Music
26 Aug 25

Bob Geldof presented with Austrian Gold Medal of Merit by President Alexander Van der Bellen

At a special ceremony in Salzburg, the Irish man who founded Band Aid and Live Aid was presented with the award by the man who has been President of the Austrian republic since 2016.

Bob Geldof has been presented with the Austrian Gold Medal of Merit by President Alexander Van der Bellen. The award is to mark the extraordinary humanitarian work done by Geldof, beginning with the founding of Band Aid in 1984 – work which has continued to the present day, with the Band Aid Trust cumulatively generating over £175million – the equivalent today to roughly $ 480million – which has been used to support a huge variety of initiatives in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa.

The award was presented at the amfAR Gala Salzburg last night.

The award is one of many which have been lavished on the Irishman over the years, reflecting the extraordinarily high standing he enjoys in the international community – including the Man of Peace Award, bestowed on him in 2005, which was voted by all living Nobel Laureates at the time.

Geldof himself has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on eight occasions – more than any other living person. He has been a key advisor on Africa to both Labour and Conservative governments in the UK, and to a number of US Presidents.

Among those there for the ceremony was the singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

"I just spent the weekend in Salzburg,” he said in an Instagram post. “I performed at Gery Keszler’s amazing amfAR Gala, which was a performance theatrical, surreal spectacle, where I not only played Mozart’s actual piano that he wrote The Magic Flute and The Requiem on, but the entire evening was also conceived around my Dream Requiem and Hoffmansthal’s Jedermann.

“The evening closed with the Offertorium played on Mozart’s viola by the insanely talented Lidia Baich,” he added. "Jeremy Irons and Ute Lemper did some of the narration of the Requiem.”

Wainwright also spoke of sitting next to Bob Geldof:

"Who got Austria’s second highest civilian award and gave the most powerful speech at the Gala,” the Canadian American singer-songwriter added.

“Boy, did Salzburg pull out all the stops,” he concluded.

amfAR is a non-profit organisation dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic.