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The video for Band Aid 30 Do They Know It’s Christmas 2014 has been premiered on UK’s X Factor, introduced, movingly by Sir Bob Geldof. Queen’s Roger Taylor appears in the video, and played drums for the track.
The UK Government has waived VAT and the record is on sale 8.00am tomorrow, Monday, 17 November priced 99p. A physical CD costing £4 will follow in three weeks.
Band Aid 30 cover
Artwork for the charity single has been designed by artist Tracy Emin
Roger Taylor
Earlier report:
BBC NEWS
13 November 2014
Band Aid 30 to premiere on X Factor
Midge Ure and Bob Geldof asked the media to help them make the new Band Aid campaign a success
The new Band Aid single will receive its world premiere on ITV’s X Factor results show this Sunday.
The video will be shown the day after acts like Ed Sheeran and One Direction go into a studio to record a new version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Other stars taking part will include Emeli Sande, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Bastille, Foals, Chris Martin and Bono.
Money raised by the song will help fund relief efforts to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa.
The song was first recorded in 1984, raising more than £8m for famine relief in Ethiopia. This time, fans will be able to follow the recording session on an official app, which will stream live footage from Sarm studios in London. That footage will also form the basis for the music video, which will be edited “in record time” in order to be shown on The X Factor at 20:00 GMT on Sunday.
The single will be available to download at 08:00 GMT the following day, priced at 99p. A CD version costing £4 will be released three weeks later. The government will be under pressure to waive VAT on the sales, as it has done on previous occasions.
An official trailer for the new single, featuring hard-hitting images of the Ebola crisis, was released on Thursday.
Organiser Bob Geldof said the lyrics have been updated for the 2014 version because Africa’s “booming” nations no longer face a famine threat.
References to the “burning sun” and land where “no rain nor rivers flow” have been removed. “That part of Africa is lush,” Geldof told a press conference on Monday. “They have hydro-electric plants. It is massively fertile, the best rice-growing soil in the world.”