Life
1954- [Robert Frederick Xenon; var. 1952]; b. 5 Oct. Blackrock [Dun Laoghaire
Hosp.]; g.s. of a Belgian cook who settled in Ireland, at one time associated
with Jammet’s Restaurant and later proprietor of the Swiss Cottage;
raised singly with his sis. Lynn by his father, a commercial traveller,
following the sudden death of his mother, at Merrion Ave., Co. Dublin;
ed. Blackrock College; worked as journalist; fndr. & lead-singer of
The Boomtown Rats rock-group (1975-86); moved to London, October 1976;
signed with Ensign Records; issued "Lookin’
After No. 1", debut single, August 1977, and reached No. 11 in the
charts, the first of ten subsequent singles to do so; released The
Boomtown Rats, LP (Sept. 1977), appeared on ITV, Nov. 1978;
released A Tonic for the Troops (Feb. 1979); toured US in 1979;
had mega-hit record with "I Don’t
Like Mondays", inspired by news-story of a high-school student Brenda
Spencer who shot her classmates in San Diego on 29th January 1979; banned
on US radio for reasons of legal jeopardy; issued The Fine Art of Surfacing,
LP (1979); toured Europe, USA, Japan and Australia, 1980; released Mondo
Bongo, LP (January 1981) and V Deep (1982) following the departure
of Gerry Cott; appeared in Pink Floyd's movie The Wall (1982);
m. Paula Yates; wrote with Midge Ure the song "Do They Know It’s
Christmas?" which was played by Band Aid comprising 36 leading pop-stars,
selling 7 million copies for famine-relief in Ethiopa, 1984; dg. Fifi
Trixibelle, b. 1984; organised Live Aid concert in London (Wembley) and
Philadelphia, 13 July, 1985, raising more than £50 million world-wide
for famine-relief by telephone phone call-ins; met Mother Teresa at Addis
Ababa, Jan. 1985; knighted in 1986; issued Is That It? [1987],
autobiography; Peaches Honeyblossom, b. 1989; Pixi, b. 1990; separated
from Yates
1995; custody issue resolved in his favour by courts; became successful
media entrepreneur and fndr. of Planet Twenty-four which launched Chris
Evans in "The Big Breakfast"; Geldof meets Jeanne Marine in Paris, 2001; appeared at National
Event Centre, Killarney, Nov. 2001, his only gig in Ireland in 2001.
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Works
Is That It? [1987]; trans. into German by Clara Drechsler and Harald
Hellmann, as So War’s - Kindheit und Jugend in Dublin: Die Boomtown
Rats; Band Aid und Live Aid (1987), 476pp.
- Barry Egan, ‘Coming back from the edge’ [interview article with Bob Geldof], Sunday Independent, Feb. 10 2002
- Gerry Agar, Paula, Michael and Bob: Everything You Know is Wrong ([London:] Michael O’Mara 2003), 272pp. +24pp. col. photos.
Notes
The Boomtown Rats was made up of Bob Geldof, vocals; Johnnie Moylett
(aka Johnnie Fingers), keyboard; Gerry Cott (guitar); Garry Roberts, guitar;
Patrick Cusack, aka Pete "Briquette"; Simon Crowe, drums; and
named after a tag in Woody Guthrie’s
novel Bound for Glory having first been called "Nightlife
Thug".
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)