Two venues, two billion viewers and, as pomp rockers Queen, who pretty much stole the whole show, would say - one vision.
On the 13th July 1985, what still remains the biggest concert in history took place in Wembley Stadium in London and John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia - Live Aid, the global jukebox that just for one day united the world in an effort to help the starving peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the event, and it really was a day when the world rocked out and united in a common goal.
The Eighties was a cynical decade of rampant financial deregulation, an era when "greed is good" trumped Sixties idealism and Seventies socialism.
Today, we are even more jaded and pessimistic, and looking back at this four-decade remove, it is hard not to wonder at the bloody-minded naivety of Live Aid all those years ago.
But somehow, despite the enormous technological and logistical challenges, it worked.
More than 75 acts played London and Philly on the day, billions watched at home, egos were kept in check and the short sets guaranteed crowd-pleasing greatest hits packages from some of the biggest acts in the world. Even they felt like they were part of something bigger.
In 2024 terms, $370 million was raised, with Ireland donating £7 million, more per capita than any other country in the world.
And, of course, the whole thing was a very Irish affair. Dún Laoghaire boy Bob Geldof made it happen, and it was also the day that U2 were propelled onto a higher plane with their spine-tingling afternoon performance. They played Sunday Bloody Sunday and a very extended Bad that wandered off into snatches of Satellite of Love, Ruby Tuesday, Sympathy for the Devil and Walk on the Wild Side.
And it wasn't just the song that wandered off and took a walk on the wild side: Bono, much to the chagrin of his bandmates, took off on another one of his then frequent peregrinations and climbed off stage and plucked a girl from the crowd for a slow set in a moment that seemed to crystallise the Live Aid dream.
Bono's fellow Dubliner Geldof also provided another striking and frankly chilling moment during the early afternoon set from his band The Boomtown Rats. By 1985, the one-time hit makers were pretty much a spent force, but a jolt of electricity shot through Wembley when Geldof stood alone on stage and delivered the key line from I Don't Like Mondays - "and the message today is how to die".
But it was Queen's 21-minute set that stole the whole day and is now recognised as one of the greatest live rock performances of all time. With frontman Freddie Mercury commanding the whole of Wembley, the band played six songs, including Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, We Will Rock You, and We Are the Champions, and quite simply mesmerised both the audience in the stadium and at home.
It is generally agreed that the show in John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, just wasn't as good, with criticism and indeed anger focussing on Bob Dylan's utterly weird (imagine!) late evening performance.
Dylan, who was already having a strange Eighties, invited Rolling Stones Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood to join him for acoustic takes on Blowin' in the Wind, The Ballad of Hollis Brown and When the Ship Comes In.
However, it was a clumsy comment he made from the stage that people remember the most.
In halting tones, he said, "I hope that some of the money that's raised for the people in Africa, maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe one or two million, maybe, and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms that the farmers here owe to the banks."
He had a very good point, but his timing was all wrong, and back in London, the other Bob was furious. However, Dylan got his wish, and just two months later, the inaugural Farm Aid concert took place in Champaign, Illinois.
As to Live Aid's legacy, some modern aid workers insist that the event helped put humanitarian issues at the centre of foreign policy for many countries. Call it soft power or just plain having an actual conscience.
Critics at the time contended that Live Aid let governments and NGOs off the hook, even though Geldof has since spent his life cajoling, haranguing and goading governments and NGOs into action.
As for its impact on pop and rock music itself, Geldof and his collaborator, Midge Ure of Ultravox, toyed with the idea of calling the original Band Aid project The Bloody Do Gooders, and Live Aid certainly gave pop stars a new outlook.
A year after the event, U2, Sting, Bryan Adams and Peter Gabriel took off on the six-date A Conspiracy of Hope tour to increase awareness of human rights and to mark Amnesty International's 25th anniversary.
Also in 1986, British anarcho-punks Chumbawamba released an album entitled Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records.
Of course, it wasn't the first time pop and rock got a conscience. Back in the Sixties, peace and love and understanding was where it was at; punk had its own crusading spirit, but did Live Aid squander rock's right to be obnoxious (an article of faith Geldof held dear)?
Forty years later, it remains one of the biggest events in music history and Geldof is justifiably proud of what was an extraordinary achievement.
So where were you? Me? I watched the whole thing on RTÉ in a barn in Cootehill, Co Cavan (don't ask) on a battered old black and white TV we'd hooked up to a makeshift aerial fashioned from some cable and a coat hanger.
Me and my mates would then take turns scrambling up onto the roof to hold it aloft so we could get some sort of signal, with me calling down, "Let me know when Madonna is on!"
