Bob Geldof doubts Live Aid could happen today.
The 68-year-old singer was one of the organisers of the star-studded benefit concert in 1985 – but he doubts such an event could be staged in 2020, saying the internet "has broken down the world into individualism".
Speaking to CBC, Bob explained: "We had a huge lobby: 1.2 billion people, 95 per cent of the television sets on Earth watched that concert.
"So things do change, but that instrument of change is no longer plausible. Rock and roll was the central spine of our culture for 50 years. The web has broken down the world into individualism and that’s easy for authoritarians to use…
"A machine says if you like this, you like that, so you never move outside the ghetto of the self, the preference of your own, you never find a contrary opinion or something weird musically that you suddenly hear that you never knew expanded your brain and takes you off in whole direction.
"It’s the bookshop, it’s the record shop, you go in to buy x and suddenly you see … and you get it … that doesn’t happen if you like this and you like that."
Bob added that the internet has created a "reductionist" society.
He said: "[The internet] sped it up beyond our understanding so the whole thing collapses with greed, puts millions out of work, puts thousands into suicide, wars erupt as a result, millions are on the move to find new work or to escape war, and we throw up our walls and our barriers.
"We’ve reduced ourselves. The 21st century is reductionist and it’s using the great tool of reductionism, the Internet, and we need to know how to use this thing, which is the most powerful tool ever invented.
"So you get these old men being angry again and they make a record that sounds like that."
Bob Geldof says Live Aid couldn’t happen today
