Live Aid 25 years on

I've been remembering Live Aid today watching "When Harvey met Bob". It's a one off BBC drama about what happened when music promoter Harvey Goldsmith and Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof created the now iconic Live Aid concert.

Billed as the Oddest of Odd Couples, Domhnall Gleeson and Ian Harte put in remarkable performances as respectively Bob and Harvey. Both seem to inhabit the characters rather than just doing a caricature.

What were you doing on the 13th July 1985? I remember being glued to the tv that day in our house in Derry. From the Quo opening with Rockin all over the World to Bruce Springsteen hooking up from Philadelphia it was the biggest day in my youthful rock memory.

I still have the 7 inch vinyl record of "Do they know it's Christmas", bought the previous Christmas. I had watched the now legendary BBC news report by Michael Buerk about the famine in Ethiopia. The tv drama shows Geldof going to Ethiopia and crying with anger and frustration about the death all around him. Domhnall Gleeson is excellent as the gobby popstar who seems to stumble into the world's biggest humanitarian crisis while "effin" and "blindin" at all around him.

While not on the scale of Geldof, I remember getting all worked up, anger and tears in equal measure, about those images. I even started a letter campaign in my school, writing with teenage indignation to various politicians to do something about it. Not much happened but it was one of those defining moments when you wanted to change things, make things better, get your voice heard.

Live Aid was the making of Sir Bob, but it was also the making of a vision of global fundraising. If the behind the scenes drama of it is even half true it should have been the most chaotic shambles ever. But it became one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Watch Sir Paul McCartney's solo of "Let it Be" and I defy you not to be moved.

When Harvey Met Bob, BBC 2 26th December @ 21.15.