Boomtown Rats to reform for Isle of Wight Festival (From Daily Echo)
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Bon Geldof and Boomtown Rats to play together for first time in 26 years
8:17am Monday 28th January 2013 in Music News
Boomtown Rats to reform for Isle of Wight Festival
THE Boomtown Rats will reunite on stage for the first time in 26 years at this year's Isle of Wight Festival.
Playing together for the first time since 1986, Bob Geldof will take to the Main Stage with the other five band members for the UK festival exclusive, on June 16.
Formed in 1975 in Dublin The Boomtown Rats played their first UK shows with the Ramones and Talking Heads and fought the punk wars alongside the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and The Stranglers.
They were one of the biggest bands of the late 70's and 80's with a string of top ten hits and platinum albums, earning them Brit Awards, Ivor Novellos and Grammy Awards along the way.
Making history as the first Irish band to have a UK number one hit with Rat Trap, they went on to score another top single in 32 countries with I Don't Like Mondays and racked up six chart topping albums.
Bob Geldof said it will be a priveldge to perform at the festival with his old band mates.
He said: “Playing again with The Rats and doing those great songs again will be exciting afresh. We were an amazing band and I just feel it's the right time to re-Rat, to go back to Boomtown for a visit.
“Also, I've always fancied playing the Isle of Wight Festival ever since I hitched there in the good/bad days when I was a kid.
“I saw The Who, Doors - I think - Hendrix and Leonard Cohen, who incidentally blew Hendrix off the stage, and Kris Kristofferson, who was also amazing.”
John Giddings, the Festival's promoter, added: “It's great they have chosen the Isle of Wight Festival as their reunion. Our audience will love them, their catalogue is classic.”
Comments(5)
geoff51
says...
3:57pm Mon 28 Jan 13
If you had not become involved in live aid you would have dissapeared without trace years ago.
While you are at it smarten up yourself you are scruffy and unwholesome.
pushamara
says...
8:02pm Mon 28 Jan 13
geoff51 wrote:Funny, he said the same thing about you.....
Dont bother Sir? Bob you were a talentless bunch of tuneless nomarks who made one poor hit record.
If you had not become involved in live aid you would have dissapeared without trace years ago.
While you are at it smarten up yourself you are scruffy and unwholesome.
geoff51
says...
8:59pm Mon 28 Jan 13
stuartjebbitt
says...
11:02am Tue 29 Jan 13
St Retford wrote:The clue is in the prices - only people over 30 can afford to go (remember you've also got to factor in ferry costs).They know who their market is.
Christ, the whole festival circuit has just become this big long trench of nostalgic landfill. Are there any festival headliners anywhere in the UK that are under 30?
Everywhere you look it's Boomtown Rats this and Stone Roses that plus Pulp and Blur and whoever else. Nothing against these bands but their heydays were before the 'kids' of today's festival market were even born. I kind of feel sad for them - they're the first generation to grow up without any meaningful bands of their own.
When I was in my 20s, festivals were around £10 tops. I remember going to the very first guilfest and it was £5 entrance. You wouldn't get a pint of overpriced festival beer for that now.
St Retford says...
12:27pm Mon 28 Jan 13
Everywhere you look it's Boomtown Rats this and Stone Roses that plus Pulp and Blur and whoever else. Nothing against these bands but their heydays were before the 'kids' of today's festival market were even born. I kind of feel sad for them - they're the first generation to grow up without any meaningful bands of their own.