In the summer of 1985, the biggest rock concert in history hit the TV screens of 1.9 billion people – Live Aid, its roster packed with bestselling and groundbreaking artists of the era from Queen to U2, David Bowie to Sting. As the show rolled to a close, the superstar line-up clustered together on stage to perform one massive, live collab of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” which had been released just the winter prior, and the moment has astonished music fans ever since!
Currently holding 7.2 million YouTube views, this clip is a huge who’s who of 80s pop and rock. Event organizer Bob Geldof opens the finale hilariously, downplaying the historic moment to come, “It might be a bit of a cock-up, but if you’re going to cock it up you may as well do it with two billion people watching you. So let’s cock it up together (!)” as legends David Bowie and George Michael take their places around him.
After Bowie, Bob, George Michael and Sting slay the hit’s first verses, Bono unleashes his iconic line “Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you,” which he revived on the 2004 rendition with Band Aid 20, but changed for its unsavory nature on 2014’s 30th anniversary version to the equally strange line, “Well tonight we’re reaching out and touching you.”
Adam Ant, Elton John, Roger Daltrey of The Who, Stuart Adamson of Big Country, and Midge Ure of Ultravox crowd around the same mic to sing the hit, before the late Freddie Mercury, who wasn’t present for the studio recording, leans into the circle to add an enchanting harmony over the chorus lyric. It’s magic to witness these stars perform together in their prime, and it is no wonder the Christmas hit still racks up innumerable nostalgia plays today.
Young listeners could presume “Do They Know It’s Christmas” only achieved its legacy after forty ceaseless years of festive radio play, but the sight of Wembley Stadium’s 72,000-person audience chanting the lyrics of the song after its very first Christmas in the charts sings testament to the instant classic this song became. To witness this flashback rendition pumped with fresh blood and the original, organic energy of its performers is like watching the mayhem of a parallel universe unfold, compared to the annual drab the song has slowly become.
The chemistry threading these stars together is sensational as they joke and mingle on stage, packed tight like rush hour tube passengers but loving every moment of the once-in-a-lifetime collab; as one viewer commented, “We’ll never see an all-star cast of musicians like this again in our lifetime.” Another summed up the all-round lunacy, commenting, “Nothing like singing a Christmas song in the middle of July.”