February 2nd 1985 – Leicester University
In December 1984, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure did something truly amazing, something that has changed charity giving since. There was a human catastrophe in Ethiopia, a famine which was killing hundreds of thousands of people and had been going on since 1983. The guys felt things weren’t being done quick enough to help these people, so Bob set about doing something.
This turned out to be a Christmas song called “Do They Know It’s Christmas” which got together all the huge names in music to sing on it, Sting, Bowie, Elton John, Bono, George Michael, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Boy George….nobody turned it down! It was huge and raised millions.
This tour was Geldof getting back on the road with the Rats. Now, The Boomtown Rats were famous for “Rat Trap” (78) and “Don’t Like Mondays” (79) both released before I’d got into music, although I’d heard it on the radio and was fully aware of the music by now, but had never ventured to see them.
The Percy Gee Building at the Uni was a perfect venue, small, acoustically superb and the Rats still hung onto their punk roots.
The single “Dave” had just come out off the album “In The Long Grass”. The cynics felt Geldof was cashing in on Band Aid success, the fans (us), didn’t care if he was and actually it was a pretty good album.
Geldof is your typical cocky lead singer goading the crowd and interacting whenever he can with his brash Irish twang. Fingers on keyboards gives the music a great heavy rock keyboard and melody. Geldof was very under-rated and had a great Phil Lynott like voice with a snarly edge.
A great gig with a mix of the new album and the old favourites meant everybody had a great time and went home happy.
Set List
- The Elephant’s Graveyard
- Charmed Lives
- Lucky
- Neon Heart
- Nothing Happened Today
- Someone’s Looking at You
- Dave
- A Hold of Me
- Never in a Million Years
- I Don’t Like Mondays
- Hurt Hurts
- Rat Trap
- Drag Me Down
- Looking After No. 1
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