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\nBob Geldof and Pete Briquette of The Boomtown Rats return to Technological University Dublin’s Bolton Street campus to unveil a commemorative plaque marking 50 years since the band\u2019s first gig at the venue<\/p>\n
The Boomtown Rats frontman, Bob Geldof, has recalled how he thought the band’s first gig at an Irish university fifty years ago was going to be a “disaster”.<\/p>\n
The Irish music legends are marking their special anniversary with a celebration at the very place where the band was formed – Bolton Street Technical College in Dublin\u2019s north inner city – now part of Technological University Dublin.<\/p>\n
This morning, founding members Geldof and Pete Briquette, who played their first gig at the university on 31 October 1975, unveil a commemorative plaque on the front of the historic building where it all began.<\/p>\n
Speaking on RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s Morning Ireland, Geldof recalled how the rockers quickly switched their name from The Nightlife Thugs to The Boomtown Rats on that fateful night five decades ago.<\/p>\n
“I never wanted to do it because I\u2019d never heard myself. I was in practice – we never called it a rehearsal,” he explained. “I was singing through a bingo microphone and they were playing really loud. I think the microphone was plugged into the bass amp – you know, like kids just playing.”<\/p>\n
\nBob Geldof and Pete Briquette of The Boomtown Rats return to Technological University Dublin’s Bolton Street campus to unveil a commemorative plaque marking 50 years since the band\u2019s first gig at the venue<\/p>\n
The 74-year-old I Don\u2019t Like Mondays hitmaker said he had never sung in a band before and thought the performance was going to be a mess.<\/p>\n
“I just thought, this is going to be a disaster,” he continued. “We got on this teacher\u2019s platform in the classroom – about thirty people there. I thought we should call the band The Nightlife Thugs, so somebody had written that on a blackboard. But I changed my mind the night before, and when we got up on stage it just kicked off.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I don\u2019t remember what we sounded like. Pete – the bass player – said that halfway through, he got really excited by this band that we didn\u2019t even know we were in, because we\u2019d never really heard ourselves. About halfway through we took a break, I went over to the blackboard where The Nightlife Thugs was written, and with one wild sweep I wiped it off and wrote The Boomtown Rats. And there we were.”<\/p>\n
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\nPete Briquette played at the university alongside Geldof on 31 October 1975<\/p>\n
When The Boomtown Rats first plugged in their guitars, Ireland was a country under pressure. The population was just 3.2 million, with unemployment soaring above 12% and only 1.1 million people in work. Inflation had reached 21%, with strikes serving as a soundtrack of the era, numbering 151 that year alone.<\/p>\n
When asked how it feels to be honoured at the venue where it all began, Geldof admits, “It’s still strange to me that I\u2019ve been able to make this life out of that sort of crappy band from D\u00fan Laoghaire.”<\/p>\n
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\nBob Geldof performing with The Boomtown Rats in 1970<\/p>\n
Geldof, who is also widely known for his humanitarian work, said The Boomtown Rats pushed back during a time of great social difficulty in Ireland.<\/p>\n
“Time telescopes itself, and I remember that period vividly – it\u2019s everything in between seems to get squashed up.<\/p>\n
“But without that gig at Bolton Street that Halloween night, you don\u2019t get the rest. You don\u2019t get the articulation and the rage about what was happening to Ireland and in Ireland, the sort of social sickness that was occurring.<\/p>\n
“There was this great silence – we all knew – but we said nothing. And then these kids from South Dublin decided, well, they would say something. Not consciously, but I was conscious of it. But the noise was one of rage and rejection of that. It was the beginning of a pushback against that.”<\/p>\n