Sir Bob Geldof says future Live Aid event looks 'unlikely' musician blames advent of social media

1 May 2025, 14:00 | Updated: 1 May 2025, 14:23

Sir Bob Geldof has said the possibility of a future Live Aid event looks 'unlikely', as the musician laid blame at the door of social media.

Speaking candidly on the prospect of a future Live Aid gig, the Boomtown Rats frontman said that looking forward, "whatever’s going to happen now will happen through social media".

The 73-year-old's comments come as he launched forthcoming musical Just For One Day at Wembley Stadium.

The singer, famed for organising the original 1985 event alongside singer Midge Ure, has said the advent of social media means the event could not take place today.

He said the decision comes "even though your brain is filled with the horror of Gaza or the horror of Ukraine”.

The Boomtown Rats frontman continued: “I think it’s very much of its time, we didn’t even expect this to be a thing.

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“From my point of view, rock and roll turned out to be almost a 50-year pop, which ended, conveniently for us, with the summing up at Live Aid, then that was subsumed by social media, so whatever’s going to happen now will happen through social media."

The musical tells the story of the historic Live Aid concerts, which took place in London, UK, and Philadelphia, in the US, on July 13 1985.

The event went down in history for its star-studded line-up, including U2, Queen and Elton John - with the show raising money for the Ethiopian famine.

Speaking with PA, the musician continued: “Unfortunately, social media seems to be a sort of isolating type medium.

“So could the same thing happen again? Unlikely, in my view unfortunately, when it was monomedia, when you had just essentially two stations in the UK, everyone saw the same thing, which we didn’t realise, we saw the newscast, we wrote a song, we thought we’d raise like £100,000.

"Suddenly it becomes the focus of all that rage and disgust and shame, and that has lasted for 40 years, much to our dismay.

“But you can change things, you really can actually change things, not him (Ure), not me, but the individual isn’t powerless, and collectively, you really can change things.

He adds: “And in today’s world of danger and fear, and political inadequacy, it stands still as a lesson, nothing to do with Midge and Bob, but just as something where people decided yeah, this is our thing, and we’re staying with it.”