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The Latest Breaking News from Band Aid

Midge Ure postpones upcoming tour dates due to urgent health treatment

In an announcement that has shocked his fans, Midge Ure has said it is with “great sadness and difficulty” he is postponing upcoming tour dates due to urgent treatment for a health issue discovered during a routine medical check-up.

BANG Premier

‘Profoundly moving’ Live Aid at 40 documentary praised by viewers

Over one billion people watched the concert, set up by musician Bob Geldof in 1985 to raise awareness about the Ethiopian famine

The Independent UK

Bob Geldof rejects idea that Live Aid was part of a ‘white saviour complex’

The musician and activist admitted that he ‘understood the argument’ at the time

The Independent UK

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Bob Geldof praises Paula Yates for key role in Live Aid

Bob Geldof has praised his late ex-wife Paula Yates for being instrumental in both Band Aid and Live Aid.

BANG Premier

Midge Ure on reinvention, legacy and the Brexit backlash

IT would be fair to describe Midge Ure as a music legend. Born in Cambuslang, he joined the Glasgow band Stumble in 1969

The National (Scotland)

Charting protest pop: How music can bring about change

The 1980s was a period of profound popularity for political pop. Now, 40 years later, it’s what we desperately need again

The National (Scotland)

‘We created a monster’: Midge Ure reflects on Live Aid as musical heads to West End

Ahead of a London theatre run in May, Ultravox singer says 1985 charity gig probably couldn’t happen today because of low attention spans

The Guardian - UK

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The Guide #188: How 25 years of music has shaped the charts from monoculture to mass playlists

In the first in a new miniseries, we look back at the biggest songs of the 21st century to trace how music – and the way we consume it – has evolved

The Guardian - UK

‘They didn’t call us for Live Aid’: the stars behind Black Britain’s forgotten charity record

In 1985, a star-studded lineup of Black UK musicians, including Aswad, Dennis Brown and Janet Kay, recorded a charity single to raise funds for famine-stricken Ethiopia. Why are their efforts so little known?

The Guardian - UK

“Bob Geldof said, No, Queen have peaked. I don’t think they should play.” Queen would never have performed their iconic set at Live Aid if Band Aid mastermind Bob Geldof had his way, and Freddie Mercury initially wasn't that keen either

"Freddie smelt blood. He went for the throat."

Louder

“The Edge is multiple echoes and jangling guitars… I’m not convinced… I don’t want to burst the Edge’s bubble”: Midge Ure talks The Edge missing Band Aid and his Thin Lizzy baptism of fire

Plus nearly joining the Sex Pistols and why Lizzy didn’t play Live Aid

MusicRadar

“Phil Lynott said, ‘Gary Moore is out the band. Could you come over tomorrow?’ My initial reaction was, ’I’m not the guy you should be asking’”: When Midge Ure joined Thin Lizzy on a make-or-break US tour, he had just one day’s notice and no rehearsals

The Live Aid orchestrator and Ultravox synth-pop pioneer looks back at his trial by fire with Thin Lizzy, swapping out his Yamaha electric because it wasn’t cool enough, refusing to join the Sex Pistols, and how The Edge might have changed Band Aid’s charity single

Guitar World

FireAid, with Billie Eilish and Lady Gaga, is the latest in a long line of massive benefit concerts

FireAid, featuring Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers and others in a fundraiser for Los Angeles-area wildfire relief efforts, is the latest event to combine music and philanthropy

The Independent UK

Wham!’s Last Christmas remains top of UK singles chart for another week

Duo’s festive record made history when it became Christmas No 1 two years in a row

The Guardian - UK

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Guitar World

“He got a kidney infection, so he’s in hospital… That’s a bit of a drag, because he was going to be the lead guitarist”: The iconic charity rock song that missed out on its star guitarist due to illness – and why it could have sounded very different

Do They Know It’s Christmas? could have ended up with more guitars had fate not intervened

The Guardian - UK

Wham!’s Last Christmas is Christmas No 1 for second year running

Duo’s Andrew Ridgeley celebrates success of song that is ‘almost as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, turkey and pigs in blankets’

The Guardian - UK

The charitable ‘gaze’ is a complicated thing

Letter: Paul McGilchrist responds to an article about Band Aid and recalls Josiah Wedgwood’s anti-slavery medallion

The Guardian - UK

Band Aid 40 enters UK Top 10 as Christmas No 1 race hots up

More than half of this week’s Top 40 is Christmas-themed, as classics by Wham! and Mariah Carey eye a potential No 1 position

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MusicRadar

“They pick one crisis in one country and they paint the whole of Africa": Fuse ODG, the rapper behind Band Aid’s 40th anniversary controversy, releases his own We Know It's Christmas clapback track

First he persuaded Ed Sheeran to step away from the track. Now he’s made his own answer record to set the story straight

Salon

Hunger: What's changed since Band Aid?

"Yet in terms of the global persistence of famine, things have not got better in the intervening 40 years"

The Guardian - UK

A new Christmas single – but do they know it’s Ed Davey?

The bungee-jumping Lib Dem leader could be just the man to reinvigorate a genre beset by cynicism and creative inertia

The Guardian - UK

Band Aid 40 fails to reach UK Top 40 in opening week

All-star version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, spliced together from previous versions, falls short of the No 1 success of those earlier hits

BANG Premier

Bob Geldof received emotional thank you from Ethiopian waiter for changing his life

Bob Geldof received an emotional thank you from an Ethiopian waiter whose life was changed by Band Aid.

The Independent UK

Ed Sheeran announces ‘biggest ever’ India tour

Grammy winner performed a sold-out show in Mumbai earlier this year

BANG Premier

Bob Geldof wants to 'have a talk' with Ed Sheeran

Bob Geldof plans to "have a talk" with Ed Sheeran following his criticism of the new Band Aid 40 release but insisted he thinks the 'Shape of You' singer is a "really good bloke".

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