Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The label of punk was far reaching, and unlike today where the meaning of that four-letter word has been accepted as part of a mainstream crowded with adjectives and add-ons to make it sound all encompassing, in the 70s it was the visual and aural defiance that meant fear to those that couldn’t grasp that the old, tired, archaic ways had to die, and for those it touched, for those who saw it for the brave, boundless and dynamic beauty it was, it was, and remains, the pivotal moment that defined a generation’s defiance.
Punk was arguably never just about music, it was an attitude, the two-minute track played on the radio was just the tip of the assertive iceberg, it was what lay underneath that scared the establishment, the staid, the silent conservative outlook, and most of all the rotten and dogmatic state of politics and religion that crushed all underfoot in Ireland.
If England was undergoing its own small youth revolution in an era that was passing between abject beige and the mindless assault of dogma to come, then Ireland in the mid-70s was a minefield, a proverbial one blighted several horrors, none more so than horrendous unemployment and rising poverty, and the emigration of many of its young, its future, its vibrant souls with anger within them.
England may have had The Clash, America its New York Dolls, but it was undoubtedly Ireland’s The Boomtown Rats that spoke to the inner feeling of resentment at the way the state and the church had handled the post-war lives of people, partly grounded in R ‘n’ B, justified in the fury and bitterness, six men became founding fathers of Boomtown and as albums, hits, drama, the wedge that split them apart and a triumphant return that had its own surprise fledging rebirth in the Black Country town of Bilston, the Citizens Of Boomtown broke the trap that had been set millions of teenagers and those coming into their formative years with grace, pressure and erudite, literary anger.
Citizens Of Boomtown: The Story Of The Boomtown Rats is art in itself, a passionate frankness that sees the four remaining members of the band, Garry Roberts, Bob Geldof, Simon Crowe and Pete Briquette, and with vocal contribution by Gerry Cott, talk openly about the way the band came together, how the lack of opportunity, of a deeply and antagonistic Catholic Church, shaped their own fire and drive to the point where it seems now that it was all ordained, not by a celestial being with a plan and the sermons of police and priests, but through personal industry, outstanding lyrics, and a sound that even now sends shivers down the spine, caressing the pulse of the soul and asking the listener to believe in number one as well as those that are downtrodden by public insistence of adhering to their station in life.
Whilst a retrospective can never truly capture the magic of the initial moment in which a band first took a tentative foot on stage, Citizens Of Boomtown: The Story Of The Boomtown Rats has enough within the biopic to make you understand the sense of glory, the sheer magnetism, the pull of just how wild, free and against the system the group were. Whether you were fortunate to see them in Dublin as the cult of authority tried their upmost to pull the plug, or if you were at the Bilston Robin when Simon and Garry tentatively played a set of early classics with From The Rats, what matters is at some point you have understand that the music, the lyrics are Irish art at its very best, competing with Joyce, Shaw, Beckett, Wilde and Brendan Behan, and in a very modern sense framing a generations thoughts and dreams with a sense of drama and learned appreciation that can ever be gained from sitting behind a desk and typing words for a living.
Citizens Of Boomtown: The Story Of The Boomtown Rats, art, industry and an attitude all rolled in a blinding light, a real tonic for the troops who need to be shown that now, more than ever, a revolution of the mind needs to take place.
Ian D. Hall