Live Aid was a multi-venue benefit concert held on Saturday 13 July 1985, as well as a music-based fundraising initiative. The original event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, a movement that started with the release of the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in December 1984. Billed as the "global jukebox", Live Aid was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, attended by about 72,000 people, and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, attended by 89,484 people.
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof is an Irish singer-songwriter, and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved popularity as part of the punk rock movement. The band had UK number one hits with his compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof starred as "Pink" in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall. As a fundraiser, Geldof organised the charity supergroup Band Aid and the concerts Live Aid and Live 8, and co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time.
The Boomtown Rats are an Irish rock band originally formed in Dublin in 1975. Between 1977 and 1985, they had a series of Irish and UK hits including "Like Clockwork", "Rat Trap", "I Don't Like Mondays" and "Banana Republic". The original line-up comprised five musicians from Dún Laoghaire in County Dublin; Gerry Cott, Simon Crowe (drums), Johnnie Fingers (keyboards), Bob Geldof (vocals) and Garry Roberts, plus Fingers' cousin Pete Briquette (bass). The Boomtown Rats broke up in 1986, but reformed in 2013, without Fingers or Cott. Garry Roberts died in 2022. The band's fame and notability have been overshadowed by the charity work of frontman Bob Geldof, a former journalist with the New Musical Express.
The Secret Policeman's Ball is a series of benefit shows staged initially in the United Kingdom to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The shows started in 1976 featuring popular British comedians but later included leading musicians and actors. The Secret Policeman's Ball shows are credited by many prominent entertainers with having galvanised them to become involved with Amnesty and other social and political causes in succeeding years.
The Wave-Gotik-Treffen is an annual world festival for "dark" music and "dark culture" in Leipzig, Germany. 150+ bands and artists from various backgrounds play at several venues throughout the city over four days on Whitsuntide. The festival also features multiple all-night dance club parties, several fairs with medieval, gothic, and related merchandise, a variety of cultural exhibitions and performances, large themed picnics, and a number of unofficial fringe events.
Pink Floyd – The Wall is a 1982 British live-action/animated psychological musical drama film directed by Alan Parker, based on Pink Floyd's 1979 album of the same name. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. The Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldof plays rock star Pink, who, driven insane by the death of his father, constructs a physical and emotional wall to protect himself.
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland, from 6–8 July 2005. Both events also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. Run in support of the aims of the UK's Make Poverty History campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, ten simultaneous concerts were held on 2 July and one on 6 July. On 7 July, the G8 leaders pledged to double 2004 levels of aid to poor nations from US$25 billion to US$50 billion by 2010. Half of the money was to go to Africa. More than 1,000 musicians performed at the concerts, which were broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks.
The main Live 8 concert was held at Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom on 2 July 2005. The event is also referred to as Live 8 London or Live 8 UK.
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis.
The Stadio Ettore Giardiniero - Via del mare, known as Stadio Via del mare, is a multi-purpose stadium in Lecce, Italy. It is mostly used for football matches and is the home of U.S. Lecce. The stadium was built in 1966 and holds 40,670 seats. It takes its name from the street leading to the sea, and from the Lecce Mayor at the time of the first renovation of the stadium in 1985.
Arezzo Wave is a famous Italian festival that takes place every July in Arezzo since 1987.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is an American playwright, screenwriter, and comic book writer best known for his work for Marvel Comics and for the television series Glee, Big Love, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. He is Chief Creative Officer of Archie Comics.
Oz for Africa was an Australian concert held on 13 July 1985 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. It was organised by Bill Gordon who also organised the EAT Concert held at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne at the end of January 1985. That event was televised nationally on Channel Nine. Over $1million was raised in the accompanying telethon. Gordon organised for all proceeds to go to the Red Cross. During the 10 hour event live satellite hook ups between Melbourne London and Los Angeles included interviews with Geldof and many of the stars of the hit songs "We Are the World" & "Feed the World". The Oz for Africa concert was broadcast locally and internationally as part of the worldwide Live Aid performances to raise money for famine relief in Africa. The concert featured 17 bands performing some of their best-known songs. All groups donated their services and the concert helped raise $10 million throughout Australia.
INmusic festival is Croatia's biggest international contemporary music open-air festival. The festival is held annually in late June in Zagreb and takes place on the Isle of Youth in the middle of Zagreb's Lake Jarun. The festival was started in 2006 and is usually held over three days. It includes several genre-specific stages with internationally renowned indie rock, heavy metal and electronica artists. In 2008 The Times included INmusic among the top 20 European summer festivals, and it made the CNN's 2013 list of 50 greatest summer music festivals in the world. NME has reported from the festival since 2015 and hailed the festival as "the hidden festival gem of Europe" as well as listing it among the world's top festival since 2017.
Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof was an English columnist, television personality, and model.
Furthur was a rock band founded in 2009 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. The original lineup also included John Kadlecik of the Dark Star Orchestra on lead guitar, RatDog's Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and Jay Lane on percussion, and Joe Russo of the Benevento/Russo Duo on drums. Named after the famous touring bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s, Furthur was an improvisational jam band that performed music primarily from the extensive Grateful Dead songbook, as well as their own original music and that of several other well-known artists. In addition to the original members, the band's lineup included backup vocalists Sunshine Becker of the a cappella ensemble SoVoSó and Jeff Pehrson of the folk rock bands Box Set and the Fall Risk.
Fright Nights is a seasonal Halloween event held at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The event began in 2006 as Halloween Family Fun Night as a single night event and has since evolved into a major park event across a month. It features themed mazes, shows and rides. Fright Nights also refers to the Halloween special event at Thorpe Park in Chertsey, Surrey, England, which opened in 2002.
The New Orleans Pop Festival was a rock festival held on Labor Day weekend, two weeks after the Woodstock Festival. It was held at the Louisiana International Speedway in Prairieville, Louisiana, about 65 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans and 15 miles south of Baton Rouge. Over 26 bands performed during the three days of the festival, including seven veterans of Woodstock. It had a peak attendance of 25,000–30,000 people.
Psy-Fi is an annual open air psychedelic music and arts festival in the Netherlands. The first edition was held in July 2013 in the Stadspark of the city of Groningen; all subsequent editions have been held in recreation area De Groene Ster to the east of Leeuwarden. It is one of the largest international festivals in the Netherlands and attracts thousands of visitors each year, with the 2017 edition reporting participants from about 100 countries. In 2019, project leader Wiebe Kootstra stated that only 18% of the attendees lived in the Netherlands, the rest visited the festival from abroad.
Infinite Frontier is a 2021 relaunch by the American comic book publisher DC Comics of its entire line of ongoing monthly superhero comic book titles in 2021. It is the follow-up to the 2016 DC Rebirth relaunch. The relaunch and event was shepherded by writer Joshua Williamson. The continuity and repercussions established by Infinite Frontier continues into the 2023 Dawn of DC relaunch.
