the boomtown rats tour

THE BOOMTOWN RATS

Many aeons ago, the prophets of Boomtown foretold of a rag-tag bunch that would spew from the retched stench of society's wastelands to emerge as rat revolutionaries, top dog adversaries and socio-political emissaries.

Their mission, to deny, deafen and conceptualise the world's understanding of itself. However, and as to be expected of these futuristic Boomtown Boomers, things didn't go to plan.

The elite team, heralded centuries ago as "the Boomtown Rats", was borne into existence in a surprising turn of events. As the Irish folk-rock sixsome of the same name figured themselves rockstar legends, the prophecy was fulfilled in a whirlwind of bleeding fingers, smoke-filled chests and extreme lapses in judgment. The year was 1975.

Behold now, the Boomtown Rats' interwebular communications platform - a cross-dimensional, sacrificial altar to the gods of olde Boomtown.

Consider this a place to envelope yourself in the fuzziness of four (sometimes six) rampaging rat rumps, their merch and all the latest from the Boomtown Rats.

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By pressing the button below, you'll be atomized and transported through interwebular time and space to re-arrive in the seventies and eighties.

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The Boomtown Rats tour dates 2024

The Boomtown Rats is currently touring across 1 country and has 4 upcoming concerts.

Their next tour date is at Powderham Castle in Exeter, after that they'll be at Scone Palace in Perth.

Currently touring across

Upcoming concerts (4) See nearest concert

Lets Rock Exeter

Rewind Festival Scotland

Let's Rock Wales

Hilworth Farm

Past concerts

Weyfest Music Festival

Let's Rock Northern Ireland

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Brilliant night! Was in the standing section and thoroughly enjoyed my night although i didnt enjoy it as much as seeing them in hollywood in the summer, it just didnt have the same atmosphere but they are an amazing live band nonetheless. Highly recommend going to see them!

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Bob Geldof’s never really been for everyone - I can still remember seeing a chap at a festival some years back wearing a t-shirt that referred to Bono in expletive terms on the front, and read “don’t get me started on that prick Geldof” on the back - but the relative merits of his charity work aside - and I for one think he deserves all the plaudits he gets for it - he is also, first and foremost, a musician. Last year, he reformed The Boomtown Rats after almost thirty years of inactivity - they split not longer after Band Aid and Live Aid ultimately came to overshadow them - and toured the UK with the same lineup that was together when they disbanded, minus keyboardist Johnnie Fingers. A UK tour of intimate venues - intimate for a star of Geldof’s proportions, anyway - met with superb critical reviews; the Rats tore through sets that afforded equal representation to their albums, and included classic cuts like ‘Rat Trap’ and ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. At most shows, a second encore was demanded, with the band acquiescing to the request with their eponymous ‘The Boomtown Rats’; so well-received were the shows, in fact, that another, longer run has been scheduled across Britain for October and November; too early for a rendition of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” - not that Sir Bob would dare drop that one in front of an old punk crowd.

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How Bob Geldof Resurrected the Boomtown Rats After a 36-Year Break

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

It’s been 36 years since the world last heard a new Boomtown Rats album. In that time, frontman Bob Geldof basically invented the all-star charity single with “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”; willed Live Aid into existence, raising millions of dollars for the victims of the Ethiopian famine in the process; and then spearheaded Live 8 20 years later. He also recorded seven solo albums, dealt with endless tabloid drama and tragedies in his personal life, and gigged on his own all over the globe.

Throughout all that time, he never gave much thought to a Boomtown Rats reunion until drummer Simon Crowe and guitarist Garry Roberts came to him in 2013 with an offer to perform at the Isle of Wight festival in England. The Irish band is largely remembered in America for their 1979 smash “I Don’t Like Mondays,” but in Europe they charted over and over with generational anthems like “Rat Trap,” “Banana Republic,” and “Lookin’ After No. 1.” Their legend grew with every passing year after the split, and the festival dangled a huge offer in front of them to get them back onto the stage.

“It came down to curiosity, vanity, and cash,” says Geldof. “The curiosity was, ‘Were we a good band?’ I always said we were, but you don’t know when you’re actually in it. The vanity was, ‘Yeah! Playing in front of 100,000 people! I’m going to be Bobby Boomtown again!’ And the cash is always handy. In retrospect, though, I just wanted to hear a fuck-off, big, glorious noise, which is how Bono described the Rats.”

