The Boomtown Rats, ‘Citizens Of Boomtown,’ UK Tour
Saturday 25 April 2020
Barbican
The Boomtown Rats will mark 2020 (The Year Of The Rat) with a UK tour to support their first new studio album since 1984 and singer Bob Geldof’s new book entitled, Tales Of Boomtown Glory.
Formed in Dublin in 1975, The Boomtown Rats became part of the burgeoning punk scene and went on to make history. Racking up 6 era-defining albums, The Boomtown Rats were the first Irish band to have a UK #1 with their hit, Rat Trap as well as their single, I Don’t Like Mondays, which went to the top of the charts in 32 countries.
Singer Bob Geldof’s defiant motormouth arrogance and flagrant disrespect for authority endeared him and his band to every youth who felt weighed down by the heavy handed blandishments of church and state. In the UK The Boomtown Rats first toured with the Ramones and Talking Heads, rocking and mocking the status quo alongside the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and The Stranglers. They became one of the biggest bands of the late 70s/80s with a string of top ten hits and platinum albums, earning them Brit Awards and Ivor Novellos.
In 1984, inspired by a TV report on the famine in Ethiopia, Bob Geldof organized the star-studded Band Aid and co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas," one of the biggest-selling singles in history. The next year he organised Live Aid.
When The Boomtown Rats took a break after 6 albums and countless singles it seemed the right time. They went off to their different lives. Bob Geldof made 7 solo albums. Then something pulled them back into each other’s orbit. It felt unforced, entirely natural and the rage and frustrations that drove the earlier incarnation of the band was no less tempered by time or life.
