Bob Geldof doesn't believe there's a need for charity gigs

3 January 2018

Bob Geldof doesn't think there's a need for global charity concerts any more because of social media.

Bob Geldof

The Boomtown Rats frontman was instrumental in organising the Live Aid gigs, which raised money for famine relief, in London and Pennsylvania in 1985, and also the Live 8 concerts in the UK and South Africa in 2005, but doesn't believe the formats are an effective platform any more, though he finds online activity not as impactful.

Asked if he'd stage another international charity gig, he said: "I don't think that works now, there's a whole new age. You can do something, you can start generating stuff online now, whether that's as effective immediately or not.

"It's a terrible bromide at the same time being online, because your rage evaporates into the ether.

"And it's very useful for authority, because if everyone in this room had a bee in their bonnet right now, they could all go online and get 1,000 followers.

"The dissemination of the medium has meant the dilution of the message."

The 66-year-old singer has also rallied a string of famous musicians for various incarnations of supergroup Band Aid to raise money and awareness over the years, but he admitted it can be "tiring" trying to get people involved.

He told Ireland's Independent newspaper: "It's just life you know. It's just tiring, I'm tired.

"It's really c**p having to ring people up and they're going, 'For f**k's sake it's Geldof'. And I don't mind when people say no, there's no pressure, literally no pressure.

"At a certain point it gets to the point where if you're out, then you're not happening."

The 'I Don't Like Mondays' hitmaker doesn't think music can be a vehicle for social change in the same way that punk rock and hip-hop have been in the past.

He added: "I'm not sure that it is. Punk was music with intent, you know. I wrote 'Looking After Number One' while on the dole in Dún Laoghaire at a quarter past nine, in November.

"Calling yourself The Clash, calling yourself the Sex Pistols, calling yourself The Stranglers, calling yourself The Damned, calling yourself The Rats, I mean there's clear purpose going on there."