Live Aid Live Aid (Warner Strategic Marketing-2004) It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is no better example of this than the agonizingly sixteen-hour-long Live Aid broadcast on July 13, 1985 (now available on DVD). The official excuse for the concert was to raise money to feed the starving people of Ethiopia, but the let’s-get-real reason was to witness Western civilization’s most celebrated rock and pop stars perform because they care.