Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To find the moment in Time when a movement started, you must have been prepared to have found the Time to listen in the first place; revolutions don’t just spring up overnight, they don’t appear randomly with no forward planning, they are dreams that can decades to come into fruition.
Bob Geldof at the o2 Academy, Liverpool, October 2014. Photgraph by Ian D. Hall.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
On a night like this…where the decades are rolled back, when the silent regret of Time sheds a tear for the lack of decency and improvement in the lives of those that inhabit the fragile Earth. In which the bullet and the bomb, the political scorn kicking downwards and the rise of a party in which right minded people should be doing all they can to make sure they never get a grasp on even a seat in the next election, let alone have a say in running the country. The Boomtown Rats returned to Liverpool and for those in the crowd at the o2 Academy old enough to remember, gave the type of performance for which audiences at Eric’s would have raved about for weeks on end.
After last year’s storming of the Isle of Wight Festival stage an exhilarated Bob Geldof said “It’s weird. I’d forgotten how powerful a band The Rats are!”
Others hadn’t. What was only meant to be a brief “re-grouping” turned into a triumphant sell out U.K. tour, a block-booked 2014 Festival season and now the announcement of ‘Ratlife’ the second half of The Boomtown Rats’ second coming. Taking in the towns missed out on their first jaunt and returning – literally by public demand – to the country’s major cities so thoroughly re-Ratted six months ago. Beyond nostalgia both press and audience agreed that those many classic Ratsongs had indeed stood the test of time morphing from the radical, upstart transgressive rage of the mid-70’s into tunes for the ages with a tragic contemporary resonance.
Rewind the 80s Festival – the world’s biggest 80s music festival, is back with three U.K. festivals during summer 2014.
The addition of an 80s festival in the North-West is a welcome surprise from the organisers who have put on blistering and exciting shows in Scotland and Henley-Upon Thames for the last few years. With Rewind North coming for the first time to audiences, the same electric like energy and heady mix of artists and musicians will be on show at Capesthorne Hall in Cheshire on Saturday 30th August and Sunday 31st August 2014.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
For those that found themselves in the company of Simon Crowe and Garry Roberts in the Bilston Robin 2 as they thrilled discerning audiences as part of From The Rats in August 2008 the thought that 4/5ths of The Boomtown Rats line-up would tour together during 2013 would have seemed like a dream that could never come true in a million years, an impossible fantasy you would have bet against from the start but slowly and surely the superb Garry Roberts and Simon Crowe have been joined by Bob Geldof and Pete Briquette and with the very talented Darren Beale adding a touch of youthful exuberance to the cause on guitar, The Boomtown Rats took the packed Newcastle 02 Academy and with just a couple of songs performed from a top notch set list, you could see that they had gone down a storm.
Originally published by L.S. Media. September 27th 2012.
The history of the Punk movement would not be complete without the influence of the bands that came from across the Irish Sea, took Great Britain by storm and who in one way or another become heroes to a generation that transcended politics and religion and yet who left their own indelible mark on the national conscious in the late 1970’s and early 10980’s.