, there is no one.
Two years earlier, in 1982, Quincy Jones was a producer and recorded an album for Jackson: Thriller.
It was the highest-selling album in the history of world music, selling 150 million copies worldwide. Yes, the MV he led a whole bunch of zombies to dance.
The album won 8 Grammy Awards, breaking world records. Jackson was named "The World's Greatest Performer" by CBS.
These two people are studying how to write a song. A song written for Black Africa.
This year, the African country of Ethiopia was mired in civil war and famine, and refugees died in droves.
European musicians have moved.
The charity album "Do They Know It's Christmas?" recorded by many big British singers together. (Do they know it's Christmas), raised £8 million after the release.
Several American musicians who wanted to record a song like this also approached Quincy Jones. He immediately suggested: Michael Jackson was the perfect candidate.
At the same time, another black superstar should be invited: Leonard Richie, the Oscar and Golden Globe winner for Best Motion Picture Song.
The following week, Leonard Ritchie went to Michael every day. Jackson's house ran, like a pilgrimage.
They want to create a song that is easy to sing and easy to remember.
Quincy Jones wasn't idle either.
He brushed his face everywhere and found 46 popular singers in the United States to record the song, including Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, etc., all of whom were well-known superstars.
If more than half hadn't worked with Quincy Jones, these 46 big stars would never have been willing to do one thing together.
Half a month is still left, and the song has not yet been written. Quincy Jones was anxious and occasionally called Michael Jackson's house to find out how far he and Lionel Ritchie had gone.
It is no longer polite to speak, although the other end of the telephone line is the world's number one singer sought after by hundreds of millions of people.
My dear brethren, 46 of us will be here in less than three weeks. We need a damn song.
We already know the song by now— "We are the world."
The lyrics go like this:
When we hear the earnest call
The whole world should be united
People are dying in some places
It's time to lend a hand
This is the best gift for life
……
One family from all over the world
We are all children
We create a brilliant tomorrow
Let's start giving
It was our choice
Pour our lives into it
It's up to you and me to create a better world
Michael Jackson's second sister, Latoya Jackson, witnessed her brother's creative process. She said:
Michael wrote 99 percent of the lyrics, but he didn't feel the need to say it.
On January 28, 1985, the song was recorded as scheduled. None of the 46 big-name superstars were absent.
The album "Four Seas" raised $10 million for Africa.
At the time, a McDonald's Big Mac hamburger was selling for $0.75 in the United States.
The 46 stars who recorded "Four Seas"
Quincy Jones wrote a letter to the stars:
...... All of us organizers thank you for your efforts.
In the years to come, if your children ask, Dad, what did you do to fight against the world famine? You can proudly say what you've done.
They couldn't imagine that the song was just the beginning. The highlight is yet to come.
Next, the world's biggest stars will participate in a show.
The greatest performance in the history of world music, the most luxurious lineup, and can never be replicated.
01
Afar Delta, Ethiopia, Africa, 1974.
After two years of painstaking excavation, French geologist Morris found several fragmented fossils of human skeletons in a valley.
A few hours later, more fossils were excavated, eventually forming a 40 percent complete skeleton, numbered AL288-1.
Because he happened to be listening to the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", Morris named the fossil "Lucy" in passing.
This may be the first time Ethiopia has been associated with rock and roll.
Later further tests suggested that this was a 20-year-old female ape-man who had learned to walk upright, more than 3 million years old.
For a time, "Lucy" became famous all over the world, and as the "mother of mankind", it appeared on the front page of major media around the world.
Located in northeastern Africa, Ethiopia is a country full of mysteries.
The darker places on this map are all about 2500 meters above sea level. The high altitude is an important cause of famine in Ethiopia
It has a civilization history of more than 4,000 years, with a population of nearly 100 million but famine. At the end of the 19th century, one-third of the population starved to death at once.
It also has the world's last reigning emperor, Haile Selassie II, and Africa's largest army of 1 million.
