Vallely, Paul with a foreword by Bob Geldof - Live Aid: The Definitive Inside Story

“It's 12 noon in London, 7 AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for Live Aid”
13th July 1985
Two billion people –a third of the world’s population –tune in to watch Live Aid. It remains the biggest ever gathering of a global audience. More people than watched the moon landing. It was the logical next step in a chain of events that had only started eight months earlier when a rock star on his uppers decided to write a Christmas single that might raise a few million pounds for Ethiopian famine relief.
Over £200 million later, this is the inside story of a musical and charitable phenomenon which spanned four decades.
From Band Aid to USA for Africa, Live Aid to Live 8, sainted praise to ‘white saviour’ criticism, from presidents, prime ministers and popes to Bowie, Bono and Queen. For the very first time, here is the true, behind-the-scenes story of a series of events which rocked the world.

In 1985, with £100+ million in his back pocket from Live Aid – the greatest rock concert the world had ever seen – Bob Geldof took a trip across Africa to decide how the money should be spent. He asked Paul Vallely to accompany him. Over the next four decades Vallely became one of Geldof’s closest advisers – travelling with him to meet the world’s top rock stars and politicians.
Here, for the first time, Vallely gives his full eye-witness account of what happened backstage at Live Aid – and Live 8, the biggest collective event in human history. Both of them, watched by more people than saw the moon landing.
Vallely reveals for the first time exactly how Geldof reunited the Pink Floyd, drank late night whisky with Margaret Thatcher, witnessed Bob Dylan take singing lessons from Stevie Wonder and met Vladimir Putin on a boat in the Mediterranean. Why was Bob forced to write a grovelling apology to Bill Clinton? What did Maria Carey say when Geldof told her that her dress was too short? Why did the prime minister of Italy once hide from Bob in a bathroom? Is Bob Geldof a bully or a charmer, saint or a ‘white saviour’, or simply a force of nature? This book reveals all. With a foreword by Sir Bob Geldof this is the authoritative
behind-the-scenes guide to four decades which rocked the world.