All language subtitles for Live.Aid.When.Rock.n.Roll.Took.on.the.World.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE[EZTVx.to]

(crowd cheering loudly)

(richard skinner):
It's 12 noon in london,

7 am in philadelphia,

And around the world,
it's time for live aid!

- The size of this,
the enormity of this,

Hadn't struck me.

♪ and here we go

- An industry that's
notoriously selfish

Did something for someone else.

♪ we're rockin' all
over the world ♪

- 32 million human beings dying

Of hunger in a world
of surplus food.

♪ here we go

- And I stepped back and
said, "he's barking mad."

- Wembley, will you please
welcome america to live aid day.

- I didn't know enough
that it was impossible.

- To be honest, it seemed
a hair-brained scheme.

It seemed like this
could never happen.

- We just packed a few
bangers into our set.

- I was singin'
my face off, honey.

♪ we're rockin' all
over the world ♪

(crowd cheering)

- It was unique.
It has saved lives.

- It began a journey
for all of us,

From what you
might call charity,

To what you might call justice.

(announcer): Hyde park welcomes
the world to live eight.

♪ well it was 20
years ago today ♪

(geldof): Charity will give you,
in the space of a week,

$120 million.

Politics, in the space
of one day,

Will give you billions.

- As I said to bob,

"I'll do the politics.
You do the public."

- There's nothing
more compassionate

Than helping people who were
condemned to death, live.

- You can't change
the world with a concept,

But you can plant a seed.

(crowd cheers)

- For all the defaults

Or the misplaced steps,

It worked.

♪ sgt. Pepper's lonely
hearts club band ♪

(street traffic rumbles)

- It was a dreary October,

And I got home at
6:00 in the evening,

And as I always say, that's,
in rock'n'roll terms,

A measure of how not well
you're doing.

Because if you're
in a rock'n'roll band,

You're really not at home.

And turned
on the television.

(michael buerk): Dawn,
and as the sun breaks through

The piercing chill of night on
the plain outside korem,

It lights up a biblical famine,

Now in the 20th century.

- My partner, paula,
couldn't stand watching it.

She didn't want
out child to watch it.

She just grabbed her
and ran upstairs.

And I... I stayed, transfixed.

(buerk): A few jackets,
trousers, and sweaters,

Once worn in the wealthy west,

Now handed out
to starving people

Who have to live in the open,

Through nights when the
temperature drops

To little over
freezing point.

(michael buerk): There was a low
wall I remember,

And there were some people
in the enclosure

Who were being given food.

All the rest of the people who
had no food at all,

Just looking at, you know,

The tiny number of people who
did, who did have something.

- These exhausted fathers,

Who had tried everything

To give their family a life
from the unforgiving earth,

And couldn't.

And this terrified, young girl,

In this maelstrom of madness.

- There were hundreds, thousands

Of starving children

And she had to go out

And pick,

You know, pick which child

Would live

And, of course,

Which children would die.

- But making that
decision day after day,

Does that do
anything to you?

- Yes, of course it does.

What do you expect?
Yes, of course it does.

It breaks my heart.

But at least I can see some of
the ones that I am helping here.

(geldof): That night,
I had agreed to go

To the book launch

Of the stylist of the 1980s,
peter york.

And the cornucopia

Of everything free,

And talking about something

As hollow as style.

I was going around very angry

And saying to people,
"have you seen this?

Have you seen it?
It's terrible."

I was just watching
that ethiopian thing.

This, I think this is gross,

After coming out
after seeing that.

- Oh yeah.
- I'm serious.

(people chatting)

- Well, a lot of people
eating a lot of food.

Sorry, do
you want a champagne?

(geldof): I came down
in the morning about 10

And there was a green bowl

On the pine table
in the kitchen,

And paula had put a note
in there saying

Anyone who comes to this house

Must put a pound or five pounds
into this bowl.

And I thought,

"that's just not adequate."

♪ the silicon chip inside her
head ♪

♪ gets switched to overload

♪ and nobody's gonna
go to school today ♪

♪ she's gonna make
them stay at home ♪

I had been in a very successful
band for 10 years

And I had been forced

To realize that maybe those

Best years of my life,
up to that point,

Were beginning to turn.

