Live Aid — Wembley Stadium, London

On July 13, 1985, Wembley Stadium hosted the London half of Live Aid — the dual-venue global benefit concert organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in response to the Ethiopian famine. Seventy-two thousand people filled Wembley; another 90,000 watched the simultaneous JFK Stadium show in Philadelphia; and an estimated 1.9 billion people watched on television across 150 countries — the largest live broadcast audience in history at the time. The BBC carried it in full; MTV broadcast continuously for sixteen hours. Proceeds raised approximately £150 million for famine relief.

The Wembley bill included Status Quo opening, followed by The Style Council, Boomtown Rats, Adam Ant, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Sting, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, Bryan Ferry, Paul Young, U2, Dire Straits, Queen, David Bowie, The Who, Elton John, Freddie Mercury duetting with various artists, and Paul McCartney closing. Queen's twenty-minute set — Freddie Mercury prowling the stage in a white vest, conducting 72,000 people as if the stadium were his living room — is universally cited as the greatest live performance in rock history. They had been in creative decline before it; afterwards they were untouchable.

The original Wembley Stadium was demolished in 2003 and replaced by the current structure. The site is the same, but the twin towers that framed the 1985 stage are gone. A plaque and various commemorations acknowledge Live Aid's significance. July 13, 1985, is one of the fixed dates in popular music history — a day when rock and roll's reach extended further than anyone had previously imagined.