Queen might have delivered a stunningly powerful performance at Wembley Stadium during Live Aid 1985, but contrary to rock ‘n’ roll legend, the British rock band wasn’t the reason that phone lines started to melt as countless viewers called in to donate to the Ethiopian famine relief. That impressive bit of musical history belonged to David Bowie, according to the event organizer.
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During a February 2025 interview on the Q with Tom Power podcast, Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof recalled meeting with Harvey Goldsmith, the show’s producer and promoter, and David Bowie, to discuss the songs the Ziggy Stardust performer would include in his set. Before the men got into the nitty-gritty of Bowie’s set, Geldof asked them to watch CBC footage they had obtained for the fundraiser, which showed harrowing images of famine-stricken men, women, and children in Ethiopia.
“Bowie sat there and started to cry,” Geldof remembered. “Not sobbing, just tears. And he said, ‘However many songs I’m doing, I’m giving up one, and I’m introducing this.’” When Geldof and Goldsmith told Bowie that they couldn’t show the footage and that the BBC would just cut the international feed, Bowie doubled down, saying, “I’m not playing if I can’t do it.”
It Was David Bowie, Not Queen, Behind the Melting Phone Lines During Live Aid
Just before David Bowie was to take the stage at Live Aid, organizer Bob Geldof remembered the singer shaking in the wings. To be that nervous wasn’t like Bowie, which is why Geldof took note of it, but it didn’t take long for him to realize why. Just after Bowie finished “Heroes”, he deviated from the performance script. “The place is going nuts, and he sort of interrupts them impatiently, and he says, ‘Thank you very much. I want you to look at this,’ and he just points to the screen,” Geldof said. The screen, of course, was playing the same footage from Ethiopia that had moved Bowie to tears.
Geldof described watching the young audience members’ faces “crumple.” “Girls have got their tops off, and even though they’ve got their bras on, you can see them cover themselves up as if they’d suddenly been exposed to something that they can’t quite understand. They kind of struggle to get off their boyfriend’s shoulders. They’re just staring, you know. Transfixed by what they’re watching. That’s the moment where the phone lines melt. Literally, in some places, phone lines collapsed.”
Bowie’s deviation from the script worked. For as much as Live Aid was about great music all around the world, the real reason for the event was to raise money for a humanitarian crisis. Bowie’s decision to draw attention to the footage anyway, despite the organizers’ warnings, proved incredibly beneficial to the fundraising cause.
Still, Bowie’s responsibility for the phone lines melting doesn’t take away the power of Queen’s performance. Both cultural moments can exist in tandem, and as Geldof said, “The whole world loved their set. [Queen] won the day, if you like.” But maybe it was Bowie who won from a philanthropic standpoint.
Photo by Steve Rapport/Getty Images
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