♪ tell me why I don't
like mondays ♪

♪ tell me why
I don't like mondays ♪

♪ tell me why I don't
like mondays ♪

♪ I wanna shoot,
ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

♪ the whole day down

All I had the power to do, at
that moment, was write tunes.

But the immediate knowledge

Was that the boomtown rats

Were not guaranteed
to have hits anymore.

These new guys
have come along.

♪ her name is rio
and she dances on the sand ♪

- Beautiful suits, quaffed hair.

♪ just like that river

♪ twisting through
a dusty land ♪

(geldof): Margaret thatcher
was at the peak of her power.

Deregulation of the city.
No such thing as society.

Greed is good.

♪ oh, rio, rio

Geldof: The same thing was
happening in america

With reagan.

I understood the new thing

Because my wife had befriended
all of these people

On the show,
that she was host of,

The go-go rock show of
the 1980s called "the tube".

- Tell me, sting, what we
really want to know

Is how come you get
your gear off so often?

- I'm in enough
trouble as it is.

- Why?

(audience laughs)

(geldof): She was like
a major figure of the 80s.

Bob and paula were always
in the bloody gossips.

We were like an alternative
charles and diana, you know.

So, I called paula.

And I asked who was
on the show that night,

And she said ultravox.

(music starts)

♪ dancing with tears
in my eyes ♪

- I was chatting to paula
and the phone rang.

Big old plastic thing.

And she answered it,
and it was him.

- I said, "put him on."

- And bob had just seen
the michael buerk report,

And he told me what he just seen
and how disgusted he was.

- And he just said,
"what do you want to do?"

And I said, "well, we do
something like a dylan song,

Or, you know, a lennon song.
Something."

He said, "no, let's,
let's just write something."

- If we wrote a song

And donated the song royalties,

Hopefully raising 100,000
pounds, that was realistic.

- So, the... The business
side of bob thought,

Okay, so we, we write
a christmas song,

Get it out before christmas.

That's where money gets
made in record sales.

I lived in chelsea

And as I walked up
the king's road,

I saw gary kemp,

Who is the main writer
and lead guitarist

In spandau ballet,

Spending his first flush
of pop star money, I guess.

And I banged on the window.

- Comes running in, and you
know, and his...

His presence is huge.
He takes over.

He sort of banged his head
on a chandelier or something.

And then he said, this report
was, you know, in ethiopia,

And the famine is huge,
and it's out of control,

And it broke my heart,
and it broke paula's heart.

- I walked down the 50 yards,

Down to the picasso café,

And sting was
coming up the road.

- We'd all seen the appalling
footage and yeah,

Most of us didn't have
a clue what we could do,

Just feeling powerless
and useless.

(geldof): I'd known him since
the very, very earliest days

Of the police.

And I also thought he was
really good, annoyingly.

- He says, "I've got a song."
and I said, "yeah?"

He says, "yeah, I think we
should, you know,

All sing this song and then
raise money for, for africa."

I went, "okay, bob."

You know, bob's not the kind
of guy you can say no to.

He's, he's persistent.

- So, by the time I sat down,
we had ultravox,

The boomtown rats,
spandau ballet, and the police.

(ure): He was on my telephone

Running up
massive telephone bills,

Phoning people
all around the world.

- Give me his room number.

- Desperate to get the biggest
artists that we could get

Because we needed
their fan base.

- Al's in.

All of it was wing and a prayer,

No contracts with anyone,
just their word.

It just was preposterous
what happened next.

(reporter): Hundreds in ethiopia

Are starving to death every day.

As many as 5 million
african children

Will die this year
from malnutrition.

- Until the bbc footage,
nobody took us seriously.

For one year, I have been to
every country in europe.

I've seen the state department
officials many times.

Unless the situation
is salvaged,

And salvaged immediately,

Through a generous
and concerted action

By the international community,

The widespread fears and dire
warnings

That the death toll may rise

To truly catastrophic
proportions

May very well come to pass.

- There is no doubt about it,
that the whole world knows.

I mean, not the people,
but the governments know.

But they wanted us
to pay a price

For the ideology
that we have taken.

- Mengistu's government was
virtually a soviet satellite,

And of course,
they were very anti-american

And the west, generally.

