Good citizenship, telethon, and benefit concert

In this chapter, we focus upon the 1985 Live Aid event and seek to defend the radio/telethon as a pragmatic, goal-oriented political technique that enables the formation of brief but effective affective communities, whose price of inclusion is low enough to include basically anybody who seeks involvement. Popular music is posited not as against but rather as for something. Large-scale social and political revolution is not envisaged by the radio/telethon or benefit concert; rather, via mass-media events, disparate groups are brought together for a specific entertainment experience and specific political and educative purposes. We argue that Live Aid did not seek to utilise rock as a political voice to change the world, but rather aimed to use it as a strategy to raise awareness and funds for a single-issue good cause. Further, we suggest that in the process Bob Geldorf brought together two seemingly contradictory strands of rock political allegiance – a 1950s tradition of teenage rock n roll fan as good citizen, whose apotheosis is the radiothon, telethon, and benefit concert, and a 1960s counter-cultural and oppositional ethos.