Former Boomtown Rat and current saint, Bob Geldof, celebrates his 60th birthday today. These days he’s best known as the organiser of Live Aid and its successor, Live 8, but there was a time when he helped to pave the way for Irish success on the international music stage. Geldof formed The Boomtown Rats in Dublin just as punk was kicking off on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1977, the band’s first single finished just outside the top spot in Ireland and also the top ten in England. Lookin’ After Number One, musically and lyrically, had much in common with the ethos of punk rock. It opens with pounding drums and is followed by some thrashy guitar before Geldof’s sneering vocals enter. The narrator is out of work and angry with society, but is adamant that he’ll do his own thing. This ideology would also appear to be the singer’s and it wasn’t too long before he could be heard railing against the status quo on TV. The band continued to have hits, though their sound could be described as new wave on subsequent releases. In 1978, their second album produced the band’s first UK number one, though it stalled at number two in their own country. Rat Trap replaced the prominent guitars with saxophone and piano and the song was more influenced by Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen than punk. It’s basically a song The Boss might have written if he’d grown up in Dublin instead of Asbury Park