- The united states
looked at the famine

Through the lens
of the cold war,

And there was a big debate

About what the us should do
inside the us government.

- There's no question that
some people in washington

Felt we shouldn't provide aid.

The mengistu government

Of ethiopia

Was planning a huge
revolutionary celebration

That was costing many millions.

- Mengistu was fierce
and ethiopia has a proud,

Independent history of never
having been colonized.

- President mengistu
did not want any bad news.

And he told me in a big meeting,

And the political meeting,

"now, look here,
it's the wrong time

To talk about this thing."

But after the bbc footage,

Suddenly the topic was
ethiopia, ethiopia, ethiopia.

- Tonight we end this program

With this report
from michael buerk of the bbc,

Who went to ethiopia.

(buerk): Dawn, and as the sun
breaks through the piercing...

(mcpherson): Oh yeah,
we saw it instantly.

I was showing the pictures
to the president.

He understood that it was a
communist regime,

But he looked at that and said,
"this is terrible.

We've got to do
something about it."

- Hello. Commissioner dawit
and I expect to have

A very good and productive
discussions today and tomorrow,

And we're, we're glad to
be all here together.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

It was four minutes
footage on nbc,

But it has already sparked
the whole...

The whole of america.

- 300,000 metric tons of wheat

From our government reserve is
being made immediately available

For emergency food programs.

In addition, $50 million

From other accounts
is being transferred

For emergency food use.

(reporter): More than $3.5
million has been raised

In just the past few weeks
by africare,

Oxfam, unicef,
save the children,

Catholic relief services,
and others.

The donations come
in amounts large and small,

From adults and from children.

- There were stories
coming out of

People in middle america
selling their cars

So they could donate the money

To support people in ethiopia.

I mean, there were some
really moving things

Starting to happen
all over the world.

♪ throw your arms around
the world at christmas time ♪

- Bob turned up with a guitar

That didn't have
all its strings,

So, which kind of gave me
an indication

Of how this was going to go.

And what he sang to me,

He sounded like
a demented bob dylan.

(mocks) you know, there
won't be snow in africa

This christmas time.

And of course, it was,
it was more confused

With the fact that he played
something different every time,

Because he's, he's not
a guitar player, at all.

I kept thinking I'm trying
to make a silk purse

Out of a sow's ear here.

- It's a pop song. It was meant
to last three minutes in 1984.

♪ it's christmas time

- Were we nervous the morning
of the actual recording? Yes.

(reporter 2): Right bob, we
spoke to you yesterday.

It's all starting to happen now.
What's it feeling like?

- Well, there's only
midge and me here,

And about 100 film crew,

So, I wish somebody else
would hurry up and get here.

- Bob leaned across to me

And said, "if it's just
the boomtown rats

And ultravox, we're fucked."

But they all turned up.
It was absolutely incredible.

- Duran, exhausted,
rock star, up all night.

Spandau just in from japan.

(collins):
Their fans were all there.

I think I walked in unmolested.

(laughs)

I was too old for them.

- Thrilled to see
kool and the gang.

Whoever asked them to come.

- So, we're all in, bananarama,

And everybody that's going to
do this record is there,

Apart from george, boy george.

- I said, "where's...
Where's george?"

And he said, "he's in new york."
I went, "fucking hell."

Are you awake?

Do you want me to call you back?

And I called him, he's groggy.
You know, "where are you?"

It's half 10, you lazy--

There's a concorde in two hours,

Get on it, you know.

(all chattering)

- I think everyone was nervous
walking in the room as to how

We would react with each other.

- There was a lot of
male egos in the room.

Not enough women.

- I quite enjoyed being
the only girl in that situation,

I think.

You know, big, fat faces
at the time, we both had.

- It's just the way
things were back then.

I mean, there were
far fewer women

In the charts
and women artists around.

- And paula yates was really
the, the lovely glue.

- Everybody knew paula.
We all knew bob through paula.

(paula): What's your
next single?

- It's called "last christmas."
it's a christmas single.

- Is it very christmassy?
- Very.

(paula): I can't ask you to sing
a bit else you'll get mortified.

- You can't ask me to
sing a little bit?

- Yeah.
- I'll sing you a little bit.

- All right.
- It goes, ahem.