The news of the "Mother of Mankind" had just been published a few months later, and the country was once again on the front page of the world's major newspapers: Haile Selassie II was overthrown by the army.
Since then, there has been no more news in Ethiopia.
Ten years later, in 1984, Ethiopia's ruler, a colonel named Mengistu, invited the media to the capital, Addis Ababa, to celebrate the military junta's decade in power.
Colonel Mengestu at the celebration
This year, Africa suffered its worst drought in a century, affected by persistent heat and the southward expansion of the Sahara Desert, with nearly 180 million people in 34 countries falling into famine. Even the Red Cross Society of China, thousands of miles away, has issued a call to donate to Africa.
Ethiopia was one of the hardest-hit countries, but the celebration was extraordinary. Mengistu spent $100 million to decorate Addis Ababa, procure a variety of fine wines and delicacies, and feast on guests. He was like the emperor he had overthrown.
A month after the celebrations, several European journalists were allowed to travel to Ethiopia's famine-stricken northern provinces to shoot a documentary titled reviewed by the junta:
Why didn't European societies, with record harvests, use surpluses to help hungry refugees in Ethiopia?
As a result, BBC journalist Michael Bilk made a big news story and presented the truest aspects of the Famine to the world.
Among the people who saw this news was a third-rate dick singer:
Bob Geldof.
Born in Ireland, the 34-year-old Gildorff worked as a soldier, killed pigs, worked as a cannery worker, and finally rock 'n' roll.
He formed a band called Boomtown Rats, and his best result was to reach the top 50 of the UK charts at one time.
Seeing the famine in Ethiopia, Gildorff could not sit still. But years of rock and roll have left him in debt and unable to come up with much money.
After that, he found a group of British singers, so he had the album "Do They Know It's Christmas".
When Gildorf first came to Ethiopia in January 1985, he was stunned by the hellish sight.
Fat, muscle, had all been swallowed up from the inside by the mouth of famine, and the soul had disappeared from their bodies, leaving only empty, blank eyes.
Every day, volunteers select hundreds of people who are about to starve to death out of tens of thousands of people and distribute a small amount of food.
However, these people are no longer willing to eat. Because chewing requires effort, the stomach cannot digest food.
Hundreds of people die every day, and bodies pile up in the camp untreated.
For a time, Ethiopia was synonymous with world famine
After returning to The Uk, Gildorf decided to hold a charity show full of big stars and continue to raise money for Ethiopia. The show will be held simultaneously in the UK and the US.
Thanks to the fame of the last album he recorded, he found:
David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Paul. McCartney, U2, Who, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Beach Boys, Queen, Mighty, Phil Collins, Elton John, Neil Young, Straits of Terror, Zeppelin, Sting, Madonna...
The fame and influence of each of them and each band is enough to hold a full-scale concert.
Now, they have agreed to share the stage, perform free of charge, and donate all the proceeds to Ethiopia.
This country of human origin.
02
The concert was originally scheduled for July 6, 1985, the last day of the Independence Day holiday in the United States. However, because some singers had appointments, they could only postpone it for another week and were scheduled to be held on July 13.
Originally, the venue for the Uk Concert was chosen at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, but Alexander Stadium was too far from London and too small in capacity, leaving only Wembley Stadium.
Unexpectedly, this time and the helpless choice on the venue saved them a lot of money.
Sting, the lead singer of the band "Policeman" after flying solo, had a concert at Wembley Stadium on July 12th. The next day, just save the cost of setting up the venue.
The rental price of Wembley Stadium is £100,000. So, the london show tickets are priced at £25, of which £5 is for venue and other expenses, and £20 is a donation to Africa.
Worthy of rock 'n' roll, Gildorff is a very angular stinger. During his trip to Ethiopia, he had a fight with a reporter. This time, he declared a personal vendetta and gave the media a starting price:
Journalists' tickets are twice as expensive as the average audience, £50; if you want to move around, you have to pay an extra £100 for a special pass.
The U.S. venue, initially chose California, New York, Washington. But they were quickly dismissed.
