- 7/9/2025
Live Aid at 40 When Rock 'n' Roll Took on the World Season 1 Episode 3
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00:00Now have a look at this, ladies and gentlemen.
00:30We don't have to send in our money. We've just got to stop asking starving people to give back the money our government's lent them, plus interest. That's kind of it.
00:43Sounds good, but the banks won't cancel the debts unless the politicians tell the banks to do that. And the politicians won't tell the banks unless we tell them to do that. So that's why I'm here. Are you with me?
01:04Are you? It's 12 o'clock in London, 7am in Philadelphia. And around the world, it's time for Live Aid.
01:1840 years ago, music brought the world together to fight a famine in Ethiopia.
01:2532 million human beings dying of hunger in a world of surplus food. And it's this simple thing that drives me nuts.
01:35It all began with a song.
01:38The most remarkable number one ever. It sold a million in a week. Well, that's more than any other record in the history of music.
01:46It inspired Live Aid, one of the biggest global events in history.
01:51To be honest, it seemed a harebrained scheme. It seemed like this could never happen. I remember the stadium shaking.
01:58I was singing my face off, honey.
02:0020 years on, Live Aid challenged leaders of the world's richest countries to address the causes of poverty in Africa.
02:11People say, why in the hell are we going to spend money over in Africa and we got road problems in my state?
02:16I said to Bob, I'll do the politics, you do the public.
02:19Nothing can ever repair the damage. Colonization, slavery did nothing. But this was demonstrating what we could do.
02:30I'm not an admirer of it. I'm more an admirer of what you can do for us.
02:37This is the story of how a pop song inspired a movement that secured tens of billions of pounds for Africa.
02:47You can't change the world with a song or even a concert. But you can plant a seed.
02:53Holy house club bandaid.
02:582003. I'm back in Ethiopia.
03:0220 years ago, he formed Band-Aid to raise millions of pounds in famine relief.
03:07Now he's back to highlight a new crisis in Ethiopia, a country where 12 million people now face starvation.
03:13I go to visit an orphanage and I see these children whose parents have died because of no food.
03:24It annoys me to tears of frustration.
03:28I go ballistic at this point, as ever. Get me down the street.
03:32We were in Evian for the G8 summit hosted by Chirac and an urgent message came from the switchboard, number 10 switchboard, that Bob Geldof needed to speak to Tony.
03:48Fortunately, I was next to Tony and these things could happen there easier than other places.
03:54Kate handed me the phone, said it's Bob.
03:58He came on the phone and as ever, Bob went straight to the point.
04:01I remember shouting, it's happening again.
04:05And he said, stop shouting. What's happening?
04:09He just said, look, the situation in Africa is absolutely dire.
04:14It's gone off the agenda.
04:15We've got to see how we revive, not just revive the sort of Band-Aid campaign, but put Africa on the agenda of the top leaders in the world.
04:26So I got a meeting with the prime minister and the thrust of my argument was people dying of hunger and dying of no hope will not get resolved until we get to the nub of what poverty is.
04:42And the first thing that has to happen is we remove debt from the poorest countries of the world.
04:49The issue of Africa's debt was a massive, massive problem because a lot of countries were paying vast amounts of money in interest on a debt that frankly, it was highly unlikely they were ever going to be able to repay in full without devastating their country.
05:04It was stunting their growth. It was making them unable to fund basic public services.
05:10We needed someone who would chair a commission that's been asked to eliminate debt.
05:16I said, it can't be an African leader because African leaders are essentially powerless.
05:22If it's Blair, then he's the prime minister of Britain, deeply popular except for Iraq, and he's going to chair the G8.
05:31He said, all right, let's do it.
05:33I wouldn't have reacted in that way at anyone, but it was him with his track record, his commitment, his knowledge, his dedication, and therefore it made sense.
05:43So today, Sir Bob Geldof was back, this time flanked by the Secretary of State for International Development, Hillary Benn, to launch a new initiative, a commission for Africa.
05:53Bob, crucially, it was his idea, the commission for Africa.
05:56So he was driving the political agenda inside government, which was incredible.
06:03It's almost like a report card of the Live Aid generation who became animated and activated by this subject, a subject that was nowhere on the world political agenda 20 years ago.
06:14I think there were 17 members.
06:16You had African politicians, you had African business leaders, but you also had G8 representatives and the UK government.
06:23Tonight, Mr Blair arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for a meeting of his Africa commission.
06:33That commission, it was a good thing, because my concern was how I can get debt relief.
06:44And the greatest creditor is Britain.
06:49Nigeria was owing Britain almost $9 billion.
06:53So if the greatest creditor decides to lead, then the others will find it a little bit difficult to wriggle out.
07:08The Africa commission, you can read it both ways.
