His mother died when he was seven. His father, a travelling towel salesman, was only present at weekends. Geldof was looked after by his two big sisters but essentially took care of himself: fetching coal, heating soup, reading books, listening to the wireless.
The solitary boy became a remarkable young man. Astute, distrustful of authority, compassionate, complex, intense, occasionally obnoxious, curiously sensitive.
In he teamed up with some local musicians and won worldwide success as the lippy frontman of a chippy punk band. The Boomtown Rats are ready, once again, to rock. For six years, Geldof was a pop star. But his life changed irrevocably when at 33, with the Boomtown Rats faltering and his first child in nappies, he responded to a harrowing report on African famine. The seeds of Live Aid sown, history was about to happen. Not bad. Not what I intended but fantastic.
After Live Aid, Geldof became the most famous man on the planet. And the grumpiest. And people stuffing fivers in my pockets. It was everyone. Young professionals wept openly on meeting Geldof, babies were proffered for blessing, bug-eyed assertions that Bob was the Son of God were commonplace, cabbies would become dumbstruck. Geldof started to question his own sanity. Geldof commences the pocket-patting Macarena of hotel key holders the world over.
The Boomtown Rats in the 70s. Bob Geldof has returned to Ireland. His relationship with the auld sod was always troubled. He has raged against those in the corrupt corridors — and aisles — of power since he could speak. They, in various ways, have tried to silence him. The audience growls its approval, arms curling protectively around loved ones.
The performance is potent and poignant. Later I ask if Geldof had experienced first-hand any of the child abuse the song alludes to. In my troop there was a guy who was done. In the laundries.
And this dreadful silence. If you said anything you were dismissed as mouthy. Story of my life Bob in Ethiopia in Old ladies coming up and bursting into tears. It really isn't normal.
The accelerating development of artificial intelligence could change the future of humanity, he says, or else "wipe ourselves out, which is not off the cards". He likens the internet to Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, saying he might have "just been trying to make a buck", but the technology set off a chain reaction, democratising knowledge and changing politics and society.
I won't be around to see what happens, that's the only irritating thing about dying. I won't be around to see what happens next. He says his interest in computers goes back to the s. His firm's technology helps schools and parents to keep track of children. And he says he is keenly aware of the balancing act between keeping people safe and an overbearing sense of constant monitoring.
Geldof says he can't stand the "nonsense" of behaving as though all strangers are predators and says he hates it that adults are afraid of helping a child lost in the supermarket. But he says technology can help make sure that parents know when there is danger, like a pupil not arriving at school.
And it can block inappropriate websites. Geldof, peering through his shaggy hair like an esoteric springer spaniel, doesn't much resemble the other corporate tech sellers at the show.
He might be a businessman now, but he still has the sulphur of the heroic age of rock and roll, before pop stars became hedge fund kids with banjos. Some of the band have mortgages to pay. Geldof tells a funny story about doing a tour of schools with Talking Heads and the Ramones in All playing to schoolchildren in layered hairdos and flares. Did the kids go mad?
They could not get their heads around any of us. Especially not Talking Heads. They just stared and stared. The Boomtown Rats never fitted properly into punk — punk was too snobbily English to accept these young Irishmen in their over-wide trousers — but they did very well in the charts. Their songs were new wave as opposed to punk: overproduced, with uncool piano and saxophone.
But they were hooky and well constructed, plus their lyrics were about something. They told stories. This is another reason why Geldof agreed, last year, to re-form the Rats. And we went back afterwards, somewhat ruefully, because we thought it was over, and something happened. And we were ferocious. Still, the day before the Rats were due to play the Isle of Wight, he went on stage with a big German band called Die Toten Hosen the Dead Trousers , to get the feel of performing in front of thousands.
As soon as he slithered into that, he was there. The racket. And the rackety-ness, how it might fall apart at any minute. Record company people telling him he had to write a hit. We talk about singers who successfully negotiate getting older. Music is his first and longest lasting love, but he will never reach the heights of his heroes. Still, he has what none of those other songwriters has: another job. And because of this, he zooms about in the upperest of echelons.
He does this at the South By Southwest festival, at international business conferences, even at a launch for smart meters.
A few years ago, he started a private equity company, 8 Miles , that invests only in African projects, the idea being that the investors make money not in a couple of years, but a long time hence. He works with One , the foundation set up by Bono that campaigns to end poverty and preventable disease, mostly in Africa. Geldof is all about the big idea: the big move, the historical sweep.
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