Queen’s 21-minute performance at Wembley has topped polls for the greatest rock performance in history, becoming so iconic that recent biopic Bohemian Rhapsody recreates the set almost in its entirety. The 16-hour event, in front of more than 170,000 inside the venues, has gone down in music history. Are we still living in Thatcher’s Britain?.Princess Diana: a mother who ripped up the rule book.My history hero: Aled Jones chooses Freddie Mercury (1946–91).Live Aid was one of the largest TV spectacles of all time with a global audience of 1.9 billion people. A number of other countries also got in on the act with their own concerts – including in Australia, Yugoslavia and Japan. Phil Collins flew by Concorde so he could perform at both venues – when stateside, he reportedly bumped into Cher and persuaded her to join in with the finale. More than 50 artists took part, including David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elton John, Madonna, Status Quo, Paul McCartney and U2. “No one has ever required such massive amounts of time,” said Jim Tuverson, head of Television Videotape Satellite Communications Group’s West Coast operation, at the time.ĭiscover Queen’s Live Aid Performance: How Rock’s Royalty Stole The Show.In fact, two concerts were held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The broadcast required between 13-16 hours of transmission time. In fact, according to a 1985 article from Broadcasting Magazine, “11 channels on five Intelsat satellites were among the six satellites used for the international transmission of the event.” While a crowd of more than 150,000 watched in-person at these sites but 13 satellites, including five Intelsat satellites, beamed the broadcast live to televisions and radios across the globe.Īccording to historical accounts, it was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time, with an estimated audience of 1.9bn, across 150 nations. The biggest acts in music performed, including Queen, Rick Springfield, Madonna, Elton John, David Bowie, Paul McCartney and U2. Thus, Live Aid concert continued for just over 16 hours, but since many artists’ performances were conducted simultaneously in Wembley and JFK, the total concert’s length was much longer. The JFK performances and whole concert in the US ended at 04:05 BST 14 July (23:05 EDT). The UK’s Wembley performances ended at 22:00 BST (17:00 EDT). Kennedy Stadium (JFK) in the United States, starting at 13:51 BST (8:51 EDT). The concert began at 12:00 British Summer Time (BST) (7:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)) at Wembley Stadium in the United Kingdom.

Queen at wembley live aid