Geldof has more experience with the delicate matter of re-forming long-dormant bands than just about any man in history. For Live Aid, he managed to talk the Who, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and CSNY into putting aside years’ worth of bad blood and reuniting. For Live 8, he one-upped himself by getting Roger Waters and David Gilmour to make peace long enough to play four Pink Floyd songs, which is an absolute miracle considering their history.

The situation in his own band, however, was far less complicated. The main issue, as Geldof tells it, is that Crowe had sold some less-than-flattering stories about him to the British tabloids a few years back. “When I answered the door to Simon at the first rehearsal, he said to me, ‘Dude, I’m sorry I hurt you,'” Geldof recalls. “‘I was broke. I needed the money.’ I said to him, ‘You could have just called me and said you needed money. It would have been fine.'”

The next issue popped up when Geldof told Roberts he wanted to play guitar as opposed to merely singing like in the old days. “He went apeshit,” says Geldof. “He said to me, ‘You can fuck off!’ It was like we were back in the summer of 1975. He said to me, ‘You look like a cunt with a fucking guitar.’ I was like, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ and I didn’t play guitar.”

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The latest incarnation of the Rats also features founding bassist Pete Briquette, who has played with Geldof in his solo band for decades. Original keyboardist Johnnie Fingers lives in Japan and declined to participate; rhythm guitarist Gerry Cott left the band in 1981 and didn’t come back for this go-round, though he did guest at a gig on the eventual reunion tour.

Once everything was smoothed over at rehearsal, the band kicked into their 1977 debut single, “Lookin’ After No. 1.” It’s one of their signature tunes, but until this very moment Geldof didn’t love it. “We rattle it off with big, vulgar chords, and I realize it’s a fucking great song,” he says. “I was in it. I desperately needed to be in that space that that noise puts me in. It sounds stupidly romantic, but did I thrill to it? Yeah, I did. Then we went to another one and I felt, ‘That’s not bad.'”

After a few warmup gigs, the band found themselves backstage at the Isle of Wight on June 16th, 2013. Geldof and Briquette were used to big crowds, but Roberts and Crowe hadn’t seen anything like this in years, even though they continued gigging together after the Rats under the moniker the Velcro Flies.

“Gary and Simon were shitting themselves,” says Geldof. “But the experience was entirely liberating and exhilarating and exhausting in the best way possible. I was utterly free and emotionally replete, psychologically complete and fulfilled, physically exhausted. And I was happy. No equivocation. No doubt. I was happy. And that’s not normal. And that’s the drug.”

The vast majority of the set was songs from several decades past, but Geldof never once felt the pangs of nostalgia while delivering them. “When I sing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ I’m not in in 1979,” he says. “I’m in last night’s school massacre, which nobody anticipated at the time. When I’m doing ‘Rat Trap,’ it’s not for the hopelessness of the people in that abattoir I wrote it in, but hopelessness now. When I do ‘Banana Republic’ it’s not for the Irish Republic, which eventually grew up and matured. It’s for the American republic as it descends ever further into political infantilism.”

“When I do ‘Lookin’ After No. 1′ it’s not about the conditions of life in 1979,” he continues. “It’s about Google and Facebook and [Mark] Zuckerberg always on, always monitoring, collating every thought you have, every friend, every choice, packaging and selling it to a third party who in turn exploits you and your preferences. It’s utterly now. That rage, that animus propels the Boomtown Rats .”

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The first time: bob geldof.

The show ended with a brand-new song that Geldof wrote just for the occasion. Appropriately enough, it’s called “The Boomtown Rats.” The throbbing, surprisingly danceable song is, as the title suggests, about the band itself, with lyrics like “I’m going to Boomtown/I’m going back … What’s happened here in Boomtown?/It’s those rats/Those rats/Those dirty, dirty rats!”

Seven years later, Geldof still vibrates with excitement when reliving the moment. “I was Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston going, ‘What’s my name? What’s my name?'” he says. “I had 100,000 people chanting ‘The Boomtown Rats!'”

