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The event, led by former Beatle George Harrison, is recognised as the inspiration for fundraising efforts like Band Aid and Live Aid
It’s 40 years on Monday that a group of famous musicians, pulled together by former Beatle George Harrison, took to the stage in New York’s Madison Square Garden for the Concert for Bangladesh, now recognised as the inspiration for a series of humanitarian fundraising efforts like Band Aid and Live Aid.
In response to a call from Bengali musician Ravi Shankar, stars including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr, joined Harrison to help raise awareness of the plight of children caught in political and military turmoil in Bangladesh, a crisis worsened when Cyclone Bhola swept through the region in November 1970, killing 500,000 people and driving thousands from their homes.
The concert has since raised $17 million for the United Nation’s childrens’ agency UNICEF, funding projects not only in Bangladesh but in trouble spots around the world. It is now the focus of a “Month of Giving” in aid of the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa.
Despite the increasing visibility of celebrity humanitarianism, there is still soul-searching about the effectiveness and cultural meaning of such events.
Writer Graeme Thomas points out there was more to the Concert for Bangladesh than just the money it raised – it was rock’s first “mass act of philantrophy”.
“In paving the way for popular music to explore what Americans like to call its ‘better self’, it still encapsulates much of what is perceived to be the best and worst about rock fundraising: a pile of money, heightened awareness for a clear cause, and a rich cultural and musical legacy on the plus side; confusion, mismanagement, excess and ego on the other,” Thomas wrote in Britain’s Guardian.
Back then, like nowadays, there were question marks over how much of the money did actually reach the intended beneficiaries, and to this day raising money through music remains “oddly inefficient”, Thomas said.
Other famous musicians stepped into Harrison’s footsteps by “rocking the establishment” into giving money to humanitarian causes. Irish musicians Bob Geldof and Bono have become the two most visible and celebrated Western spokespersons acting on behalf of poverty reduction in Africa.
Despite celebrities’ undoubted ability to raise money for good causes, critics argue that events such as “Band Aid” and “Live Aid” helped cement stereotyping of “Western saviour” versus “helpless victim” in the developing world.
Or, as Riina Yrjola of the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland put it, in the case of Africa they represent a view of the continent as a "specifically Western project and calling" and relegate it to a subordinate position to the West.
The Concert for Bangladesh album is newly available on iTunes. The film of the concert streams from Saturday 30 July to Monday 1 August on iTunes, at georgeharrison.com and at theconcertforbangladesh.com
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