07:11One is that it was genuinely a good faith effort to support Africa.
07:16The other way you could read it is, well, actually, Tony Blair, it suited his narrative to cast himself as some saviour.
07:24When I come and see what is happening here and see what could happen, I know that however difficult politics is, there is at least one noble cause worth fighting for.
07:37And it's here, on this continent.
07:39After the meeting and the press conference, a Sun journalist said that he had been to a little town two hours away
07:53and had identified and found Beerhan, the symbol of the crisis and famine in 85.
08:04So the request was, would Tony meet her?
08:08Which, of course, the answer was yes.
08:23I remember her coming in and she had a great presence about her, actually.
08:38Tony, you know, he had this kind of, gosh, Bob, you know, this sort of expression that he had, and, you know, I hadn't expected this coup.
08:47Tony talked about the impact she'd had on him and the rest of the world.
08:53It was a very moving meeting.
09:16I mean, in politics, you don't often get many moments where you think, well, that was good that we did that, you know, that was good.
09:26And she brought home to me that the whole thing that we were trying to do was important because many people didn't survive, weren't surviving.
09:35But her being there was a representation of the fact it was possible to do something.
09:42The UK was going to host the G8 Summit in 2005.
09:46G8 Summits, they're useful for leaders to come together and talk about things, but they don't have big consequence.
09:51I was very determined that we should try and make this a meaningful summit where we were going to try to do huge things, particularly on Africa.
09:59The key to everything about getting other G8 leaders was Bush.
10:03To begin with, at least, I think he thought it was a bit crazy.
10:06We should be talking about the normal things, the economy, a bit about global security, and then get out of town as fast as possible.
10:12Good morning, Tony. How are you?
10:16I told the people here that one of my customary habits is to check in with my friend in Great Britain, so I'm glad we're able to talk today.
10:23Because the relationship was a very close relationship, and, you know, there were people who would disagree with how close it was for all sorts of obvious reasons,
10:32but because it was so close, we were in constant conversation with each other,
10:36and I thought there was a chance, because we had formed this commission that Bob had asked us to do.
10:45And then you had Bono. Bob was effing this and effing that, even with presidents and prime ministers.
10:51And Bono had this kind of deep empathy with people and knew how to kind of appeal to their inner souls.
10:56Bono and I are really good friends and very close.
11:13By this time, he was a global mega superstar. I wasn't.
11:26He wants to give the world a great big hug, and I want to punch its lights out.
11:35Live Aid, it began a journey for all of us, a lot of people on that stage,
11:41from what you might call charity to what you might call justice.
11:46I don't believe anything like that would have happened without Bob.
11:51I had the fortune of working with, you know, Bob Geldof and Bono.
11:59We had a lot of momentum on debt cancellation in 2000 and 2001, but we had not completed the job.
12:05The HIV-AIDS emergency was running out of control. We had not focused on that as much.
12:10The United Nations says 36 million people around the world have HIV or AIDS,
12:15and 3 million will die in the next year, 80% of them in Africa.
12:21What was happening with HIV-AIDS on the continent of Africa?
12:25It was about to undo everything.
12:28And so the discussion was, what more could we do alongside debt on HIV-AIDS?
12:34The organization we founded was DATA, data.org.
12:39Bob comes up with DATA as an acronym.
12:43The three biggest challenges to the continent of Africa, debt, AIDS, and trade.
12:54I became aware of Bono and his, at the time it was called DATA organization,
13:02a few months into the Bush presidency.
13:05They were a pretty rinky-dink operation.
13:10He's right. We were rinky-dink.
13:13That's great, actually. I think it's true.
13:16But that was, if I can say so, the genius of the strategy.
13:22So we're not coming in here doing press conferences.
13:24We're never going to sing.
13:25I said, Bono, we'll never sing in Washington, D.C.
13:29Not happy birthday, not how you doing, not a verse from one, nothing.
13:34They were asking for Bono to have a meeting with Condoleezza Rice.
13:38Morning. Morning. Morning.
13:40I said I would present it to her.
13:42I, myself, was a bit skeptical about that.
13:45Jendai Frazier came in and she said,
13:48Bono, do you know who that is?
13:50And I said, yes, I'm a huge fan of you two.
13:53I would love to meet Bono.
13:55I think she was a little surprised.
13:57It was very weird for the national security advisor to meet a pop star.
14:01Bono came talking about the facts.
14:05He came with a very substantive policy agenda.
14:08My goal always was to know more than the staff.
14:11And Bono, to his great credit, really took to that.
14:15He was like, yeah, I'm going to know more than them.
14:17And that shocked people, you know,
14:19because they don't expect well-known people to know the numbers.
14:22It was very clear after just a few minutes that Bono wanted to talk about the AIDS pandemic.