The triumphant moment planted the seed for the band’s upcoming album, Citizens of Boomtown , which arrives on March 13th. The 10-track LP has the classic Rats sound, though with many modern twists. Briquette produced it, and the band started to record it at his house in the London neighborhood of Acton. “We essentially sat in a child’s bedroom,” says Geldof. “I feel much freer in a room like that than if there’s a fucking 24-track and engineers.”

Some songs were sketched out before work began, while others are created largely on the spot. For example, “Monster Monkeys” began when the words “Hey, Mr. Mojo with your moptop hair … monster monsoon monkeys are sucking out my brain” came out of Geldof’s mouth while the group was playing around with a “Sympathy for the Devil”–like groove. “When your subconscious is in a panic, it vomits phrases and images that don’t seem to work,” says Geldof. “Your fore-conscious grabs them because your mouth has to say something and the next minute your tongue and lips move and blurts it out.”

The sessions eventually moved to a studio near Gatwick Airport. They worked on more songs than they could fit in a single album, but Geldof was determined to limit them to just 10. “The art of the album is gone, but I’m old school,” he says. “I think an album is 10 songs. It’s like an art exhibition. They are the ones that best suit where I’m at today even though the painter will have made 50. It’s a single idea, and in our case it’s a single sound.”

The group is going to promote the album with a European tour shortly after the release. “We made this album for 2020,” says Geldof. “But I have doubt if anyone who loves Billie Eilish is going to want to come see us. What do we have of interest to see to those people? I would like to play festivals because I’d take on anyone and it’s a huge crowd. Maybe people will walk away and go, ‘Fuck, did you check out this band?’ That’s what I want.”

There are no plans, at least at the moment, to bring the group to America. They’ve never had a big following here, and all the big offers are from Europe, though an upcoming documentary might finally widen their appeal. Once the shows wind down, though, Geldof has no clue what’s happening next. “We’re all 965 years old,” he says. “We probably only have 18 months fucking left! The finishing lane is very clear at this point. But I do really want to play these songs live because that’s when songs are truly completed. That’s the final closing of the loop.”

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Boomtown Rats

Formed in 1975 in Dublin, The Boomtown Rats were once famously described as 'licentious, festering reprobates' and 'leprous anti-establishment more...

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The Boomtown Rats Concert Setlists & Tour Dates

The boomtown rats at tvornica kulture, zagreb, croatia.

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The Boomtown Rats at Lochore Meadows Country Park, Lochgelly, Scotland

The boomtown rats at weyfest 2023, the boomtown rats at rewind north 2023.

• Trash Glam Baby
• (I Never Loved) Eva Braun
• Like Clockwork
• Someone's Looking at You
• I Don't Like Mondays
• She's So Modern
• Diamond Smiles
• Lookin' After No. 1

The Boomtown Rats at Cavan Calling 2023

• (She's Gonna) Do You In
• Monster Monkeys
• Against the World
• Banana Republic

The Boomtown Rats at Let's Rock Shrewsbury 2023

The boomtown rats, the boomtown rats at let's rock southampton 2023, the boomtown rats at lets rock the moor 2023, the boomtown rats at butlins resort skegness, skegness, england.

• Mary of the 4th Form

The Boomtown Rats at Stone Valley Festival 2022

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• I Don't Like Mondays ( 127 )
• Rat Trap ( 127 )
• Like Clockwork ( 111 )
• Lookin' After No. 1 ( 110 )
• Someone's Looking at You ( 105 )

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Why The Boomtown Rats Are Back With First Album In 36 Years

The Boomtown Rats are preparing to release their first new album in 36 years

By Gary Graff

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The Boomtown Rats are preparing to release their first new album in 36 years — including the track “Sweet Thing,” premiering exclusively below. But frontman Bob Geldof says the long gap was not because of a breakup.

“We never broke up. We paused for 36 years,” the “We Are the World” and Live Aid organizer contends.

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“There’s just a sense that the music we had done and that attitude that produced the music was necessary again,” says Geldof, who’s released several solo albums during the interim. “It wasn’t that difficult, really. The only thing I said was ‘I’m not gonna do nostalgia.’ This has to be about now, about today. There’s nothing really for us to prove, but there still is something to say, and I’m sort of amazed and thrilled by that. Will anyone to be interested? I don’t know. Does that stop you from making music? Not at all.”

