David Vance SubstackRead More
I’m sure you may remember it, I know I can! I’m talking about Live Aid, the iconic 13th July 1985 charity concert spearheaded by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, which was all about raising more funds for Ethiopian famine relief, and which is often hailed as a triumph for global goodwill. I didn’t actually watch that much of it myself apart from the 5 minutes from Elvis Costello!
But it dominated the global news media back then and Geldof in particular was lionised as a consequence.
Live Aid in summer 1985 followed on from the success of Band Aid in 1984 and the massive success of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”: That song, featuring British and Irish artists, became a global hit, raising millions of dollars for famine relief.
However, if we take a a closer look it at Live Aid in particular it reveals itself as a failure in achieving its declared core goals and a grift that enriched its organisers and middlemen much more than its intended beneficiaries.
Live Aid’s impact on Ethiopia was negligible at best and counterproductive at worst. The event raised around $140 million which really was a staggering sum for charity at the time. Yet, much of this money never reached the starving.
Ethiopia was then under Haile Mariam’s Derg regime, a Marxist dictatorship embroiled in civil war. Reports, including a 2010 BBC investigation, confirmed that significant portions of aid—up to 95% in some rebel-held areas—were diverted by the regime and rebel groups like the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to buy weapons and sustain their conflict.
So Live Aid became death aid!
Geldof dismissed these claims as exaggerated, but evidence from aid workers and journalists, like David Rieff’s accounts in The New Republic, showed that food aid often fueled warlords rather than fed the hungry. The famine also persisted, with 400,000 to 1 million deaths by 1988, suggesting Live Aid’s funds were a drop in a corrupted bucket.
The event’s logistics and priorities also raise grift suspicions. Organisers, including Geldof, leveraged Live Aid to boost their own profiles. The concert’s dual broadcasts from London and Philadelphia featured bloated production costs, with estimates suggesting millions went to staging rather than relief. Performers like Queen and U2 saw career resurgences, while Geldof humanitarian image resulted in a knighthood and lasting celebrity. His band, the Boomtown Rats, faded into total obscurity.
Meanwhile, the Band Aid Trust, which managed the funds, lacked transparency. A 1986 investigation questioned its accounting, noting vague disbursements and payments to intermediaries, yet no full audit has ever surfaced.
“Give us the f*cking money” became “where did the f*cking money go”?
Live Aid was a failure because it didn’t alleviate famine meaningfully and a grift because it prioritised fame, profit, and egos over effective aid. It remains a cautionary tale of charity as performance art, where the stage outshone the starving.
Listening to Geldof in 2025 is beyond embarrassing. He is consumed with hatred for President Trump and Elon Musk. In short, Geldof built his fame on a global fraud.
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