Saturday was the 40th anniversary of Live Aid. Forty years! I’ve watched a three-part documentary on the BBC about it origins in Band Aid at Christmas of 1984, the build-up to Live Aid, and it’s ongoing legacy. It’s interesting to see the evolution and maturation in understanding in the likes of Bono from charity and ‘feed the hungry’ to equity and justice and the legacy of colonialism. In addition to that documentary, over the weekend, a two-part, seven hour highlights show was released. The girls and I started watching it two nights ago.

Oh boy oh boy. It’s taken me right back to the 13th of July 1985. 11:55am. Twelve year old me in the sitting room in Ballygibbon, waiting for Live Aid to start. I watched it from start to almost the finish. Katie can’t believe that I sat through 16 hours of TV. ‘You’d never do that now,’ she says. ‘You’ll notice my mother didn’t sit down and watch 16 hours of TV,’ I tell her. ‘Who do you think kept me fed and watered through the entire thing?’

The truth is, however, that I didn’t watch 16 hours of Live Aid. By 2:30am, fourteen and a half hours in, I could no longer keep my eyes open. I tried so hard to stay awake, but I just couldn’t. So, I went to bed and missed the final hour and a half.

Watching it now, I can’t believe that I still know the lyrics to so many songs. Never mind the songs that remain in the zeitgeist – We will rock you, Sunday bloody Sunday, Get into the groove; I remember every lyric to Nik Kershaw’s Wouldn’t it be good and Howard Jones’ Hide and Seek. Where in the depths of my brain have those lyrics been buried all these years?

There are the bands and artists I loved then – Spandau Ballet, U2, Madonna, Paul Young, Queen – and others that I couldn’t stand and was bored to watch back in 1985. It would take another two decades for me to appreciate the genius of Paul Weller, David Bowie, Elton John, and I look at their performances now with delight.

There is a notable lack of women – although more in Philadelphia than in London. We still have a couple of hours to go tonight, but so far, I’ve seen only Sade and Alison Moyet in London, and Madonna, Chrissy Hind and Joan Baez in Philadelphia. (Lily says, of Joan Baez, ‘That lady looks like you mum.’ That makes me happy). Alison Moyet, with that incredible voice, only comes on to support Paul Young. (Ahhh Paul Young. I was in love with him. A couple of months later, when I started secondary school, during a Geography lesson on the Irish fishing industry, my teacher, Mr. Byrne, asked if anyone knew the meaning of the word ‘proximity’. My hand shot up. ‘To be close to something,’ I said. Mr. Byrne asked me to put it in a sentence. ‘I’d like to be in close proximity to Paul Young.’ Mr. Byrne laughed. I laughed. The rest of the class realised they had a nerd on their hands. That was the first of many geography-based jokes that were to pop out of me over the next five years.)

Lily and Katie know a remarkable number of the songs and artists, mainly from watching series like Stranger Things and Glee and from being force-fed this music on car journeys. What is new to them is putting faces to the songs. I am struck that, from my ancient perspective, most of these musicians are barely older than my kids are now. So many of them are fresh-faced and speak with squeaky kid voices when they’re interviewed. I realise that even David Bowie and Bryan Ferry, who seemed ancient to me back then, were younger in 1985 than I am now. That’s sobering!

I’m struck by the simplicity of 1985 cutting edge technology – the giant TV cameras, all the musicians and cameras plugged into the mains and people working specifically to ensure the lines don’t get tangled. The stages in both London and Philadelphia are decorated like a stage at a village fete, and the methods for making donations are so antiquated that I can’t even begin to explain to the kids what bank giros and postal orders are.

But what is most striking are the musicians themselves. They look like normal people in a way that normal people today don’t even look like normal people any more. There are no veneers, no lip fillers, no botox, no hair plugs, no plastic surgery. There are two young women who pick up litter in my little village in Spain who have had more work done on them than all the musicians in Live Aid combined.

No-one appears to have a stylist or a wardrobe assistant. Madonna (Madonna! Have you seen that woman lately?) looks like she washed her hair and perhaps ran a hair dryer over it. No more. (She looks lovely) Steve Norman of Spandau Ballet looks like he’s wearing multiple layers of women’s blouses that he bought at Primark – probably because he did. And no stylist in the world would have let Bono out on the stage in that rig-out! There are mullets galore – I have never seen so many mullets in my life. People I didn’t remember having mullets, have mullets. And, I’m reminded of something I heard some time ago along the lines of ‘there must have been a shortage of conditioner back in the 80s’. There’s so much dry hair on display!

It’s a step back in time for me, to that very hot summer of 1985. It was so hot that we were allowed to not wear our uniforms during the last few weeks of school. It was a summer that I thoroughly enjoyed, and the build up and aftermath of Live Aid was a big part of that. We’ve a couple of hours still to go tonight, when the action will move exclusively to Philadelphia. I can’t remember who’s yet to come, but I’m looking forward to it.