‘85 concert can finally be seen

After almost two decades of refusing to rebroadcast the Live Aid famine-relief concert, organizer Bob Geldof said he changed his mind because of the large number of bootleg recordings available.

“I couldn’t believe the number of bootleg copies being sold -- they are quite literally taking food from the hungry. This has to be stopped,” Geldof said at a launch party in London for the 10-hour, four-disc DVD set, which was released in England on Monday. “I promised all the people on Live Aid that a recording would never come out, but when I rang them all about this, everyone said OK,” he said.

The mammoth concert, staged in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985, featured performances by David Bowie, Queen, U2, Elton John, Eric Clapton and dozens of others. Viewed on television by some 1.5 billion people, it raised $140 million for the victims of Ethiopia’s famine.