14:29And he wanted to talk about the possibility of U.S. leadership in taking on that challenge.
14:36This was 6,000 Africans dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease concerning HIV.
14:42But they don't have to.
14:45If that population was anywhere else, there is a treatment.
14:50And we just have to get it affordable and accessible for these people.
14:55I was a little bit worried about bringing Bono in to see the president.
15:03The president, see, his tastes go toward country music, not toward rock music.
15:07The president did not do that sort of thing often
15:10because he felt that rock stars would be using the White House platform to advance their own celebrity.
15:18And so Josh is briefing me, you know, you'll stand here, you'll say the Bono, this Bono.
15:22I said, I got it, Josh, I got it.
15:24And he's leaving the Oval Office and he turns over his shoulder and he said,
15:27you do know who Bono is, don't you?
15:29And I said, yeah, I married Cher.
15:32And I turned around and I looked at his face and I could not tell whether he was kidding.
15:38And I said, no, that's Sonny Bono, who is dead.
15:43And in comes the great star Bono.
15:45He surprised me by giving me a Bible.
15:49I don't think this was a way to make me like him.
15:51I think it was a way he really wanted to share with me a part of his being.
15:56I knew he was a man of faith.
15:59I thought he might enjoy this ancient Irish Bible.
16:06The first 10 or 15 minutes of the conversation between President Bush and Bono
16:11was about the meaning of religion in the public sphere.
16:15He made the case about people dying of AIDS.
16:19I had campaigned and told people the guiding principle of my administration was all life
16:25is precious and we're all God's children.
16:27I asked George Bush, is there a hierarchy to sin?
16:33He gave me the best answer anyone ever gave me.
16:35He said, uh, the sin of omission?
16:39Sin of omission.
16:41Well, the sin of omission would be to say, I'm not going to do it because I'm too busy
16:45or because, you know, whatever, and I'm going to let all those people die.
16:49I'm being informed that there's a pandemic destroying an entire generation of people
16:53on the continent of Africa.
16:54And at the time that I'm the president of the, which I consider the most generous nation
17:00in the world, and we're doing nothing about it.
17:02It struck my heart.
17:03As unappealing as it was to U2's audience, having their singer hang out with a Republican,
17:15it was just as much a bad photo op for them.
17:22A year passed from that fateful day when Bono met President Bush, and I assume Bono was
17:32wondering, okay, what's happening with AIDS relief?
17:35And the president had decided that he wanted to do it in his State of the Union, which is
17:42the moment when the biggest, the biggest ideas come forward.
17:48I asked the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years.
17:52including nearly $10 billion in new money to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted
17:58nations of Africa and the Caribbean.
18:06Bono got George Bush to give $15 billion to black people who don't vote who have AIDS.
18:14I think a great nation also should be a compassionate nation.
18:18Nothing more compassionate than helping people who were condemned to death live.
18:21PEPFAR, the president's emergency plan for AIDS relief, is the largest health intervention
18:30in the history of health interventions.
18:33It has saved 26 million lives.
18:38Bono, he never stopped pushing.
18:40Bono, he never stopped pushing.
18:41But he was also moving on to other topics in development, including debt relief.
18:49I've come because Prime Minister Blair asked me, and he may regret it.
19:07In the largest sense, I'm here because of a journey that began in 1984-85 with Band-Aid and LiveAid.
19:22LiveAid raised $200 million or something like that.
19:27That's what the African continent's paying every week in debt service.
19:32Shouldn't we be offering these struggling economies across the world a brand new start by lifting that debt burden from them?
19:41That was the journey from charity to justice, right there.
19:46The Prime Minister's Africa Commission, this can be a radical landmark.
19:52It will have to be if Bob Geldof has his way.
19:55And it is hard not to give Bob Geldof his way, is it not?
20:07The Commission for Africa report set out the broad agenda.
20:10It kind of created the road map, or as Tony Blair called it, the Bible of what we finally wanted at the G8 meeting in Glen Eagles.
20:19This thing here is so doable.
20:24The plan for Africa is radical, including a 100% cancellation of debt, doubling aid to £26 billion a year in the first instance,
20:34and removing unfair trade barriers so that Africa can sell goods to the developed world.
20:39I said to Bob, you know, I'll do the politics, you do the public, but you've got to give me help with this politics by mobilising the public in favour of this.
20:48Because a lot of people are going to be saying to me, why are you making all this commitment to Africa?
20:52I'd sworn to the Prime Minister that I would do the public if he implemented the Commission for Africa, which was the cancellation of debt to the poorest and a doubling of aid.
21:04I thought that I could be a good bridge between the complexity of the Commission for Africa and the simplicity of what the public might respond to.
21:13Myself and Bono and Bob spoke often.
