Bob Geldof

(IR/UK)
rock, folk, pop

The former Irish punk is better known today as Britain’s most outspoken knight, the most effective helper of Africa’s poor people and the organizer of mega benefit concerts, like Band Aid,

Live Aid and Live 8. Now we get a rare chance to see that he also makes very soulful grown man’s folk rock.

After a growing up in Dublin, Bob Geldof worked as a music journalist in Vancouver, Canada, before returning to Ireland in 1975. There he started the Boomtown Rats and was their lead singer. The punky new

wave band had quickly two number one hits in England: Rat Trap (1978) and I Don’t Like Mondays (1979). When the band folded in 1986, Geldof wrote a bestselling autobiography Is That It? and made four

solo albums. As his active charity work takes his time, his latest record so far is 2002’s Sex, Age & Death. He has also published the book Geldof In Africa, much praised for its biting look at the

calamities that the black continent keeps facing.