13 JULY 1985, WEMBLEY STADIUM 12.02pm: After The Coldstream Guards perform God Save The Queen, Status Quo open Live Aid with Rockin’ All Over The World.

Francis Rossi: “Bands are funny buggers, always wanting to go on last. There’d been a lot of jockeying for position, managers saying ‘We can’t go on before them, we’ve had more Top 10 singles this year.’ And we just went ‘We’ll go on first, thank you very much.’ You go on first, everyone around the world is watching, but none of the other acts realised they’d shot themselves in the foot.”

Tony Hadley, Spandau Ballet: “When Quo’s manager volunteered them to go first, everyone else went ‘You what?!’ Then when they did Rockin’ All Over The World, me and Janice Long were stood backstage going ‘Woah!’ They were fantastic.”

Harvey Goldsmith: “It wasn’t until we got Quo’s setlist that we all realised that of course they were the right band to go first. Once you’ve seen Rockin’ All Over The World is the first song, what other number could you open with?”

Steve White, The Style Council: “We were nervous, watching Quo. Usually at a festival, there’s 5,000 people queuing for a drink and 3,000 for the toilet, but absolutely everyone was watching Quo. The atmosphere was so enthusiastic, but there was a slight worry of ‘What if they all scarper when we come on?’”

Francis Rossi: “Once we’d finished, generally every band realised ‘Shit, we should have opened.’ They’d all been ‘Fine, dear old Quo can open.’ But whilst we’re on, no other f***er is on that stage and we’re going to own it. Besides, it meant we were finished by 12:15 and could have a proper drink. Lovely.”

12:19 The Style Council perform four songs.

Steve White: “You can tell how nervous we were, as we played the songs twice as fast as usual. The most obscure song we played, Internationalists, was Paul Weller’s dig at the Royal Family being there. I remember him glaring up at the Royal Box for its lines about equality. We’d asked if we could go on early as we’d wanted to enjoy the rest of the day as punters, but then we got booked to do a TV show in Maidstone to play our new single, Come To Milton Keynes. That was a real let-down, and you can see on YouTube how flat that TV performance was. But we got back to Wembley by about 6pm and had a blast.”

12:44 Bob Geldof gets back to being a pop star with The Boomtown Rats for three songs.

Bob Geldof: “A few minutes before we went on, David Bowie massaged my back. That was pretty wild. Bowie massaging my back? Surely that should have been the other way round. I was proud when the Rats went on. Unlike the rest of the day and the weeks leading up to Live Aid, I was quite secure on that stage. I had total confidence in the guys behind me. I was a pop singer again. Live Aid was a really weird day, but once I heard ‘Bob, you’re on’ I walked out and you can see my head clear: ‘Oh yeah, I’m a pop singer with these guys.’ And we were good.”