I thought U2 were dire...but they just needed the time
Geldof won over by Irish rockers Boom sticks out but Irish star swept all before him...
HATED BONO & CO’S EARLY WORK
with Culture Club in Madison Square Garden, was in bed at the Plaza hotel when he got a rollicking call from Geldof whom he had never met.
Geldof retorted: “I said you have to be here, I said get a car and get in a Concorde.
“The laziest f**k in the world gets up, gets a car, gets on the Concorde and arrives about 6pm.
Midge Ure added: “He comes in and sings like an angel.”
The Scottish star recalls U2 didn’t have the cache they have today. He said: “Bob invited his fellow Dubliners, U2, along, OUTSPOKEN musician and campaigner Bob Geldof is never far from the headlines. The Dubliner, who has lived in London most of his life, rose to fame as the singer with The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The other members of the original line-up were Garry Roberts, Johnnie Fingers, Pete Briquette, Gerry Cott and Simon Crowe. The band broke up in 1986, but reformed in 2013, without Johnnie Fingers or Gerry Cott. His charity work for Band Aid and Live Aid in the 1980s raised tens of millions of pounds for famine relief in Ethiopia. He was knighted by The Queen in 1986 for his fundraising. In 2006 he was given the Freedom of Dublin City for his humanitarian work. But in November last year he handed it back as a protest over Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi also holding the accolade. The 66-year-old had three children with his first wife Paula Yates, a journalist and TV presenter. which didn’t impress all the megastars present. Geldof and Ure went on to dream up the stadium rock event of the decade with the superstar-studded Live Aid which raised millions.
Geldof said: “There was an absolute commitment to the idea that music could if not change things, could certainly influence change and that to me is what rock’n’roll always offered other universes, other possibilities.”
Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain & Ireland will be shown on BBC Four on July 13th at 10pm.
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