California's jet lag is not right, and it cannot start with the United Kingdom; Washington's stability maintenance is important, and the government does not approve it; the Central Garden in Madison, New York, is not close.
At this time, the Philadelphia government took the initiative to contact Gildorf:
We are willing to provide a 100,000-person Kennedy Stadium, all facilities and security services are free of charge.
It turned out that on May 13, not long ago, Philadelphia police used explosives to demolish illegal houses occupied by the black militant group MOVE, causing a fire that killed 11 people.
When the fire brigade arrived, the mayor said: Let the fire burn.
Let the fire burn, this sentence became the biggest scandal of the Philadelphia government, and for a time the mayor officials stepped down. Fortunately, the mayor who said this was also black, otherwise there would have been a racial riot.
Later, this sentence became the name of a documentary.
This time, Philadelphia offered free venues, a public relations campaign to save the government's image.
The city that gave birth to the Declaration of Independence is once again in history for a magical reason.
In preparation, PepsiCo announced that it had spent $1 million to purchase exclusive sponsorship rights for two concerts. Thus, in the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody", it can be seen that when Queen came on, Freddie played the piano and filled the paper cups of Pepsi.
To avoid contradictions, Gildorff set rules for each star, each of whom could only sing for 15-20 minutes and sing their latest or hottest songs. Even so, the total length of the show reached 16 hours.
When the news came out, the whole world went crazy.
The BBC and ABC each bought the rights for $1 million each. The concert will be broadcast simultaneously by 14 satellites, tens of thousands of ground receiving stations, and television stations in more than 100 countries, and will be watched by more than 1.5 billion people.
A Malaysian oil tycoon announced the various costs of sponsoring the concert, and the British royal family announced that it would send members to the London concert that day.
NASA (National Space Agency) even said it would broadcast the show live to astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discoverer launched on July 13.
Rock bands in Tokyo, Sydney, Cologne and even Moscow have announced that they have volunteered to join the show. On that day, they will hold a charity performance in various places at the same time.
In the UK, when all the show companies and staff were actively preparing for the show, the American Performance Union informed Gildorf:
All workers' wages and equipment costs must be paid in advance, otherwise you will not want to see the performance.
He wondered:
Why are the British all working for the show for free, while the Americans are asking for money everywhere?
He named the show: Live aid – "Save Lives."
The logo of the performance is a combination of a map of Africa and a guitar.
03
It's 12 noon London time and 7 a.m. Philadelphia time, and the world-renowned "Save Lives" concert is about to begin.
Members of the Royal Family also came to Wembley and made us welcome...
In the cheers of the crowd (the exact number is seventy-two thousand), Princess Diana and Prince Charles stepped into the stands one after the other. Bob Gildorff followed them. In two hours, the Philadelphia show will begin on the other side of the globe.
With the prince and the princess, Gildorff reached the pinnacle of his life
"Saving lives" begins.
The first to play was the legendary British rock band Status Quo.
Francis Rossi, who wears a ponytail, is excellent, and only said three sentences before singing, taking care of the audience's urgent mood:
Hello！How are you right？You right？
The first song, Rock in' All Over The World, is a cheerful, lively tune:
Oh, let's stop here and start here
All in one, rock 'n' roll road
Start here
Let the world rock!
Status Quo is a legendary veteran band that has been in existence for twenty years, and it was in a breakup crisis at the time. It was this "save lives" that brought them back together.
The second to appear was the band "Grace Committee", whose most popular song was "The Internationalists". The song's name is very appropriate, and it certainly appears on "Save Lives".
The third is Gildorff and his "Boom Town Rat". It was the first time he had performed on a stage of this size. Of all the stars who participated in this live aid show, I am afraid that his fame is the smallest.
From this moment on, however, it was different.
Ultrasonic's New Wave Punk, Spandow Ballet's New Romantic Style, Nick Keshaw's Pop Electric Voice, Nigerian Singer Sade's Warm Spirit Song...
