Last year I wrote a rather cynical column about the reworking of the Live Aid song, and questioned whether it had the same meaning 20 years later. Therefore I was somewhat surprised to find myself among the 200,000 people who converged on Hyde Park last week to watch the Live 8 concert.
Sir Bob had rung the week before saying: "C'mon Claire, I read your column every week and we need you to introduce Robbie Williams." Yeah, right.
I embarrassed myself on being offered a ticket to such an amazing event by coming out in a dose of the hives about toilet facilities and crowds, and then I thought about all the people without clean water and food, and why it was being done in the first place.
As the day got under way and band after band hit the stage, the atmosphere grew chilled to the point of it almost like being at Glastonbury - I even got a veggie burger. Then Sir Bob decided to remind us why we had come.
"What reason do you need to die?" he sang and suddenly stopped. Silence descended over the crowd. Then the original footage that inspired Live Aid in the first place was showed, portraying children collapsing through weakness, screaming with pain and hunger, and finally the image of a girl on the verge of death froze on the screen.
The veggie burger suddenly felt leaden in my gut, and across the crowd all the other well-fed faces had also stopped smiling. This was no Glasto; this was about thousands of children dying every day. "You're not applauding now, are you?" yelled Bob, before introducing the same dying girl, now a healthy young woman, on to the stage, and the crowd went wild. Her survival was what it was all about; aid had helped her to live.
At the end of the night we all left, footsore, exhausted and thoughtful.
Some may complain about Live 8 being nothing more than a collection of egos but it was only the beginning, and a catalyst for something much bigger. I hope by the time you read this, those eight people in Edinburgh will have worked together to make poverty for those children history.
Please let's not be doing it all again in another 20 years time.
