Appropriate for a charity event televised all over the world, Bono opens the song with lines from Lou Reed's Satellite of Love.  (The band records the song as a b-side six years later during the Achtung Baby recording sessions.)

Bad is powerful, with Larry's loud bass drum blasting out the rhythm over the huge sound system.

Increasing intensity as the song progresses, Bono looks for a dance partner, gesturing to the crowd below.  While dozens anxiously push their way to the front, Bono trots around the stage.  He points down to show the security guards which girl to pick out, then impulsively jumps down onto floor level.  One girl is finally lifted over the barriers, and she falls into Bono's open arms.  The audience roar as they follow their slow dance on the screens.  Bono gracefully kisses her hand, leaving her as he climbs back onto stage to finish singing the song.

Continuing, he sings snippets of Ruby Tuesday, Sympathy for the Devil, and Walk on the Wild Side, successfully prompting the crowd to sing along.  He improvises, "Holly came from Miami, FLA, hitchhiked all the way across the USA, she could  hear the satellite coming down, pretty soon she was in London town...Wembley Stadium, and all the people went do-do-do-do..."  Bono finishes the song and, looking somewhat distraught, walks off.  The song lasted 13 minutes.

For an exhaustive transcript of the complete concert, click here.

Background text taken from U2: A Concert Documentary

The Edge reflected on the historic Live Aid concert during a recent interview for Guitar World Magazine.  Here's what he said:

GW: Let's go back to 1985 and your appearance at Live Aid, which turned a lot of young people on to U2. Some people, however, criticized you – and Bono's antics, particularly his forays into the audience – and perceived your presence as some sort of cynical career move. 

THE EDGE: The funny thing about that is, when we came off stage we were convinced that we had performed terribly. We were really depressed. The idea that we'd actually experienced a mutual epiphany of some kind with the audience at Live Aid was so far from our minds. We thought the exact opposite, that we'd played quite poorly. Bono had gone into the crowd, as he'd done so many times before, but on this occasion he felt it had been kind of clumsy and that generally the whole thing hadn't lifted up. 

I still meet people who talk about that show and how important it was. It's amazing that, at the time, those were not our thoughts or intentions at all.

 -- From Guitar World, January 1999.  Interview by Bert Van De Kamp / IFA

        MJ: Adam Clayton said that right after your Live Aid performance, the band wanted to pack it in. They were all so upset with the performance....

        BONO: We were very desperate, and depressed by it. The feeling was that I had just shot U2 in the head in front of a billion viewers. 
(laughs)...In retrospect, we feel it was valid. But at the time, we felt I had taken a real risk, and we didn't know if people would get it.
        See, I'm a songwriter first, a singer second, and a performer third. But sometimes the "performer" is the strongest side. Onstage I
often try to find a way to express a song other than the way I sing it.  That's probably though having a limited voice. Not being a great singer, or even a very good one at times, I would look for other ways. That's why I used those white flags: this idea of a flag drained of all color, the idea of surrender. If there was any flag worth flying, that was it.
        In the case of Live Aid, I wanted some way to make the feeling that people felt there visual: a symbol. So when I saw this African girl in the audience, she was shouting and shouting at me, calling and calling...I just impulsively jumped or fell over into this pit. She was being crushed, and bashed around a bit, and I just pulled her out. By
holding onto this person, I felt like I was holding onto the whole audience. It felt like holding onto everyone. It seems, in hindsight, that everyone watching it felt that. It actually was that for some reason.
        It's a risky business. I've thrown drums off the stage, pushed over PA stacks, burned electric guitars. I find myself resorting to these things. And I know now that it's pure insecurity about my insecurity about my ability as a singer.
 
-- from Mother Jones, May 1989.  Pure Bono by Adam Block.