♪ last christmas,
I gave you my heart ♪

♪ but the very next day,
you gave it away ♪

- And that's, I'm not giving
you any more than that.

- Oh, that was good.

Imagine, I'll go and tell all
my girlfriends,

"george sang to me."

- If we get to number one now,
I'll feel I'm depriving...

- You know.
- This.

- Well, I don't know,
in which case.

- It might work out,
everyone could have a go.

- That's true.
That would be great.

That would be really good.
- That's right.

- You need to be really
quiet now because --

- George sang to me.
- Yes, I know, I saw.

- Oh, god, it was thrilling!

- Yes, I saw you go
all white and wheatly.

You have to be really quiet

Because there's
no backing track.

- Right, I'm headed to tell bob.

- Let's take it line
by line anyway.

Want to actually
get to hear the thing.

That's a crossover line,
you know.

- I don't think midge
had a plan

About what names were
gonna do what.

I don't think
that was very clear.

- I'm sitting there
with a lyrics sheet,

Thinking we hadn't
written enough lines.

This range is
paul young's range.

- Yeah, and it sounds nice.

It just comes out of that
whole block of voices.

♪ your arms around
the world at christmas time ♪

♪ but say a prayer

♪ pray for the other ones

♪ at christmas time

- That actual line itself, the,
♪ but say a prayer

Is hard for me
to sing powerfully.

If we, if we... If you wanted to
kind of change the notation

A little bit so it started
off a bit higher or something?

♪ but say a-, but say a prayer

We could do that, if you want.

- That sounds great.

- It was perfect
because it was george.

It was exactly what
you would hope

That he would do with it.

(indistinct chatter)

- No, I was a little
uncomfortable.

You can tell that because
I'm doing the shy thing,

Which is a dead giveaway.

Are these the lyrics?
- Yeah.

- And then, of course,

Really relaxed by
the line bob gives me.

- Thank god it's them,
instead of you, mate.

He says, "are you sure
this is what you mean?"

All right.

♪ where the only water flowing

♪ is the bitter sting of tears

- It's a hymn, really.
It's far out, bob.

(both chuckle)

- The war,
the horror of the famine.

Just be aware of it.

There's nothing sentimental

About what I'm saying
or trying to say.

I've been very fucking blunt.

- I'm irish.

Bob geldof's irish.

We have the folk memory
of famine.

Just said okay, I will attempt

To be worthy of that

Cruel prayer.

♪ well, tonight, thank god
it's them ♪

♪ instead of you

- He went up an octave
to the one that I had done

On the guide vocal,

And it just took off
at that point.

(indistinct chatter)

- They wanted to do it
in a day,

And finish it in a day,

So it could be on the streets
as soon as possible.

- We had come to the studio

With the backing track intact,

And midge didn't really
want to add anything more.

And phil shows up with his kit.

- Poor guy sat there
for five hours.

His head would pop up
behind the mixing desk.

He'd say,
"you ready for me yet?"

And I'd say,
"half an hour, phil, uh..."

- Well, have you played
yet, or what?

- I hope so.
That's what I came for.

Please. Yeah, no, that's what
I'm gonna be playing drums.

Soon. Soon as they let
me have go in there.

- They said that's...
That's the song.

So, just go out there
and play, you know.

(drums bongs)

What was intimidating

Was that people started
coming in to listen.

(phil playing drum beat)

(ure): Everyone was in awe

Of this because you're
watching brilliance.

(drumming continues)

- Pretty fucking good, old chap.

♪ there won't be snow in africa
this christmas time ♪

- Totally different melody.
- It was like a school day.

You know, we're all in the hall,
assembly.

That's, that's basically
what it felt like.

- Two, three, four.

♪ feed the world

♪ let them know
it's christmas time ♪

- This was

25-year-old kids,

Working class kids,

Trying to change
something so huge.

Intercontinental.

And that energy was nalïve,
in many ways.

- There's something
about pop music, rock music,

Whatever you want to call it,

It is inherently
working class.

Because it comes from nothing.

I was born on a tenement slum
in the outskirts of glasgow.

That element doesn't go away.

We have empathy, you know.

We feel things.
That's why we write things.

That's why we create things.

(indistinct chatter)

- Once he knew

That they were all there,

There is no way boy george

Is not going to swank in late.