21:16And we believed that we could come up with an interesting campaign, which was a campaign that turned into Make Poverty History.
21:23Our motto was launch, launch and launch again.
21:27We just launched as many times as we could.
21:29Then we had this opportunity for Nelson Mandela to launch it again.
21:34Millions of people in the world's poorest countries, they are trapped in the prison of poverty.
21:44It is time to set them free.
21:49Mandela's presence was to bring a very strong African leadership to it.
21:55And my presence was to say, well, we are organizing globally and to bring a global presence to it.
22:02Even that launch was heavy celebrity focused, right?
22:06Of course, a conversation broke out about celebrocracy, which is the domination of public space by celebrities.
22:14But I had to convince folks that blunt truth is we add access to people in power, but nothing like what the celebrities were able to deliver.
22:27It seemed to me that if the Make Poverty History campaign could have a second live aid,
22:36that it might be possible to make it something which was noisy and popular and famous and therefore more effective.
22:45I can't overdramatize how much of a refusenick I was.
22:51I was not going to do this.
22:55Then Bono, who knows me very well, came and said,
23:00Imagine Paul McCartney, 20 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper got the band to play.
23:06It was 20 years ago today. Live Aid was 20 years ago today.
23:12Walking on stage, Paul McCartney. And you too.
23:20And I went...
23:25Because he had me.
23:27Then he got a sense that it might be magnificent.
23:30And he came up with Live Aid. In other words, do a concert in each of the G8 countries.
23:35I called up Harvey. He goes,
23:38We're not fucking doing it again, you know. So...
23:41And I said, No, we're not.
23:44This time it's an aid place.
23:47Well, I have 15 times in the last week.
23:50He's an awkward bugger.
23:52He wants something, he doesn't stop.
23:55I had an office with a spare sofa and a very tolerant staff.
24:01Hello?
24:02Bob always had his phone on speaker, which meant that you could hear every conversation he ever had.
24:07And he talks very loud in order to convince people.
24:11Did I have to call all these people again?
24:15The embarrassment, obviously. You've no idea how I have to steel myself.
24:22It's not as if,
24:23Hey, Pete's Bob.
24:24Or Madge. It's Geldof again.
24:27It's not. It's like...
24:29Mick.
24:30It's Bob.
24:32I'm here to haunt you.
24:41Bob Geldof walked into a London hotel today to do what he had promised never to do.
24:46Stage another concert like Live Aid.
24:49Good morning.
24:53July the 2nd isn't the end of our 20 year trek.
24:56It's the beginning of the final leg.
24:58What Live Aid did, joyously, enthusiastically, was open up the avenues of possibility.
25:04Finally, Live Aid invites you to walk down them.
25:07When was the last G8?
25:09When did you ever read about it?
25:11When...
25:12What was the agenda?
25:13And did you know the leaders had even gone?
25:16And when they came back, did the press question them?
25:18No.
25:19A million people on the streets.
25:22Of every capital city.
25:24That was my plan.
25:26So that the journalists were totally focused.
25:28And it was called Live Aid.
25:29Eight, eight, everywhere.
25:33I get a call from the president of the Nelson Mandela Foundation,
25:36who says to me,
25:37Kumi Mandela is very upset that there's no concert in Africa.
25:46I mean, these guys are talking about Africa, Africa, Africa, and there's nothing in Africa.
25:50How can that be?
25:51And the logic was, you know, if we had something, even if it was smaller scale than the other eight concerts,
25:59at least Africa is not invisibilized.
26:02And then you don't have the white man savior complex.
26:06I said, okay, I think we can pull it off in Johannesburg.
26:09This global gig is going to make itself heard.
26:18Shows will run throughout today.
26:20They're intended to put pressure on the leaders of the G8 countries to tackle global poverty.
26:25As many as 200,000 people are expected in Hyde Park in London.
26:29Everybody here's not only here for the music,
26:31but they're here just to show that we as a nation are committed to ending poverty.
26:37It's two o'clock in London on July the 2nd, 2005.
26:42Hyde Park welcomes the world to Live 8.
26:47Just the start of Live 8.
26:49You two, we're in our dressing room.
26:52We close the door, have this prayer thing.
26:56Our manager, Dennis Sheehan, God rest his soul,
26:58is our, he knows nobody can come in in that moment.
27:01It's private moments.
27:04Don't answer the door.
27:06Finish the prayer.
27:08I ask Dennis, I said, what was that at the door?
27:11He said, oh, that was, that was Sir Paul McCartney.
27:16I said, Paul McCartney?
27:17Oh, God.
27:19Ran out.
27:21I go, Paul.
27:23So sorry.
27:24He said, what were you doing?
27:26What were you doing?
27:27I said, we'd just have a little prayer moment, you know?
