Jo Whiley winner Darryl

I expected that it was going to be an exciting and emotional time when I set off from Manchester and head to London but I no idea that it would affect me so much. It all started well, we got all the way to our hotel without getting lost once, impressive, as we had never made the trip before. We got into the hotel at about 1am, had a few drinks and got some sleep before the big day!

The day

We got up at about 9am, had some breakfast and headed off to the BBC to collect the tickets, the taxi brought us to the wrong address but we got there easy enough, still not lost! We decided to walk to Hyde Park, as it didn't seem that far. When we got there it was unbelievable, I've never see a queue so long in my life, must have been a mile! The only thing to do was join, so we did. It was a bit pushy in the queue but the excitement could be felt by everyone, in the spirit of Live 8 everybody was equal. Meet some people who had travelled from France this morning and who just got into London.

It took a few hours to get in but once we did the view was amazing, it must have looked great on television but I think you would have to be there to appreciate it fully. We missed the very start I think, the first thing I saw was U2 and Sir Paul singing Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club, what an amazing first thing to see! I have had many debates about the best band ever and it usually comes down to U2 and the Beatles but to witness such a collaboration was very special indeed.

Coldplay were great by themselves but when Richard Ashcroft came out to join them it was an unexpected and remarkable surprise, definitely one of the highlights of the day. I think perhaps that and the movie about 3 seconds will stick in my head the most.

Pete Doherty is not my favourite person but he and Elton John were stunning together, Children of the Revolution was great and of course Elton was the perfect showman as usual. There was a bit of a sticky situation when a girl passed out and had to carried out but I think she was ok when she got some water, it was a bit hot in there!

I was totally surprised by Sir Bob giving a rendition of tell me why I don't like Mondays, pleasantly surprised of course, I think he enjoyed it as much as the crowd!

The sets by Keane, Snow Patrol and Razorlight where as good as I have seen them, they were all really up for putting on a great show plus Snoop Dogg really put on a great mix. I wish that the Killers had been on for longer but I'm a massive fan and probably wouldn't be happy unless they played all their songs! The white suits were a great touch!

Later in the afternoon I noticed that my phone was missing, I looked around for it but couldn't find it, that annoyed me to say the least, was distracted for about an hour but got over it, it was insured and I was never going to be in such a place again, lost my pictures though, which was the biggest pain.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little disjointed, there were so many unbelievably great acts on and I'm trying to remember them all, if I leave any out I'm really sorry. The whole time the true meaning of what was happening was never far from people's minds, if they were to forget the backgrounds to Annie Lennox, who was excellent, and others should have reminded them.

The Who looked as good as ever and the reformation of Pink Floyd was amazing, it really looked that they were on key with each other and put on a great performance, I met some German guys that had travelled over just to see them, I think they were pretty happy with the rest of the line-up though!

Energy levels were waning by the time the finale came around but when everyone came on stage it was enough to give everyone the boost needed to finish off this unbelievable day, it took a long time to get out and back to the hotel but it was worth it, was still buzzing but managed to get some sleep before heading home the next day.

As much as I was privileged and grateful to be part of this remarkable event and would definitely be part of another if it was repeated I hope I never will be, I hope in twenty years there will be no Live Aid or Live 8, I hope them become unnecessary. On the day that the world stopped and listened I can only hope that the people who can personally make a difference do so.

Darryl Deehan