- Hi, how you doing?

(laughs)

- I said, turn me up, 'cause I
really can't hear it right.

Yeah, it's better because it
helps me with the phrasing.

Otherwise I can't put my heart
and soul into this, you know.

(all chattering)

- When you hear
him singing, raw,

No backing track,

You kind of go, oof,

Serious voice, you know.

♪ do they know it's
christmas time at all ♪

♪ and there won't be
snow in africa ♪

♪ this christmas time

♪ the greatest gift they'll
get this year is life ♪

♪ oh

♪ where nothing ever grows

♪ no rain or rivers flow

♪ do they know it's
christmas time at all ♪

♪ oh

(music stops)

- What happens after that?

- I think he was hoping he
would probably

Sing a bit more than he sang,
you know,

Because he'd flown a long way.

But we didn't need
any more than that.

We just needed
that little snippet.

- We were definitely in a hurry

To get everyone out,
to start mixing.

- It had to be in the pressing
plants at 8:00 next morning.

- I was really tired.

I didn't think we had...

A deserving number one.

I thought we had a pop single,

But it had to work.
It had to be.

- The record made by
britain's top rock stars

To raise money for ethiopia's
famine victims

Has just become
the fastest-selling single

In pop music history.

The record
"do they know it's christmas"

Features 38 of britain's
most famous pop musicians.

In its first week, it sold
600,000 copies in britain,

And more than a quarter
million worldwide.

♪ at christmas time

♪ we let in light
and we banish shade ♪

♪ and in our world of plenty

♪ we could spread
a smile of joy ♪

♪ throw your arms the world

♪ at christmas time

♪ but say a prayer

- There was cynicism from some
of the music press

About the quality of the song,

But this,
it wasn't about that.

- It was a simple
piece of music,

But it, it was something
more than that.

It was something social.

♪ there's a world outside
your window ♪

♪ and it's a world
of dread and fear ♪

(reporter): New york stores were
sold out in the first hour.

Only one shop in washington
had a supply this morning.

Retailers and record buyers
are clamoring for more,

And the promotion campaign
has only just begun.

- People were coming in and

Buying 30 copies of the record,

And giving 29 back
for it to be sold again.

- It had just simply taken on
some sort of bizarre

National momentum of its own.

♪ and there won't be snow in
africa ♪

♪ this christmas time

- So, it could look like
we will actually,

With this one song,

Exceed the total
unicef budget for 1985.

♪ where nothing ever grows

♪ no rain or rivers flow

- There's no question in my
mind, and I was deeply,

Immediately appreciative for
the music, because that,

I knew, would provide us
the public support

That, that we needed.

♪ feed the world

- Band aid was the beginning.

Band aid was the awareness.

Light bulb goes on.

I think that's what really kind
of woke us all up in america.

It just took somebody to go,
"let's pay attention here."

(stewart): Throughout
northern ethiopia,

Aid efforts are overrun
by the sheer mass

Of the starving,
malnourished, and the sick.

But numbers keep growing

And supplies are always short.

- Of course,
it takes time to...

To bring the food here
into ethiopia,

But 'til now,
we didn't see much.

- Birdan woldu,

Carried for eight hours
by her father

To a catholic aid
center in mekelle.

(sister): There isn't anything
we can do,

Really for this child.

The child is too far gone and
nothing will save this child.

So, there isn't anything
we can do at this point.

(labored breathing)

(stewart): After hours of
covering other tragedies,

We returned to
the catholic mission

And were surprised

By what a sister called
a small miracle.

(stewart): Sister, we may have
had a bit of luck this morning,

Did we? It's possible?

(somber music plays)

(ken lennox):
I was working in ethiopia.

I was sending photographs
virtually every day.

And I phoned my editor and said,
"are we still using this?"

And he said, "no, ken,
I can't keep using it.

We lose circulation every time."

So, he said, "come home."

Bob was a neighbor of mine.

I went over
and knocked on his door,

And bob comes
the door and I said...

- "if you don't go,

We can't cover
the story anymore."

"why not?"

"because we've done it
and we can't keep doing it."

- And he said, "ken,
I'm a fucking rock n' roller.

I can't be seen
with dead babies.

That would just be ridiculous.