27:30One of those prayer moments.
27:31Why didn't you ask me?
27:32Why would, I mean, if you asked me, I'd love to be part of that.
27:36He said, have it again, with me.
27:42It was the most poetic prayer.
27:43Yeah.
27:44And then we went on stage.
27:46Well, it was 20 years ago today.
27:47Sergeant Buffett took the band to play.
27:48They've been going in all the time.
27:49But they're guaranteed the way it's mine.
27:50So let me introduce you to you.
27:51You're burning over all the years.
27:54Sergeant Buffett took the band to play.
27:55They've been going in all the time.
27:56But they're guaranteed the way it's mine.
27:57So let me introduce you to you.
28:06You're burning over all of these years.
28:11Sergeant Buffett took the band to play.
28:13They win on stage, and we opened the show with a fanfare, and there it was, 20 years ago today.
28:33As we heard, the names of who was going to be performing in the London concert, people
28:52were getting concerned that actually they were not seeing African names, and it's not
28:57like Africa as a content is poor in musical talent.
29:04Will it alter the politics of the G8 to have genius African musicians on?
29:11Will it force the G8 to do what we ask?
29:15No.
29:16I think we all consistently disagreed with Bob on this, myself and Bono.
29:20It was clear that there should be more African representation in Live 8.
29:26And there was a great African musician, Yosu Ndur.
29:28He did perform.
29:30I wish his voice had been heard more.
29:56Yosu Ndur was a key voice in making the argument that debt cancellation, for example, should
30:11be done in such a way as African citizens could keep an eye on their leaders and keep an eye
30:16eye on how the money was spent.
30:18So he was able to articulate that nuanced point in a way that it was very hard for Irish rock
30:23stars to do.
30:25We did our best to make it more involving of African acts and failed.
30:50Africa!
30:51Thank you!
30:52Thank you!
30:53What we had that none of the other concerts had, we had the most moral, ethical human being
31:10who was going to be in Johannesburg, and that was Nelson Mandela.
31:15I am pleased to be here today to support Africa standing tall against poverty in concert with Live 8.
31:34Generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make in the coming weeks.
31:49High Park make some noise for Ms. Dynamite!
31:56It's so beautiful to be here, it's so beautiful to see all these beautiful faces in front of
32:02me.
32:03We, as a nation, have robbed, killed, stolen, and tortured the third world for centuries.
32:12If there isn't debt to be paid, surely we're the ones that owe it.
32:27All pirates, yes, they robbed I, sold I to the merchant ship.
32:34Minutes after they took I, from the bottom this pit.
32:43But my hand was made strong, by the hand of the almighty, re-forwarded in this generation.
32:56Triumphant, baby, so won't you help to sing Redemption Star.
33:08What's going on? Nothing's changed, we're still exploiting the poor.
33:13Slavery never ended, yo, we just changed wars.
33:17AIDS and free trade decimating the young.
33:21Famine everywhere, but why never a shortage of guns?
33:25Conflict all over the globe, instigating by our leaders.
33:29War in the motherland, but no African arms dealers.
33:33The West robbed the third world of every single cent.
33:37Now that's fun, won't death. How does that make sense?
33:41Won't you help to sing songs of freedom?
33:47Next show the song.
33:55Oh, thank you, Miss Diane. No, my dee-hee.
33:57Um, I'm gonna hand you down to Jo, because she has Lenny Henry with her.
34:00Jo? Lenny, is there a lack today?
34:03I have to represent so many black people.
34:05No, no, was it a problem for you today?
34:07Actually, what's been very, very good is that there's been more than you think, actually.
34:11And I think that's all right. I've enjoyed it today.
34:14There's always a criticism about not being enough black acts.
34:17I didn't care whether they were black, brown, green or yellow.
34:20If they were a big act, and they were great, and they wanted to play, great.
34:27I want to say hello to Philadelphia. Welcome, America, to Live Aid.
34:36And the reason that millions of you have tuned in is because every three seconds in one of the poorest countries in the world, a child dies as a result of extreme poverty.
34:49Please watch this.
34:50Please watch this.
34:52The click campaign was a way of making the reality, the horror of the thing, immediately accessible.
35:04Dead.
35:05Everybody, let me see your hands. Let me see your hands. All over the world. Here we go.
35:19Let these world leaders know.
35:28If you are a politician sitting in Glen Eagles, and the screen splits up to the world all going, click, you kind of go, ah.
35:37And if I was a political advisor, I'd say, Prime Minister, Mr. President, can I just show you this, you know?
35:42Thank you for being a part of Live Aid.
35:47I know for us, we're the young generation, and a lot of young people look up to us.
35:53So we actually, one of the reasons we're here is to take advantage of the celebrity.
