Billie Eilish performs onstage with Billie Joe Armstrong of Inexperienced Day in the course of the FireAid Profit Live performance on January 30, 2025 in Inglewood, California.
Scott Dudelson/Getty Pictures for FIREAID
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Scott Dudelson/Getty Pictures for FIREAID
When wildfires broke out throughout Los Angeles final month, greater than 16,000 properties and buildings had been destroyed, and not less than 29 individuals misplaced their lives. Native officers emphasised the unprecedented nature of the fires. And on condition that the catastrophe devastated town the place so many inventive industries are primarily based, it did not take lengthy for actors, musicians and different leisure trade leaders — together with many who had been personally impacted by the wildfires — to bounce into motion.
On Jan. 30, the FireAid profit live performance passed off on the Intuit Dome and Kia Discussion board in Inglewood. Greater than 30 artists, together with Olivia Rodrigo, Rod Stewart, Dr. Dre and Joni Mitchell, took turns performing; comedians like Billy Crystal — who misplaced his house within the fires — and Quinta Brunson additionally addressed the viewers. Brunson, who performs a instructor in her hit ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary, launched Glendale Excessive College instructor Aurora Barboza Flores, who shared how she’d spent a long time saving up for her Altadena house, solely to have it burn down.
Aurora Barboza Flores and Quinta Brunson communicate onstage in the course of the FireAid profit live performance for California hearth reduction in Inglewood, California.
Amy Sussman/Getty Pictures for FIREAID/Getty Pictures North America
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Amy Sussman/Getty Pictures for FIREAID/Getty Pictures North America
In a press release shared with NPR, a spokesperson for the LA Clippers, which collaborated on the manufacturing of the profit live performance and offset working prices, mentioned that mixed ticket gross sales, merchandise gross sales, sponsorships and donations are anticipated to exceed $100 million for wildfire reduction. The estimate consists of non-public presents from the Eagles, U2 and music government Irving Azoff and his spouse Shelli. Clippers proprietor Steve Ballmer and his spouse additionally matched all pledges made in the course of the broadcast.
FireAid continues to be accepting donations on-line, so the overall amount of cash raised is predicted to continue to grow. The funds, administered by way of the Annenberg Basis, will assist with quick restoration efforts and long-term preventative measures throughout southern California.
“The FireAid Grants Advisory Committee, composed of longtime LA-region philanthropic leaders with deep relationships within the non-profit neighborhood, have been working to establish key areas of want for optimum influence,” reads the assertion. “Led by the Annenberg Basis, the committee has been listening each day to affected communities, assessing native useful resource gaps to make sure help reaches these most in want, and researching the dealing with of different hearth disasters, equivalent to these in Maui and Northern California. The primary section of grants [is] anticipated to be awarded by mid-February.”
The Grammys, which had been held in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, took an analogous strategy. Earlier than the ceremony, the Recording Academy introduced that though many events and occasions main as much as the awards ceremony had been canceled in gentle of the wildfires, it could have been too large a blow to the native financial system to cancel or postpone the present. As an alternative, the 2025 Grammys closely targeted on honoring town of Los Angeles by way of performances, video packages, ads and speeches from many Angelenos who acquired main awards, together with Kendrick Lamar. Although the Academy has not shared a ultimate tally of how a lot cash was raised in the course of the broadcast, host Trevor Noah talked about that greater than $7 million had been pledged in donations in the course of the ceremony.
A legacy of superstar live shows – and issues
The Los Angeles wildfire reduction efforts comply with within the footsteps of an extended legacy of superstar charity live shows. In 1971, George Harrison and sitar guru Ravi Shankar organized the Live performance for Bangladesh at Madison Sq. Backyard. On the time, the area in South Asia confronted a humanitarian disaster on account of pure disasters and a months-long struggle that resulted within the creation of Bangladesh in what was previously often known as East Pakistan.
“There are six million displaced Bengalis, most of them affected by malnutrition, cholera and in addition different illnesses which can be the results of dwelling beneath probably the most dehumanizing circumstances,” former All Issues Thought of host Mike Waters reported in July of 1971.
George Harrison, left, performs with Jesse Ed Davis on the Live performance For Bangladesh at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York on Aug. 1, 1971.
Jim Wells/AP/AP
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Jim Wells/AP/AP
With Harrison’s Beatles star energy behind him, the Live performance for Bangladesh represented the primary superstar profit present of its sort. The live performance featured performances from over a dozen artists, together with Harrison, Shankar, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. It raised round $243,000 for UNICEF — however it additionally bumped into its justifiable share of challenges.
“The massive drawback with Bangladesh was that they hadn’t picked the charity earlier than the occasion. Due to this fact, all of the charitable breaks you’d have, all of the tax breaks you’d have usually with a charitable occasion, did not apply,” music journalist Graeme Thomson informed Morning Version in 2021, on the fiftieth anniversary of the live performance. “There was an enormous amount of cash that A, went lacking and B, went to the taxman.”
In 1985, the Los Angeles Occasions reported that almost $10 million raised by way of the live performance, its subsequent dwell album of the identical identify and a documentary had been held up by the IRS for greater than a decade. Regardless of bureaucratic delays, the Live performance for Bangladesh continues to have an effect at present by way of the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF, which helps applications in Bangladesh and has additionally supplied help in Angola, Romania, India, Haiti and Brazil.
On a extra philosophical degree, the Live performance for Bangladesh additionally sparked a bigger motion of Western artists shining a highlight on humanitarian crises world wide. Harrison and Shankar’s live performance served as a mannequin for 1985’s Stay Help, which featured performances by Queen, Paul McCartney and Madonna and raised greater than $100 million for famine reduction in Ethiopia. A remark made by Bob Dylan throughout that occasion sparked the creation of Farm Help, an annual profit live performance for American farmers.
