Tuesday 5th December 2005, Perth Concert Hall.
Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Kofi Annan – they’ve all sat up and taken notice of what Bob Geldof has had to say to them at one point or another. Well, there’s now a noisy young lady somewhere in Perth who can proudly add her name to that list. They say that when Sir Bob tells you to do something, you do it – and when he broke out of cheery entertainment mode to tell her to “shut the fuck up or get out”, this jabber-mouthed local was thankfully able to take the subtle hint.
It was a minor incident at this gig (the only Scottish date of Geldof’s current tour), but in a funny way it could be said to sum up the man’s stage persona. One moment he’s merrily singing the line “I don’t mind at all”, the next he’s threatening to call the heavies on a 20-something girlie for shouting out “play ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’!” once too often. A charitable sort of bloke he may well be, but get on his wrong side at your peril.
Of course, Little Miss Talkstoomuch was really only saying what half of the room was thinking, and poor ol’ Bob knows it. Eleven songs in, he and his band had already finished playing “Mondays”, and there seemed to be a hint of genuine exasperation
You see, for all his global fame, the vast majority of Geldof’s music is still largely unknown by the bulk of the record-buying masses. Based on this showing, that’s perhaps a bit of a shame, because his songs are certainly no worse than many of the other ditties to have seeped successfully into the public consciousness over the last few decades.
Okay, so a lot of his numbers are really just inferior versions of “Rat Trap” – but there’s no shame in that. “Rat Trap” is a terrific song, it provided a great ending to this set, and it had everyone in the room up on their feet dancing around like the future of the Third World depended on it. Yup, even that girl in the front row.
Gary Panton.
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