35:57We've been to Africa, and we've seen the children, so anything we can do to help, we're here.
36:05You see the difference between 85 and 05. In 85 we had Tina, Patty LaBelle, Teddy Prendergast, but it wasn't Michael Jackson, it wasn't Stevie Wonder at Live Aid.
36:11We had Destiny's Child, Beyoncé, Will Smith, Jay-Z.
36:17You know, they're spending billions and billions of dollars to kill people.
36:23We can spend billions and billions of dollars to help people live. We appreciate all y'all help.
36:29I don't want to get too political. Let's play some music, man.
36:35Come on! Get him, Jay-Z!
36:37Who you know, pressin' at home? Riddle me that.
36:39The rest of y'all know where I'm lyrically at. Can none of y'all never be back.
36:43Yeah, hand me rap, it's like hand G-Rap in his palm. I'm young H.O. Raps, grateful dad.
36:47Back to take over the globe, now break red. I'm in Bow-in-Jack's Globe Express.
36:49Out the country, but the Blueberries still connect.
36:50I'm on the low-back. I think I'm building one of our winners,
36:51had to make millions of millions of dollars for a million,
36:52And we could do everything that people are willing to help people live.
36:53We made millions and billions of dollars to help people live.
36:55And we appreciate all y'all help.
36:57I don't wanna get too political. Let's play some music, man.
36:58Come on, Jay-Z!
36:59Who you know, pressin' at home? Riddle me that!
37:01The rest of y'all know where I'm lyrically at.
37:04Can't none of y'all never be back.
37:05Yeah, hand me rap, it's like hand G-Rap in his palm.
37:08Young H.O. Raps, grateful dad.
37:11I said to our gigs going on all over the world and let's see what's happening in Paris.
37:21This was the Chateau de Versailles, I believe.
37:36This is Moscow.
37:39Tokyo.
37:40This is Canada.
37:43Huge gathering name, Berlin.
37:47In Rome we have a band performing called Neck.
37:55Over 200,000 people have gathered here today in London.
37:57A worldwide audience we think of in the region of five billion people.
38:01Madonna is not only an avatar of the 80s, but became emblematic of the whole adventure of Live 8 through to Live 8.
38:17And it was fascinating from Hawaii is beautiful after this.
38:22See this little girl?
38:24This little girl, she had 10 minutes to live 20 years ago.
38:28And because we did a concert in this city and in Philadelphia and all of you came.
38:34Last week she did her agricultural exams in the school she goes to in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands.
38:41She's here tonight, this little girl.
38:43She's here tonight.
38:44This little girl.
38:45Here I am.
38:48Don't let them tell us that this doesn't work.
38:57Ladies and gentlemen, from one immensely strong woman to another, the queen bee of rock and roll.
39:05Oh, she's here tonight.
39:25She's a little girl.
39:29Madonna, this healthy, beautiful, talented woman on stage,
39:57with this infant who had seconds to live 20 years ago.
40:02If anything could have told the journey of Band-Aid, it was this image.
40:27When you call my name, it's like a little press. I'm down on my knees. I want to take you.
40:37Yeah, quite long.
40:39Oh, he's stressed.
40:40Oh, he's been stressed because we're not good weeks.
40:43Let's go now. Can we go now?
40:47One, two, three, four.
40:50One, two, three, four.
40:52Let's go now.
40:53One, two, three, four.
41:06One, two, three, four.
41:08One, two, three, four.
41:35spitting image had used that song every breath you take as the end song of one
41:42of their shows and that we'll be watching you it was all of the world
41:46leaders were puppets so I took that as my lead that's that's what the song
41:53became about that day that we'd be watching surveillance the other way
42:05you can't change the world with a song or even a concert but you can plant a seed
42:15if you plant a seed in a young mind about fairness about human rights about the
42:24nature of governments that seed can bear fruit and it does
42:35we did overrun it was a problem and I had to deal with a platoon of
43:01policemen marching towards the stage at just about 15 minutes before the
43:08official curfew time I was threatening them you know I said pull the fucking
43:13plug they didn't quite understand that the planet 3.2 billion people were
43:22watching and they didn't care I was going ape wire I was so afraid we wouldn't get
43:29to pull someone found Tessa Jow who was having a nice time watching the show and
43:37dragged her backstage you came through the crowd and said to my kids I need to borrow
43:45your mum I said to the guys the Minister for Culture is coming I advise you to get
43:52your hand away from that plug I didn't expect to be on the front line of whether or
43:57not the concert carried on I simply said this is on my shoulders she said very
44:04cold very strict I'm telling you now with the authority of the Prime Minister that
44:12that this concert finishes appropriately done pop and politics at this point had
44:22blended almost seamlessly
44:29come on
44:31come on
44:32come on
44:33come on
44:36come on everybody don't keep me waiting
44:38come on
44:40come on
44:41come on
44:43come on
44:44come on
44:45come on
44:46come on
44:47come on
44:48come on
44:49come on
44:50come on
44:51come on
44:52come on
44:53come on
44:54come on
44:55come on
44:56come on
44:57come on
44:58come on
44:59come on
45:00come on
45:01come on
45:02come on
45:03come on
45:04come on
45:05come on
45:06come on
45:07come on
45:08come on
45:09come on
45:10come on
45:11come on
45:12come on
45:13come on
45:14Thank you! See you in Edinburgh!
