Live Aid is being made into a musical that will be staged in London next year.
The musical, titled Just For One Day, is based on the iconic 1985 concert held at Wembley Stadium, which saw acts including Queen, U2, David Bowie and Paul McCartney perform.
Bob Geldof, a former member of The Boomtown Rats turned activist, and ex-Ultravox co-lead singer Midge Ure organised the concert held on July 13, 1965 to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
Now, Geldof has giving playwrights his blessing to stage a musical based on the concert that will feature songs played on the day by acts Elton John, Queen and Sting. The musical play runs from January 26, 2024 to March 30, 2024 at London’s Old Vic Theatre.
BBC News spoke to Geldof about what fans can expect from the show. He clarified, firstly, that no actors will be trying to imitate the performers.
“This isn’t a tribute thing. I wouldn’t have anything to do with that,” he said. “So, there isn’t a person dressed up as Freddie wearing a crap moustache. The songs drive the drama along.”
The plot of Just For One Day, named after a line in Bowie’s song ‘Heroes’, will balance a behind-the-scenes look at how Band Aid and Live Aid came together, with a love story inspired by real events.
“The story is based on actual testimony from the day,” Geldof continued. “It’s real people telling their story throughout this. So it’s complex theatre.”
Just For One Day has been green-lit with the full permission of the Band Aid Charitable Trust, which will receive 10 per cent of every ticket sale.
John O’Farrell, who wrote the Mrs Doubtfire musical, originally conceived the play with the & Juliet musical director Luke Sheppard.
Craige Els (Ripper Street, Dr Who) has been cast as Geldof in the musical. “Let me be completely blunt. It’s bad enough being Bob Geldof. It’s slightly worse seeing someone else pretending to be you,” Geldof told the BBC. “The one upside for me is that he’s got an amazing voice, stage Bob, so that people will think I actually sing as good as that.”
“And he got the language right,” he continued with a laugh, acknowledging the swearing that he became famous for during the Live Aid broadcast.
Live Aid was attended by about 72,000 people at London’s Wembley stadium, and, simultaneously more than 89,000 people at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, US. An estimated 1.9billion people from across 130 countries watched the TV broadcast.
A 20th anniversary event called Live 8 was held in 2005 at venues in G8 countries and South Africa.
Meanwhile, last year Tears For Fears opened up about missing Live Aid in 1985.
Speaking to NME, the duo’s Curt Smith said the group were initially upset with Geldof because he announced that they were performing without their knowledge.
Additionally, Smith went on to explain that the group were in the middle of a year long tour, with the Live Aid event falling on their only weekend off.
Smith said: “Initially, I was pissed off because Bob had announced we were doing it without even asking us and it was smack in the middle of a year-long tour. It was the first week off we had.
“We kissed and made up with Bob and did ‘Everybody Wants To Run The World’ for him [for Sport Aid] afterwards, but we didn’t think us not performing would affect the amount of money they were raising in any way, so we didn’t do it so we could have that break.”