The Band Aid Charitable Trust

It was designed to be a parody of those big heroic...

Fundraiser songs of the 80s, your USA for Africa, your Band Aid, your Hear and Aid, your Fan Band, if you're really super local.

You know, all of these things where...

They would gather either real celebrities or people who owned local car dealerships or sports figures who couldn't sing at all or whatever.

Before we get started, here's a quick piece of Christmas music news that's vaguely related to this episode.

Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid is a central part of the Christmas Number One story.

And this year, the nonprofit Cure for the Kids has worked to create two new versions of the song.

One with stars from the television show The Voice and one with Las Vegas impressionist slash ventriloquist Terry Fator.

Meanwhile, Bob Geldof's public profile was about to reach extraordinary heights.

In 1984, he became one of the driving forces behind Band-Aid, the charity supergroup assembled to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

The following year came Live Aid.

The enormous international concert, staged in London and Philadelphia, was watched by millions around the world and transformed Barb into something approaching a national hero.

Who the hell was Bob Geldof? So, Queen were like...

Band-Aid.

Band.

Band-Aid.

So Queen were doing all right, but then they went on and did Band-Aid, and they did like a four-song set sort of thing, and it just blew the whole world, and they're like, oh my God, that was amazing.

But anyway, this is Halloween.

It's Halloween, mate.

In 1984, the BBC ran a news report showing shocking and disturbing footage of famine in Ethiopia.

Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats sprang into action setting up the Band-Aid relief effort, which released the charity single Do They Know It's Christmas a little over a month later.

Geldof then organized Live Aid to assist with relief efforts.

In 1995, Smashing Pumpkins released their double album, Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness.

Bohemian Rhapsody can't be the only single to be number one twice at Christmas.

Don't they know It's Christmas by Band-Aid has been Christmas number one at least three times?

Yeah, but that wasn't a band, was it? That was a collection of people.

Well,

it would still count, but the point is there were different recordings.

There was Band-Aid 1, there was Band-Aid 2, there was Band-Aid 3.

No, I think the

original Band-Aid record did make it twice, didn't it?

But what could a singer do? His plan, recruit the top British artists of the time to create a charity single.

That group was called Band Aid, and their song, Do They Know It's Christmas? The single had a major impact, but Geldof wanted to go bigger and better.

This resulted in Live Aid, a massive concert set to take place on two continents on Saturday, July 13th, 1985, with the event kicking off at Wembley Stadium.

It's 12 noon in London, 7 AM in Philadelphia.

Um, well, uh, I y- or I'm always asked a version of this question.

I mean, I always say that Band Aid was my favorite video because it saved lives, so, you know, you can't beat that.

I mean, Cher was wonderful.

Celine surprised me by being incredibly funny and wonderful to work with.