Big stars and bands with different styles have taken the stage one after another, which is a rare spectacle in the history of world music.
Not to mention the big names. The tenth to play were Sting and Phil Collins. The two play a guitar, play the piano, sometimes solo, sometimes together.
Even though Sting had just held his own solo concert here the day before, he still hadn't sung enough.
So, soon he appeared again, running to sing harmonies to people - partnered with a well-known band:
Dire Straits – Straits of Terror.
Soon, his high-pitched, clear singing voice floated over Wembley Stadium. “I want my MTV......”
That's right, Straits of Terror's masterpiece, Money for nothing.
These people are the blades of the world rock in the eighties. Their enlightening effect on the latecomer countries is immeasurable. Especially China.
Take the two singers of "Get It For Nothing", for example, each of them has influenced a part of Chinese rock.
When he first debuted, Cui Jian was often said to have a style like Sting. He himself said:
My "Nothing" and "The False Walker" were influenced by Sting, and "Rock on the New Long March Road" was influenced by the police band.
The Strait of Terror has profoundly affected Suyang.
When he was young, Su Yang got a ripped tape, liked it so much that he turned it over and listened to it countless times.
He didn't have a name written on the tape, he didn't know English, and he didn't know what it was called. Many years later, he learned that it was called the Strait of Terror.
In the 1980s, China was just open-eyed, but the world was flourishing.
04
If you have to use the word to describe one of the bands of the day, it must be them, Queen.
The prelude to "Bohemian Rhapsody" sounded, and the audience thundered with joy. The New York Times report of the day called it: The Queen's most wonderful scene.
Previously, Gildorf called to invite Queen lead singer Freddie, but freddie himself could not be contacted. The broker quietly told him:
Freddie is very good-looking, you can now announce it to the public, and then he will be embarrassed not to participate.
So, in the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody", the gay agent's seizure of the news, has not been told freddie's plot, is not true. He also didn't know he had AIDS. That was two years later.
Freddie was in excellent shape at this time, and he had carefully choreographed for the show. The song has six segments, and he only sings the second segment with the most live atmosphere. Then cleverly received a second track, "Radio Gaga"...
A year later, a little girl was born in New York named Stephanie Joanne Angelina Jelmanota. Her favorite song is "Radio Gaga."
At the age of 20, she simply gave herself a stage name: Lady Gaga.
The atmosphere of the scene was high to the extreme. Constantly someone fainted in excitement and was lifted out of Wembley Stadium.
It could also be hot.
The temperature on that day was already as high as 32 degrees. Seventy thousand men and women huddled together shouting and throbbing, and wembley roared and the heat rolled. Countless people took off their clothes, men were naked and women were left with bras.
The staff had to ask a nearby fire brigade to come to their aid and use high-pressure water guns to spray water into the sea of people at the scene to cool down.
Wembley's bathroom couldn't stand so many people at all, and it was quickly blocked and broken. At one point, women forcibly occupied the men's restroom, queuing up for four or five hours to go to the toilet. Many people can only solve the problem with beer bottles or plastic bottles.
Two hours after the London session began, the Philadelphia pitch started on time.
It's one of the most peculiar shows in the world — halfway around the world, audiences on both sides can watch at the same time.
On the big television screens at Wembley Stadium and Kennedy Stadium, live broadcasts of each other's live broadcasts. Each band has about 20 minutes of equipment debugging time before playing, which can be used to broadcast the performance at the other end.
Donation calls from all over the world flooded in. The operators were busy one by one.
There was no internet crowdfunding in those days. Gildorf initially commissioned the BBC to open 20 telephones to answer donations, and later to a team of 200 people from a telephone exchange company.
People only need to call, report their credit card number and the amount of the donation, and indicate how much they are willing to donate to Africa.
On NetEase Cloud Music, there is a comment on Live aid, to the effect that:
Everyone who watches the live video of the show finds themselves decades late.
05
As early as the preparations for the show, Gildorff was so anxious that he couldn't sleep for several nights.