45:44We hadn't got the Africa deal before the summit began. It wasn't across the line and there was still quite a lot of opposition to it.
45:55The Americans had a strategy for a while that the top issue that would get agreed at Glen Eagles would be debt cancellation and we wanted a doubling of aid for Africa as well.
46:06On Africa, I was negotiating the text with Faria Shiazad as he was flying in with Bush.
46:14Michael and I essentially had to kind of figure that process out.
46:18I kept saying to him, listen, we can pledge to double development assistance, but committing to do it, well, is a complicated thing.
46:25And we had three or four hours on the phone with me in Glen Eagles, him in the plane, trying to get him to agree.
46:33There was no relationship the president had around the world that was closer than the one he had with Tony Blair.
46:38And so he made it very clear to me that this summit had to be a success, an outside success for the prime minister.
46:44You get to places like Glen Eagles where a character like President Bush is more than bemused at the sight of myself and Bob running around.
47:09I didn't have any clue who Gelldorf was.
47:13Yeah, he and Bono came in and Bono, at least somewhat presentable Gelldorf, looked like he, you know, crawled out from underneath the ground.
47:21But he was a good guy. He cared deeply. And I'm sure I insisted upon the picture to prove I actually met Gelldorf.
47:30I personally felt like it was almost arrogant of us being there, but it was very nice of the prime minister to have us there.
47:37So the corridors, which once would have been just the G8 leaders having a fireside chat,
47:44now were full of us all making sure that the partnership with Africa and the developing world was part of the conversation in a central way.
47:53Africa's property lies in the hands of Africans. And if they don't get it right, nobody from outside, no matter the amount of aid, will help.
48:08The prime minister and the president had a private breakfast that morning and then joined the setting.
48:23There was kind of a patio area and an inner lounge that was available to the leaders.
48:29The meeting started, but it had only been going, I suppose, 15, 20 minutes or so when news began to come in.
48:38Newsbeat.
48:39In the last few minutes, we've been getting reports of an explosion between Liverpool Street and Aldergate stations in London.
48:44All the windows were blown out on one of the trains.
48:47Eyewitness described a loud bang and black smoke...
48:50Police have degraded a major incident.
48:52I remember Jonathan coming in and telling me there's been a set of incidents in London.
48:58We don't know exactly what's happened, but we think it's a terrorist attack.
49:01The prime minister was quite shaken by the news that he had heard and he shared it with the other leaders at that point.
49:08President Bush spoke up first.
49:11Told Blair, get down to London. You don't need to, we can handle our own up here, you know.
49:15Get down there and do your job.
49:17And then the question was, well, what happened to the G8?
49:22And they agreed, well, the G8 must go on, because if it stops, then the terrorists will be seen to have won.
49:31Today's bombings will not weaken in any way our resolve to uphold the most deeply held principles of our societies.
49:42We shall prevail, and they shall not.
49:47There were at least six explosions, the Home Secretary has just confirmed.
49:51One of them on a bus packed with commuters.
49:54I remember just looking and being a bit confused by this.
49:59Being horrified by the bombs.
50:02I mean, for a moment we just, we had to collect or say, okay, what are we going to do now?
50:07We had to group and say, what's the next plan?
50:10With Tony Blair gone, it was then agreed that I would then, I would then chair the meeting at lunch.
50:23You know, him leaving, it could have all fractured.
50:25One of those leaders could have taken advantage of it, blocked the issues we were still trying to get across the line.
50:31Schroeder found the text quite difficult to accept, particularly the text on Africa.
50:36The Germans were not on board.
50:39Aid to Africa wasn't seen as a particularly German thing.
50:42Germany was more interested in Eastern Europe and so on.
50:45The German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, had a beer with him.
50:48I'd say, look, I'm actually going to Berlin.
50:51I'm coming to a stadium near you.
50:53And I'm going to have to tell people if you're signing or you're not signing.
50:59So, are we in?
51:01Or are we out?
51:03Like a good politician.
51:05He doesn't agree.
51:07I go to Berlin.
51:09I do call them out.
51:11Leadership means that between all these rich countries, we get $50 billion a year for the poorest of the poor.
