Bob Geldof admits he thought U2 were horrible when he first heard them – but quickly changed his mind
The 66-year-old Dubliner also fondly remembers performing with Bono in a karaoke bar in Tokyo, when the U2 frontman spent an age deciding on what to perform
BOB Geldof has admitted he thought U2 were “absolutely dire” when he first heard them.
The Boomtown Rat recalled that he quickly reversed his view when he heard the classic New Year’s Day.
And the 66-year-old Dubliner also fondly remembers performing with Bono in a karaoke bar in Tokyo, when the U2 frontman spent an age deciding on what to perform.
Bob, who was speaking on a new BBC documentary — Smashing Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain & Ireland — said: “I think there is that soul in Bono, that giant soul. When you see him about to sing he does this . . . (takes a deep breath) . . . and out comes this huge voice. I went to karaoke with him one night in Tokyo. It’s karaoke, get a grip.”
Bob said he stepped up first to croon out Hank Williams’ Your Cheatin’ Heart, but Bono took more time over his selection.
Geldof laughed: “He picks Bread or some obscure band, Love or something, and he stands in front of us and starts giving it the whole Bono thing. And you’re like ‘what the f***, just sing normally’.
“But that is normal and he’s singing better than the song and you’re going ‘For f***’s sake, give it a break’.”
In the three-part series for BBC Four, Band Aid co-founder Midge Ure and pop singer Kim Appleby explore the music that came from Ireland and England in the golden decade of the 80s.
And it’s in the second episode of the series when Bob tells Midge he wasn’t impressed with Ireland’s biggest musical export when he first heard them as a young band straight out of school.
Bob recalled: “They were up for anything, they were kids, but I thought they were frankly dire. They would pretend they were punk stars. They absolutely were not. Stop it.”
But he said their 1983 classic changed everything.
He said: “All is quiet on New Year’s Day. What a great line that is because it is. They got there because they were seriously talented. They just needed time.”
The Live Aid founder also recalled the harrowing news report on the desperate plight of starving Ethiopian famine victims which triggered one of the most star-studded musical events of all time.
He said: “The images were so arresting in a sort of pornographic way . . . it riveted your attention.
“Personally, you couldn’t allow it to happen, you had to do something. All I knew was pop music.
“The only way we could make money within this narrow bank of time between October and November was a Christmas song but if the (Boomtown) Rats did it, it wasn’t guaranteed to be hit so that was futile.
“So, I thought I would call up people I had met over the last ten years in pop.”
The next day he went up to the Picasso café on the King’s Road in London to try and write words for this tune.
He said: “I saw Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet in the window of a shop called Antiquaries and he was perusing his arts and crafts, probably buying a new Godwin or William Morris.”
Kemp told how Geldof came into the shop and blurted out “this stuff about this incredibly moving documentary news clip he had seen the night before”.
And Bob remembered the behind-the-scenes shenanigans when the cream of 1980s superstars piled into Sarm Studios in London to record the iconic Band Aid song Do They Know It’s Christmas.
He and Ure had signed up the whole of the British pop aristocracy. And Geldof had also invited along the still relatively unknown U2.
Kemp said: “I remember all of us thinking ‘Why is that Irish group here?’ Because . . . you know . . . they weren’t as big as anyone else in the room.”
Boy George, who had just done a show with Culture Club in New York’s Madison Square Garden, was in bed at the Plaza Hotel when he got an animated call from Geldof, whom he had never met.
Bob recalled: “I said, ‘you have to be here’. I said, ‘get a car and get in a Concorde’. The laziest f*** in the world gets up, gets a car, gets on the Concorde and arrives about 6pm.”
Midge added: “He comes in and sings like an angel.”
The Scottish star recalls U2 didn’t have the cache they have today.
He admitted: “Bob invited his fellow Dubliners, U2, along, which didn’t impress all the megastars present. Bono was given the key line in the song, a line that helped take him to another level of stardom and it nearly didn’t happen.”
Geldof recalled how Bono was very unsure about singing the bluntest line in the song — “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.”
He said: “Bono said ‘Can I speak to you like, you know, are you sure this is what you mean?’ I said ‘Yes’ and he said ‘ but what you are saying . . . ’
“I said, ‘I know what I’m saying.’
“And he said, ‘you want me to sing that?’ I said, ‘Yes, bollock it out’.”
The music producer Trevor Horn later said he was blown away by the incredible range of Bono’s voice in the single line belted out emotionally by the Dubliner.
He remembered: “I said to somebody, ‘God who is the kid in the stove pipe hat, he’s got an amazing voice’. Of course (they) said ‘that’s the guy from U2, that’s Bono’.
It was the bestselling single for the whole of the 80s.
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Bob and Midge went on to dream up the stadium rock event of the decade with the superstar-studded Live Aid which raised millions.
Geldof stated: “There was an absolute commitment to the idea that music could . . . if not change things, could certainly influence change . . . rock’n’roll always offered other universes, other possibilities.”
SMASHING Hits! The 80s Pop Map of Britain & Ireland will be shown on BBC Four on July 13th at 10pm.