So many big names, generally are untamed people who blow up the sky.
As long as one or two of them drink a lot and release the pigeons, then the trouble will be big, and the order of the performances will have to be rearranged. Because he himself is a thorn head that has always been unreliable.
Moreover, there was no contract signed for this performance, and most of the big names were just a simple "line".
As a result, they all came. The mess is exactly what happened to his hometown, the Irish band U2.
This world-class rock band has an equally world-class lead singer who loves to do things - Bono.
Originally, U2 was given three songs in a row. As a result, just after singing a song, Bono jumped off the stage, crossed the security line and pulled a girl in the audience to the stage, and danced a slow dance together.
The rest of the U2 band were all dumbfounded and didn't know what to do. The scene was chaotic.
Gildorff was furious and scolded your fellow countrymen for being untrue. Twenty years later, when the concert came out of the official commemorative version of the VCD, the performance part of U2 was completely cut.
Afterwards, the girl defended Bono, saying that there were too many people at the time, almost trampling her to death, and it was Bono who saved her.
But Bono did not give face at all and told the truth:
As a performer, I am not satisfied with the distance between the performer and the audience. I always try to cross that distance.
It was a big show for our band, with 1 billion people watching and we didn't sing the songs we were famous for. Everyone was annoyed, even very annoyed, at me.
That move ruined my day, and I thought I was going to ruin the future of the band.
It's not just U2 that's been cut.
The Zeppelins have been disbanding for 5 years after the drummer died unexpectedly after drinking alcohol, and it was only a temporary reunion because of this live aid. They don't even have a drummer, so I've asked Phil Collins to make a cameo as a drummer.
Because it has been too long since they were reunited, this great band played a big car accident scene.
Phil Collins played the wrong rhythm, not to say, the lead singer sang out of tune, and his voice was still split. Twenty years later, they volunteered to cut out parts of their performances.
Also highly anticipated for this show is, of course, the world's most famous rock band.
BEATLES – The Beatles.
From 1970 onwards, they were disbanded. Paul McCartney hadn't performed in eight years, and Lennon was shot dead in the United States in 1980.
The Sun carried a front-page headline that the three remaining members of the Beatles would be reunited for the show. It has satisfied the appetite of the whole world.
It was completely dark and the Performance at England Yard was coming to an end.
The piano sounded. The crowd cheered like a tidal wave.
The Beatles did not show up. Only McCartney, alone, sat alone in front of the stage, playing the piano.
This is his first time on stage in eight years.
He opened his mouth to a song that rock fans all over the world are familiar with:
Let it be。
They have not worked together since the Beatles announced their dissolution in 1970. Including this time.
The strange road is too long, and it is difficult to rob the waves.
The laughter and desire of the world, the flowers and tears, McCartney has seen too much.
The 43-year-old has a calm face, even though the corners of his eyes are full of wrinkles.
Singing this let it be composed entirely by his own lyrics is not only appropriate, but also without copyright troubles.
06
The heat of the United States is no less than that of the British side.
In the star-studded Philadelphia Arena, more than 30 groups of singers and bands were performed, singing from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., lasting 14 hours.
Although Michael Jackson himself failed to appear due to the recording of the album "2 BAD", the developed music industry in the United States can turn everyone upside down by taking out two names at random.
Today, there is the Guinness World Records certified, the most popular female singer of the twentieth century - Madonna, Na Sister. At this moment, at the age of 27, she is the infinite age of youth.
Today, Eric Clapton, the only rock legend to have won 19 Grammy Awards in his lifetime, has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times.
There's also the rolling stones lead singer, Mick Jagger. Their logo, the big red tongue, is the world's most famous rock logo.
Zheng Jun gave his son the English name Jagel, just to pay tribute to this legendary old cannon who had been debauched all his life and gave birth to an eighth child at the age of 73.
Decades later, a female movie star from Hong Kong, China, switched to rock and roll and signed a contract with a record label in Beijing.
Her WeChat avatar is the big tongue of the Rolling Stones.