51:21Something we have not yet got today.
51:26And so we do not applaud the Chancellor.
51:31But if he can deliver this by four o'clock tomorrow, your Chancellor, in my mind, will be a hero.
51:45Tony Blair came back from London exhausted.
51:55Quite late that evening, he called me and said, look, what's been going on while I've been away?
52:00I said to Tony Blair, look, you're going to have to talk to Schroeder.
52:04And then he went down into the bar with all the leaders there and their wives.
52:10I remember him, not to exaggerate, but he had Schroeder up against the wall saying, you know, we've got to do this deal, aren't we, Gerhard?
52:19And at that moment, I think Schroeder gave in and we got across the line with the Germans.
52:27What had been really hanging in the balance in terms of getting the commitment, it came through.
52:33And all the leaders played their part in that.
52:37To be frank, even President Putin played his part in that.
52:40You know, he had the ability to wreck that whole summit if he wanted to.
52:43And he didn't.
52:45He's Putin, you know.
52:47We did it with all the leaders standing there, signing up to it with the African leaders in attendance.
52:54I remain grateful to Tony Blair, especially for debt relief.
53:01Without Tony Blair's government spearheading, we would not have got it.
53:08It was definitely the most extraordinary weekend I had in my time as prime minister.
53:16It was probably one of the last moments of truly global solidarity that I can remember.
53:26The figures agreed sound immense.
53:28Fifty billion dollars extra in aid for the developing world by 2010.
53:32Twenty five billion dollars of that for Africa.
53:38A number of the NGOs in this area are saying that 2010 is too late, that the money is needed more urgently in Africa now.
53:46This is a natural course of events. You get fed up with the parts of the NGO community, because whatever you do is never enough.
54:07And they ask you to do something, you do it and they still criticize you.
54:12And Bob and Bono just weren't like that at all.
54:14Debt relief equivalent to billions was a giant leap to the benefit of most of the impoverished states.
54:23Disappointment with the deal and some of its famous backers came to a head later in the afternoon.
54:29The fact that aid was delayed till 2010 meant there's a lot of room for wriggle out, right?
54:35Because five years people have forgotten, the context has changed, all of that.
54:39Our reading is that the G8 has listened, but the response has not been a roar, but a whisper.
54:46I do my people roared and G8 whispered, and then Bob takes the thing and goes.
54:54According to my calculation, this is how many lives will be saved as a result of this aid money, which will come five years later.
55:01When did 10 million people alive become a whisper? At what point was that a whisper?
55:12It was a very, very intense moment. I'm just thinking, we're getting through this and we're advancing our cause and we're not over.
55:25A mountain has been climbed and only to reveal higher peaks for sure on the other side of it.
55:34But it's worth just stopping for a second and looking back down the valley at where we've all come.
55:41Doubling aid to Africa has not been easy.
55:45What Bodo said we could live with.
55:48You know, after the event was over, Bodo said, you know, every army needs to have a mad general.
55:53And Geldof is our mad general.
55:56And Geldof is our mad general.
56:00You know, after Christmas time, there's no time to be afraid.
56:13It's Christmas time, let the light vanishing.
56:21What Bandit did, for me, is not so much the amount of money, but the amount of global attention and wake-up call for Africa.
56:43I think there were very many good people with good intentions that were involved both with Live Aid and Live Aid.
56:53I think that there was not enough sensitivity to understanding that it's not right for a bunch of predominantly white male folks to get together and say, we're going to frame a continent like this.
57:11Getting this stuff right is really hard because you are essentially raising an alarm.
57:24What Bob and Bono and others have done over the years has resulted in, I don't know, probably millions of people living who otherwise would have died.
57:33And I don't think there's any type of, you know, remote ideological argument that should stand in the way of that.
57:40The 20th anniversary was just a convergence of good fortune and good actors on the world stage.
57:55But what's happening now in politics means this anniversary could be a funeral for the last 40 years.
58:07It was unique. It was unique. It has saved lives. But now, can we bring this kind of passion? Can we involve human beings across the world to act the way you acted in the 1980s to save lives?
58:28What I'd love is that there are younger people and they say, I'm not going to do it like they did it.
58:37And they're right because I don't think that'll work. But I can utilize this new stuff I've got to do something weird and mad and wild.
58:48And if that's what we leave behind, then that's what I'd love to be the parting shot.
58:57Everybody, that's the end of our show. We've got a fantastic show here.
59:02Thank you and good night.
59:07We're back to Philadelphia now.
59:09Thank you very much for coming.
59:11Please leave the stadium slowly and quietly.
59:14It's been the most fantastic day.
59:17Thank you, thank you.
59:18Over to Yale Philadelphia.
59:20Thank you, thank you.
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