It would look like I was

Climbing onto some
sort of bandwagon."

I promised bob

That I would not
take any photographs

Of him with dying babies.

That was his main concern

And I promised
it wouldn't happen.

- I'd never been
in sub-saharan africa.

I was sort of embarrassed,

This irish pop singer,

Swanning in with
his press corps.

- Quite frankly, I was really
amazed at the way he was,

The way he looked, you know.

He's...

I was expecting
a british diplomat,

Someone three-piece suit.

His hair was not combed.

He hadn't shaved.

He looked awful, I tell you.

(dawit): Band aid, that was
good and we heard about it.

What we didn't like is the,
the title of the music,

"do they know it's christmas".

It's for the wrong title,

Because they just
didn't do their homework.

Ethiopians are the oldest
christians in the world.

- And like the songs make it,

Ethiopia is not
the poor country,

That poor where there
is no rain and sun.

In fact, it supplies
its neighbors with rivers.

You know about the nile.

Simplifying things like that
is not going to be right.

- So, I'm skittering
through the airport

And I see mother teresa.

And I think, "crikey,

Hang on a minute."

And I ran off to get bob.

- Suddenly it's
st. Bob from the press,

And literally a living saint,

Quite literally, a saint.

And like... And anyway,

I was thrilled to meet
this old bird, you know.

- Mother teresa was
not ready for that,

To be hugged by
a weird-looking irish man.

(laughs)

(laughs) so,
she didn't accept it,

But she was very polite.

- I told him, "okay,

You will meet the saint.

Please refrain

From using your off words,

F words, your obscene words.

Be polite.

- She was thin as a whippet,

And tiny little thing,

And she played
the old lady schtick.

But boy,

This was show business.

Like, she immediately lasered in

On the media around me
and became mother teresa.

- You saw the tv reports.

And I just got a lot of
pop musicians

And we made the record
and it just went crazy.

- Wonderful.
- And we got 8 million pounds.

I thought we'd make 70,000,
so we got an 8 million.

- Wonderful.

- And I said to her,
"well, I'm here."

I said, like, "maybe you
could help give me something."

And she said,
"I can't do what you do

And you can't do what I do.

But we both have to do it."

(bob geldof): This famine was in
the epicenter of this war,

And when I say war,
I mean, been properly war.

Migs, tanks, you know,

Bombing their own people,
et cetera.

Here's these guns, smoke,

And starving people.

I'd never really been
in a war situation.

(people murmuring)

Where I found myself was...

Some sort of human
carnage dump, you know.

- If you know, it was
heartbreaking what you see.

Was very sad.

How would you react
if you see a small kid

Just on the verge
of death, you know?

- So, all I could do was...

See what was I doing there?

What was I doing there?

- Some kid dying for the lack
of handful of grain.

And that's the...

That's not an easy thing
to deal with for anybody,

Especially if you're not aware

Of existence of these
kind of things,

And you are suddenly
exposed to it.

- I had this urgency within me.

I had never seen
anything as bad.

All these children were
just in his wake,

Running through the camp.

I took this photograph.
It was used across two pages.

"the pied piper of pop."

- Here was captain africa,

Saint bob.

So, now it's a terrible
mistake to have done this.

But at the same time,
if you don't do it bob,

Then that story's gone.

They want you to, to weep.

They want you to cry.

They want you to
pick up the infant

As if they're just objects
for their fucking story.

And the horrible thing is,
they weren't wrong.

And I was just absorbing it,

And it was evening,

And one of the journalists is
tuning the world service,

And they played,
"do they know it's christmas".

And it was very low.

So, I just saw thought...

It's the weirdest thing ever.

That studio,
a couple of weeks ago,

And here like, you know, so,

Just added to the complete

Psychedelic...

Overload.

And suddenly,

Louder than simply
the background

Into this vista,

Bono...

♪ well tonight, thank god
it's them instead of you ♪

All the rage, all the shame.

(exhales sharply)

- We were granted an audience

With the president mengistu.

Some other people who
had been with us backed off.

- I understand

That I have to show respect,

Even though it is
the last thing I do,

Having seen what I've seen.

- And in the course of this,
through the interpreter,

He asked bob
for a million pounds.

Bob just... It was
lighting the fuse.

The interpreter stopped
interpreting.