If you don't do something, it's not Mick Jagger.
When he sang with his rock godmother Tina Turner, he jerked off her skirt and forced her to sing the whole song in only black stockings and panties.
The moment Jagger ripped off Turner's skirt
After singing, Tina Turner hurried off the stage to change her clothes. After Live Aid ended, she published her autobiography. Probably thinking that after participating in this performance, I can make up my mind.
Today, there's another weird singer here: Phil Collins, who just finished singing in London a few hours ago.
Halfway across the world, how did he fly over?
It really flew over.
Immediately after leaving London, Phil Collins flew directly to London Heathrow International Airport in a helicopter parked near Wembley Stadium. There, a British Airways Concorde with registration number G-boag was waiting for him.
The Concorde is a name that is a glimpse in the history of world aviation. It's more than twice as fast as a Boeing 747 and takes about three hours to get from London to New York.
The plane chased the sun, and its speed exceeded the relative speed at which the Earth revolved around the sun. In other words, when passengers arrived, the local time was even earlier than when they left.
This time, Phil Collins took advantage of the plane's super speed. After circling a circle over Wembley Stadium, the Concorde rushed into the sky and headed for New York, 5,600 kilometers away.
After landing, he had 32 minutes to continue the helicopter ride to Philadelphia's Kennedy Stadium.
As a result, he became the only person in the world to perform in both live aid locations.
A few days later, some media questioned:
Why did Phil fly from London to New York? There is little value other than being cool and wasteful.
There are already so many big names, not one less than him. If there is that money, why not donate it directly to Refugees in Africa?
In fact, this has wronged Phil Collins. His trip, which cost a total of $50,000, was sponsored by British Airways.
However, he also caused other chaos. Near Wembley Stadium, a family is having a wedding. When the helicopter that picked him up landed, the air currents of the rotor fan blew the arranged wedding scene all away. People don't do it.
Gildorf had to rush over to wipe his ass, apologizing when he found that the bride and groom were both fans of David Bowie. He called David Bowie over and sang a song to the newcomer, successfully resolving the conflict.
This is probably the most peculiar impromptu performance in the history of weddings in the world.
The singer who finally finished the show was a future Nobel Prize winner in literature who was worshipped by folk music fans around the world.
Bob dylan.
Living up to expectations, he appeared as a classic guitarist and harmonica, the first song, singing the song "Blow in the Wind".
Finally, Leonard Ritchie took the lead and greeted all the Philadelphia singers who participated in the performance that day, as well as all the young actors who sang the song that day, to the stage and sang "Four Seas and One Family" together.
All the big names became accompaniments. The accompaniment of 100,000 spectators.
On the field and off the field, there were waving hands and tearful faces everywhere. Lighters lit up converge into a sea of stars.
At this moment, music has no nationality, gender, style, genre, and returns to its essence.
07
The live aid is over, the donation campaign is not over. The numbers on dedicated accounts keep climbing day by day.
A newlywed couple in London decided to sell their house and donate the money to Africa.
Many elderly Irish women came to the post office and asked for their only possession, a wedding ring. Because they have been worn on the hands for too many years, those rings can no longer be taken off. They had to go buy a piece of soap first and soak their hands in soapy water for a while.
At the London Show, the Irish accounted for the lion's share of donations on the day. It's not just because Gildorf and U2 are both from Ireland.
In the mid-19th century, there was a famine in Ireland, and a quarter of the population either starved to death or fled to the United States. Today, Ireland's population is only one-twentieth that of britain.
To put it bluntly: At the time of famine, Ireland was under British rule.
Even when Gildorf went down the street, someone would keep stuffing him with money, from a few pennies to a few hundred pounds. He told them to put the money into the post office's account, but people said: Bob, give it to you we are most at ease.
Of course, human nature is the same everywhere.
Someone donated all his belongings for £3,000 in one fell swoop, but half a month later he repented and wrote to Gildorff:
Can you give me a portion of it back? I was impulsive and couldn't afford to donate so much.
