(I Never Loved) Eva Braun
Like Clockwork
Neon Heart
(She's Gonna) Do You In
Someone's Looking at You
Joey's on the Street Again
Banana Republic
She's So Modern
I Don't Like Mondays
Close as You'll Ever Be
When the Night Comes
Mary of the 4th Form / I Wanna Be Your Man / Boom Boom
Looking After No. 1
Rat Trap
Diamond Smiles
The Boomtown Rats
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Despite recent tragic events, Sir Bob Geldof stole the show as The Boomtown Rats headlined the Wychwood Festival on Sunday night.
Croaky voice, snake hips and elephant trunk-like arms out in force, he cast an inspirational figure as he paced from one side of the stage to the other.
"I bet you're all UKIP supporters" he bellowed, leading to a chorus of boos from the audience.
He told the crowd he was wearing a fake snake suit especially for Cheltenham and referring to The Festival in March, said: "I know every year you get raided by Paddies. Well, we're the second wave"
The new-wave, punk-rock band played a mixture of crowd pleasers including Rat Trap, Banana Republic and I Don't Like Mondays and off the latest greatest hits album Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits, Like Clockwork, She's So Modern and Joey's on the Street Again.
After a number of encores, they ended with the song The Boomtown Rats.
It was an epic performance by Sir Bob, full of charisma and energy
Read more: http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Review-Boomtown-Rats-Wychwood-Festival/story-21173326-detail/story.html#ixzz3Jz1omCJk
Famously described as ‘licentious, festering reprobates’ and ‘leprous anti-establishment scumbags’, the band formed in 1975 and split in 1986 (Bob decided to go solo) before reforming last year for a reunion tour.
But why now?
“The money and the headline slot,” Bob says.
“It’s certainly not an exercise in nostalgia with a bunch of geezers getting together again to relive the good old days.”
Surely though he approaches gigs differently because of the passage of time?
“Everyone else was nervous (about their first gig back together) but I couldn’t wait,” he says.
“I wasn’t going to be a t*** about it like I was at 22 and embarrass myself like I did at that age.
“I do have to perform differently now, I tell more stories and anecdotes and generally talk more.
“It’s more intellectually stimulating and I’m more of a complete stage performer.
“But once the music starts the t*** side comes out of me again and the music seems to demand I behave like that.
“It may sound like mystical nonsense but it’s true and it’s a glorious racket.
“I thought actually, f*** me, these songs are great.”
“It was about the bitter, rage and frustration I felt,” he says.
“I was proud of that period, I wasn’t at the time but looking back there was this f****** manic energy and the sense that nothing was going to stop us.
“At the time you were just amazed you were there at all.”
It’s a refreshingly honest attitude – as are his thoughts on the trappings of fame.
“I told NME I wanted to get rich, famous and get laid,” he says. “It was meant to be provocative. I had been poor, it was s***.
“I was digging roads and I then I got a job in Canada on the way to dig for gold in the Arctic Circle.
“But I was shipped back because I was an illegal Irish immigrant and that’s when the band started. It might sound grand but rock and roll basically saved me.”
There’s real anger and menace in every sentence which comes out of his mouth like one long stream of consciousness.
Is he still angry now?
“For me 2014 is frighteningly like 1914 and I’d be very worried,” he says.
“There are echoes of 1914 with a thug like Putin.
“If I was a 20-year-old today I would be asking what the f*** is going on.
“At that age I was disgusted and angry and I still am.”
“But music does not have to be political, a love song can also express a sense of now,” he says.
In their heyday, the ‘Rats racked up a string of top 10 hits and made history as the first Irish band to have a UK number one release with Rat Trap.
But arguably it was another song which bagged the top spot – I Don’t Like Mondays – which remains their most memorable record.
“I wrote it the day it happened,” he says. “But it wasn’t about gun crime (although he believes the gun control laws in America are ‘an utter travesty’).
“A lot of people thought it was about having a hangover and going to work on Monday morning which it wasn’t but that’s fine with me.
“It was about crawling to America for the first time and there was this moral vacuum.
“She (the killer) said she didn’t have a reason. What struck me about the whole thing was that it was meaningless.”
Bob seems to have little time for small talk but entertains a conversation that can allow him to make a wider point.
“I wouldn’t have found fame without the songs,” he says.
Read more: http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Big-Interview-Bob-Geldof-Putin-fame-problem-Radio/story-21147121-detail/story.html#ixzz3Jz8oCSG4
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