The Concert for Bangladesh
The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide and the 1970 Bhola cyclone. The concerts were followed by a bestselling live album, a boxed three-record set, and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972.
Poster outside the Madison Square Garden box office, July 1971
The Madison Square Garden marquee, pictured in 2011
Ravi Shankar (pictured in 1969)
Scene from the concert
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis.
Live 8, a large, international series of benefit concerts staged in 2005
The Concert For Bangladesh (1971), the first modern, large-scale benefit concert
Bob Geldof, who led the Live Aid event in 1985