Reagan, then president of the United States, signed a bill announcing that July 13 would be designated as the National Day of Remembrance and that changes to the African aid program would be considered.
Queen Elizabeth II conferred the title on Sir Gildorff. The parliaments of Norway, the United Kingdom and Ireland jointly nominated him as a candidate for the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
The National Airlines of Mauritius called, and they offered two first-class round-trip tickets and two weeks of five-star hotels, just to take a photo to advertise: Gildorf was on holiday in Mauritius.
Gildorff was moved. Because of all these years of rock and roll, he was really poor and had never stayed in such a good hotel, let alone traveled.
But he was also worried that the media who had just been stabbed by him in the live aid took revenge and reported a big news, so he had to endure the pain of flesh and refuse.
The headline of this news, he can figure it out himself:
Gildorff is basking in the sun on the beach, and tens of millions of people in Africa behind him are starving!
The United States is the country that raises the most money, raising 50 percent of total donations. So, in the end, 10 percent of the donations went to the relief of homeless Americans.
But the largest single donation did not come from the United States, but from the far Middle East, the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
The 67-year-old grand sheikh, who has ruled the UAE for 32 years, watched live streams of Live Aid and was so excited that he announced that he would donate £1 million out of his own pocket.
In order to exempt Live Aid from VAT on album sales, Gildorff approached British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Margaret Thatcher initially disagreed with the tax exemption, and domestic public opinion was in an uproar. The Iron Lady had to make concessions, abolishing the value-added tax and apologizing to the nation on television.
After all, such a big Britain, donations are not as much as Ireland. From this point of view, Britain will be finished sooner or later.
Live Aid eventually raised $127 million for African countries.
Paradoxically, such a large sum of money donated by the whole world did not save Ethiopia from famine.
08
From the moment the first food arrived in Ethiopia, Gildorf's men found that there was no way to transport them to the disaster area.
The railway was dilapidated, the roads were impassable, and there were no cars. If you cross the sea to get a car yourself, you will immediately be confiscated by the red-eyed military junta that fought in the civil war.
In 1985, a large amount of food rotted on the dock next to the Red Sea.
In utter despair, Gildorff and his team decided to buy a convoy of used trucks in Ethiopia's neighboring Sudan, repair it, and then enter Ethiopia overland to forcibly transport food to the disaster area.
Five months of delay before the 80 trucks were bought and repaired to operational.
The situation did not change slightly until the convoy, which had set out from northern Sudan and forcibly crossed the line of fire between the two sides and delivered food to the disaster area in the north, was discovered by Colonel Mengistu.
At that time, Mengistu was suffering from the enemy in the war. The opposition force in the northern province of Tigray, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, and the forces in the Eritrean region in the north-east, are attacking him in tandem.
The food and money donated by Live Aid became his strong needle.
Mengistu agreed that convoys could follow and distribute food after his army had reached an area.
It was actually a plan he had to buy people's hearts and minds, so that the victims would think that the food came from him. As long as they were on his side, there was food to eat.
The good will of the whole world became a chip in the civil war.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had pleaded with Gildorf not to disburse relief until a reliable agency could give the money to the victims, which would only exacerbate civil war and death. But he went his own way and said a famous sentence:
We shake hands with the devil with our left hand and donate money to the victims with our right hand.
Michael Bilk, the first BBC journalist to report to the world on the famine in Ethiopia, said:
The Great Famine in Ethiopia changed everything, and nothing changed.
It fundamentally changed the sense of responsibility in the world of the rich about hunger and the poor, but it solved nothing.
Ethiopia's civil war did not end until 1991. Colonel Mengistu was overthrown.
Baidu will look at colonel Mengistu's name and find that his birth and death years are "1937-2008". In fact, he lives to this day in good grace.
Under Ethiopia's new constitution, Mengestu was sentenced to death in 2008. But this penalty of absence is doomed to be unenforceable. As early as 1991, he fled to Zimbabwe and successfully obtained political asylum in Mugabe.
Born in 1937, he is 82 years old and has been living in Zimbabwe ever since. He was also nominated for a Human Rights Award. This award is called:
Gaddafi International Human Rights Prize.
That same year, Queen lead singer Freddie died at the age of 45. These two men, who had never met before, both ushered in a turning point in their fate in that year, but the ending was so lamentable.
In 2000, Wembley Stadium was closed for demolition. In 2003, the last Concorde was decommissioned due to the high cost.
It's no longer possible to rush the show like Phil Collins and cross half the world in one day for two shows.
It was as if it were the end of a meteoric ornate era.
Over the years, Geldorf has been doing public welfare. In 2005, he launched a concert of stars, named "Live 8", to exert influence on the ongoing G-8 summit to demand that these developed countries reduce the debt of African countries.
McCartney, Madonna and U2 lead singer Bono, who participated in the live aid concert 20 years ago, have become the brightest stars in this live8 concert.
Subsequently, the G-8 announced long-term debt relief for 18 of Africa's poorest countries. George W. Bush, then-President of the United States, announced that he would double U.S. gratuitous assistance to African countries.
However, Gildorf has always refused to be interviewed about whether the donation of Live Aid was used effectively that year.
In 2009, Michael Jackson died unexpectedly. With the popularity of Facebook and iPhones, the news shocked the world.
Along with the world's number one singer, there was music.
The Internet flattened the earth, but killed the music. The world can no longer produce musicians like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Michael Jackson.
At that time, Live Aid completely became a masterpiece.
09
On March 22, 2019, "Bohemian Rhapsody", based on the life of Queen lead singer Freddie, was released on Chinese mainland.
Among them, the climax of the whole film is the end, the wonderful performance of Queen in Live aid.
The two members of Queen who participated in the performance that year, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger, were already white-haired.
The two of them personally posted a video on Weibo calling on Chinese audiences to see the film.
At this time, many people know that there was once such a great performance. The biggest stars in the world have come together just to aid a distant country, Ethiopia.
Today, the country that has provided the most aid to Ethiopia is China.
Over the years, China has helped Ethiopia build railways, roads, power stations, and the first national industrial park. Ethiopia's most recent president, who was also educated at Peking University, went from undergraduate to doctoral level.
It somewhat made up for China's regret of missing that performance that year.
On July 15, 1985, a day after the end of Live aid, people's daily published a message: "More than 100 famous singers collect donations for the victims of the disaster in Africa."
...... At noon on the 13th, the concert first opened at London's Wimbley Stadium, with more than 72,000 listeners attending the concert. Two hours later, a concert attended by 90,000 people at The John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia also began...
The full text is 239 words in total. That's all China has to do with this show.
For China, it came too early.
Like Ethiopia, China is not on the list of countries that broadcast the show.
There is no rock 'n' roll in China. "Nothing" will take more than half a year to be born. Only one female singer named Zhang Qiang published China's first disco album.
China has more important things this year: the People's Liberation Army has laid off millions and devoted itself to economic construction; the establishment of a unified township government throughout the country, the women's football team has been designated as a national competition for the first time, and the men's football team has triggered the first fan riot in Chinese history...
So far, no record of Chinese watching Live Aid live at the scene has been found. To see its videos in that era is a rare lucky person.
Gao Xiaosong is such a lucky person.
His father mailed him a live video tape of Live Aid from the United States, which he had watched too many times, all the while looking at the image as snowflake-like. He also pulled the old wolf to watch together, and the two people watched the tears flow for a long time.
Later, in his video program "Xiao Shuo", he commented on the performance like this:
I think we're the happiest generation, and we happen to be growing up in the eighties.
When we are in our teens and early twenties, and we are forming our own worldview, the sea is full of lighthouses, illuminating the sea.
The reason why people call our generation the most ideal is not because we are born with ideals in our genes, but because we grew up under the light of a bunch of idealistic masters.
Even if one day the lighthouse is extinguished and the sea is pitch black, we basically know where to go.