But even mengistu
knew the f word

If you put 14 of them
in each paragraph.

- And I walked up to him,
I think very sharply,

And I was just angry.

And I just said,
"I think you're a (bleep)."

(dramatic news program music)

- The treasury has
once again emphasized

That vat must be paid

On band aid's charity
record for ethiopia.

(reporter): The government is
taking 18 pence in tax

From every record sold.

- I think they're mean.

- I think they should
waive, waive it,

Because like, there's
so many millions of people

Starving and dying,
every minute of the day.

(geldof):
I'd returned from africa

And this became the big
issue in the press.

(kennedy): One of
the things bob had emphasized

At the very beginning
was there will be no overhead.

Every penny you give us
will be spent on aid.

- Everybody who was on the team
was working for nothing.

All over the land,
people were volunteering.

- There was this
lame newspaper awards,

And I knew the prime minister,
mrs. Thatcher, was going.

She came up the stairs,

Full armor, hair, makeup,

You know,
and I was shoved forward

And I was up for it.

We had a bit of a problem
with the vat on the records.

-= I know. But you know,
don't forget we've used

Some of your vat with that,
to give back, and to plow back.

- Mm-hmm.
- We've given again and again.

I mean, the government has to
get taxation from somewhere.

- I'd prepared
how I should behave.

That I would not
raise my voice...

I mean, at the moment
you've got a problem

With the butter mountain.

You don't know how
to dispose of it.

To sell it to the russians
is the cheapest way.

- Yes, but I'm sorry,
but butter doesn't do

Very much good in africa.

As you know, it's grain.

- Butter oil actually does.

It is one of the major
supplementary foods.

- Butter oil, if you can,
if you can get it.

- Well, it is
a byproduct of butter.

- Yes. But look, a lot is going.

A lot of surplus food is
going. But don't forget--

- But prime minister,
there are millions dying,

And that's
the terrible thing.

- Yes, indeed.

- She looked up and fixed me
with the gore gone glare.

You know, ice eyes.

And she was immediately pushed
out of my way.

And I'd thought...

I hadn't done it.

I hadn't nailed it.

But then, even the right wing
press took up the cudgels.

It's a Friday night,
I get a phone call,

And, "is that mr. Geldof?"
"yes."

"could you stand by for the
chancellor of the exchequer?"

"okay."

"the government is prepared
to make a donation

To the exact level of the vat

Of the band aid record."

And I said, "thank you
very much, chancellor.

Please thank
the prime minister."

♪ work all night on
a drink of rum ♪

♪ daylight come
and me wan' go home ♪

♪ stack banana 'til
the morning come ♪

♪ daylight and me wan' go home

♪ come mister tally man

- Harry belafonte
wanted to talk to me.

I hadn't really had
the true connection

With the plight of
what was happening there,

Until band aid.

And harry's line was,

"we have so many other people

Saving the lives
of so many africans,

In so many parts of the world,

It would be great if we,
as a group of people,

Black people,

Spearheaded something
for the continent.

Why don't we?"

And the answer was like,
"yeah, why don't we?"

- The phone rings
and, "is that bob geldof?"

And it's this husky,
gravelly voice,

Very slow.

And I go, "yep. Who's that?"

He goes, "it's harry belafonte.

Here's michael."

And so, then he goes, "hi bob."

And I'm now in some
different showbiz world.

That's the truth.

Where harry belafonte
and michael jackson call you up.

He says,

"we want to do what you did,
over here."

So, I just paused
and I just thought,

If america comes to the party

Through their greatest
artists of the 20th century,

Then it's game on.

(crowd cheering)

(richard skinner):
Would you welcome status quo?

- I sort of winged it
because of the band aid record

And the usa for africa record.

(rock music plays)

- If I had done that,
I'd be sued. I'd be shot.

But bob doing it,
he got away with it.

- How do we do that?

Because that had
never been done before.

Even the experts didn't
have a clue

Whether it was going to work,
or not.

- Talking to bob, he described
it as a global jukebox.

(bono): Honestly, can you
imagine one of your most

Famous moments of your life,
and your activism,

You've got a mullet?

- It was so perfect. So...

Rock'n'roll, you know?

(crowd cheering)

Subtitling: Difuze