Formed during the mid-70s in Dublin and subsequently relocated to London, the Rats notched five Top 10 U.K. singles, hitting No. 1 with “Rat Trap” and “I Don’t Like Mondays,” the latter of which was also the group’s biggest U.S. hit. The group’s last album, In the Long Grass, came out during 1984. Briquette became a record producer and played in Geldof’s solo band, while Roberts and Crowe we had their own group, the Velcro Flies, and worked in other pursuits both in and outside of music.

The catalyst for the reunion, according to Geldof, was in invitation to play at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2013. “That was sort of throwing down a gauntlet, really,” Geldof recalls. “Had we been any good? Were we any good? Because you don’t know when you were a kid; You were just doing it, every single day. You’re aware you’re selling a lot of records, but you don’t know if you were any good or take that into account. So that was a chance for us to see what we had. And we killed it.”

The Rats went on to tour the U.K. and subsequently played other festivals, all the while working towards Citizens of Boomtown. “What bands do is they write new stuff. That’s the job, and that’s what we did,” Geldof says. “It’s this specific noise that this specific group of individuals make. It needed these exact individuals who seem to make the racket of the now for me. You can’t define that sound, but if you were to define it, it’s in this album. That’s what I heard when we started back up again.

“This is just pure attitude, not politics or anything like that. Attitude. That’s all rock n’ roll ever was. It’s semaphore. It’s code for ‘Fuck off!’ Y’know, ‘don’t step on my blue suede shoes — don’t fuck with me.’ That’s what we wanted to capture here, and what we did capture, again.”

The Rats begin the U.K. tour March 14 in Zagreb, with 11 dates wrapping up May 2 in Newcastle. Geldof is not holding out much hope for bringing the show across the pond, however. “I’d love that, but I don’t think we could get arrested in the States,” he says. “I would love to play at the big festivals there, or places like the Beacon (Theatre in New York), but I don’t think they’ll have us. I don’t want to do a club; That’s pointless. You never make money, and it takes six years to go and do all the clubs in America. So it’s a problem.”

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Boomtown Rats announce new 'Classic' album, UK and Ireland tour

The Boomtown Rats have announced details of a new UK and Ireland tour.

Sir Bob Geldof's band played on the main stage at the Isle of Wight Festival last night (June 16), and will embark on a new arena tour this autumn.

The jaunt will be proceeded by three gigs in July. They will play at Cork's Marquee on July 5, before appearing at Germany's Seenland Festival on July 7 and Devon's Chagstock Festival on July 20.

Starting on October 22 in Bournemouth, the main tour will take in 11 dates in total, ending in Birmingham on November 6.

The tour dates in full are as follows:

July: Friday 5 - The Marquee, Cork, Ireland Sunday 7 - Seenland Festival, Germany Saturday 20 - Chagstock Festival, Devon

October: Tuesday 22 - O2 Academy, Bournemouth Wednesday 23 - Corn Exchange, Cambridge Friday 25 - UEA, Norwich Saturday 26 - Roundhouse, London Monday 28 - O2 Academy, Bristol Tuesday 29 - Rock City, Nottingham Thursday 31 - O2 Academy, Leeds

November: Friday 1 - Academy, Manchester Sunday 3 - O2 Academy, Glasgow Monday 4 - O2 Academy, Newcastle Wednesday 6 - O2 Academy, Birmingham

The tour will be supported by new 'Best Of' album Back To Boomtown: ClassicRatsHits , to be released on August 5. It will also include two brand new tracks.

The tracklisting for the album is below:

1. The Boomtown Rats! 2. Mary Of The 4th. Form 3. (I Never Loved) Eva Braun 4. Neon Heart 5. Like Clockwork 6. She's So Modern 7. Lookin' After No. 1 8. Someone's Looking At You 9. Me And Howard Hughes 10. Joey's On The Street Again 11. I Don't Like Mondays 12. Having My Picture Taken 13. Banana Republic 14. Diamond Smiles 15. Rat Trap 16. Back To Boomtown

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