Mallow man sold his boat engine for £180 to buy a ticket for Live Aid gig

I had been a music fan from a young age and was 27 years old in the summer of 1985, living in the beautiful Clare town of Killaloe, on the banks of the Shannon.

When I heard about the Live Aid event that Bob Geldof was planning on July 13 at Wembley Stadium, boasting some of the biggest names in British and Irish music at the time, I knew it was something I wanted to be part of.

I owned a boat and after selling its engine for £180, I had enough money for the journey and the concert ticket. With my good friend, Sean Heaney, I set out for what would be the greatest concert the world had ever seen.

Getting to Wembley back then was not as easy as it is now. There were no cheap flights with Ryanair or Aer Lingus and flying was still seen as a luxury only afforded to the well-off.

Not being the well-off kind, we took the bus to Limerick, the train to Rosslare, the ferry to Holyhead, and bus to Wembley Stadium.

By the time we arrived it was 7am and we were exhausted but excited. It was a beautiful, sunny July morning and we sat outside the stadium with other excited fans. Word spread that the gates would open at 10am and the first band on stage would be Status Quo at noon.

When I entered the stadium, I was awestruck by its sheer size and the crowds that had gathered, it was a far cry from Katie Daly’s dance hall back in Killaloe.

A few minutes before the concert was due to start there was great excitement in the stadium as Prince Charles and Princess Diana took their seats in the royal box. The place was heaving with people and buzzing with excitement as Status Quo opened the show with Rocking All Over The World.

Each act was better than the last and it was clear to everyone in Wembley that day that we were part of an event that would go down not just in musical history but as an iconic day in the 20th century.

Acts such as Elton John, Boomtown Rats and Bryan Ferry with David Gilmour on guitar kept the stadium hopping all day.

U2, who were on the cusp of conquering the music world, gave a great show. However, the biggest cheer of the day was for Queen, led by the gifted Freddie Mercury.

There was also a sombre side to the day’s events, of course, highlighted when David Bowie cut his set short for a video that was to be broadcast across the stadium.

Images of starving men, women and children appeared on giant screens across the stadium, images of people dying before our eyes while we were enjoying this magnificent concert.

People were visibly moved by what they were seeing, crying and hugging as the horrors of the Ethiopian famine were played out before them.

The evening session kicked off at 6pm with Dire Straits taking to the stage accompanied by Sting. Elton John and Kiki Dee then wowed the audience with a great version of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.

There were many memorable acts that day but I suppose my favourite was Elton John, an artist whom I have seen in concert about a dozen times. The stand-out songs for me that day were Rocket Man and Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me, which Elton sang with George Michael on that Wembley stage.

At the end of the show, rumours were flying around the stadium of a possible Beatles reunion on stage, with John Lennon being replaced by his son Julian. However, this never occurred and it was left to Paul McCartney to bring this phenomenal event to an end.

The show closed with all the artists on stage singing Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the Band Aid pop song that had launched the showbiz appeal for Ethiopia seven months earlier.

My friend and I stayed in a London hotel on the night of the concert, then it was coach, ferry and train back home again the following day.

I have since gotten married, to Sandra, and moved to Mallow, Co. Cork, where I have been living since 1990.

Although I have seen many concerts since Live Aid, none have managed to compare to that historic event.

This story originally appeared in The Echo's Years of the 5 supplement.