The Boomtown Rats, Fringe by the Sea review: 'still towering and energetic'
Bob Geldof and Co played this Wednesday night Fringe by the Sea show with all the energy of a Saturday night gig, writes David Pollock
The Boomtown Rats, Big Top, North Berwick ★★★★
As he famously demonstrated with Live Aid in 1985, Bob Geldof is a very persuasive man; and as proven by this date at North Berwick’s Fringe by the Sea, played on a Wednesday with the energy of a Saturday night gig, the white-haired 73-year-old is also no stranger to convincing a live crowd to eat out of the palm of his hand.
The set began with Rat Trap, their glorious 1978 hit, here shorn of its propulsive saxophone but still sounding great. With the crowd warmed up the band took a little time to catch up, working through (I Never Loved) Eva Braun, the jagged broken glass post-punk rattle of Like Clockwork and the U2ish pub rock of Neon Heart.
(She’s Gonna) Do You In and Someone’s Looking At You came with extended, Doors-like, apparently improvised spoken word excursions (at one point we were invited "down to Dunbar and back again… down to the high street… down to the harbour"), and it’s clear Geldof – still towering and energetic, but in shorter bursts than 40 years ago – is as much influenced by Jim Morrison as anyone.
Just before the midway point in the set, he paused for breath and a moment of connection. “On a night like this, all of us together and alive on a midsummer’s night, does it get any f***ing better?” The familiar piano glissando intro of I Don’t Like Mondays began, and a roar and a sea of cameraphones went up, pausing only when Geldof expertly held a long moment after the “…how to die” line. He used the gap to dedicate the song to those suffering in Gaza and Ukraine.
The next level had been reached, and on they went, through the angry Against the World, the bouncing new wave of She’s So Modern, the reggae excoriation of Ireland’s politics in the 1970s Banana Republic, and ending with the band’s upbeat, recently-recorded new theme tune The Boomtown Rats and a seemingly spontaneous but actually well-planned encore of Rat Trap (again). Not for the first time, Geldof convinced everyone to get involved.
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