It's a near indisputable fact that Live Aid was one of the most important events of the twentieth century. After the phenomenal success of the Band Aid single, "Do They Know it's Christmas?", Bob Geldof and Midge Ure changed the course of the music industry in 1985 by staging a multi-venue rock concert in order to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. By demanding that we give them "our f***ing money", Geldof and Ure were able to raise around £150 million in total as a direct result of the concerts with the help of the participating bands, who famously included the likes of U2, David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Queen.
Yet the importance of Live Aid lies not so much in the awareness of global poverty it raised (by all accounts, the crisis in Ethiopia was forgotten nearly as quickly as the bandstands were disassembled) or the 1.5 billion viewers it attracted: what it exposed more than anything was the power of music and celebrities to associate themselves with a cause and raise its profile dramatically. The ability of famous musical artists to organise a charitable campaign on such a large scale was virtually unheard of, and set a powerful precedent.
Live Aid's follow-up, Live 8, was organises in 2005, and was scheduled to coincide with the G8 Conference at Gleneagles in Scotland. In conjunction with the Make Poverty History campaign, the global concert was staged in a multiplicity of venues including Philadelphia and London, 1985's main venues, as well as Berlin, Rome, Paris and Edinburgh, among others. While Live 8 was shrouded in criticism from all corners, on areas as polarised as the lack of African artists performing to the absence of pre-watershed censorship, it again proved the power of artists to bring serious world issues into the limelight.
While the effect of Live 8 seems to have had less impact than its predecessor, it has inspired a number of charitable ventures to keep going; for instance, Radiohead's frontman, Thom Yorke's The Big Ask is a program devoted to bringing the issue of climate change to the forefront of world politics and pressure governments into action, and many musical artists continue to campaign around the world on the issues of global poverty and exploitation. This trend has seen a number of large companies join forces in the fight against poverty: one of these organisations is (PRODUCT) RED, which has teamed up with a variety of businesses - including Motorola, Gap and American Express - to provide customers with products that will donate money to charity every time they are used or bought.
Another example of this is the
Hilton Harmony Tour; unveiled at the 48th Grammy Awards, the 'Harmony Piano' has been touring the US ever since, stopping at select locations in San Francisco, Austin, Memphis and New York, among other major cities. The company have pledged to donate $1000 to charity every time a famous musician signs their name on the instrument, and the piano will eventually be auctioned off at the 49th annual Grammy Awards next year. So far, signatures have included Chris Martin, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen, further demonstrating how musical artists have come to the forefront of charity fundraising in the last few decades.
