And then - Mondo Bongo Tour '81 (pre-Toronto Gig)

Rats are proof that Rock can still make people mad
by Peter Goddard (Toronto Star)

The Boomtown Rats had all but wrapped up the European leg of the tour that brings them to Maple Leaf Gardens [Toronto, Canada] tonight and were pumping up the crowd at the House of Culture in Helsinki, Finland, when the police suddenly brought the show to a screaming halt.

The crowd, it seems, had left the seats and were pressing up towards the stage, something which worried the guards no end. The warning was out. The show wouldn't go on unless everyone calmed down. Well, everyone did - sort of. The concert was finished, certainly, but Bob Geldof, head Rat, was no sooner back in his hotel room when he was arrested, taken to police headquarters, questioned, strip-searched and then released.

But first, a small digression here. Tonight's show has not sold as well as its promoters had expected it to. All the original fans are still there, it seems. It's just that there aren't that many new ones. And if the truth be know, Mondo Bongo, the current album, has not provided the breakthrough this group from Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, has been looking for. The single, Banana Republic is a hit in Europe, however.

Are they dated?

Is it that the Rats seem a bit dated, a bit old, compared to all the really bright young things out there? Perhaps, but for and important reason, as is pointed out by the Helsinki run-in.

"When you're out on the road as long as we've been, a lot starts to get boring." Geldof said on the phone recently. "Even the business side of things, something that was interesting at one point, gets to be tedious. But there's never a question about getting up on stage. There's a kind of excitement there you can't get anywhere else. We're not some band like Foreigner or Blue Oyster Cult or whatever, doing the same show. To us it's always different. To us it matters."

And that's what makes this band dangerous in its way; each concert promises the unexpected. This is what make the Rats so important. They're proof that rock hasn't been totally assimilated yet.

Before rock 'n' roll became a matter of commerce and finance, a rock band was seen to represent a potential problem if not to kids, at least to their parents, and if not to property, at least to impressionable minds.

Rock was dangerous or nasty or anti-social (it didn't qualify as rock if it wasn't at least seen as anti-social) or obscenely sexy, or any or all of the foregoing.

A band wasn't a band unless some mayor somewhere vowed they'd never set up a drum kit in this town again (The Who); had done things too naughty to mention in the press (Jim Morrison in Miami; The Stones almost everywhere else); or supposedly led lives of incredible weirdness (David Bowie, The Sex Pistols, as well as countless others).

Of all the bands on tour today, only the Rats seems to stir up these old juices, It's not a question of wrecking hotel rooms or heaving the occasional $800 colour TV-set out of a 15th storey window. No The Rats and Geldof bother people, and it's for a reason that goes beyond the cocky, punky sound of their music.

A Sensation

The release of the single I Don't Like Mondays two years ago - a song referring to a comment by Brenda Spencer, a 17-year-old San Diego high school student who killed two people and wounded 10 with a rifle in her schoolyard - created a furore as parents, teachers and radio stations claimed it was sensationalist. The song was their biggest hit and merely spread the word among critics that this was an "abrasive" band and that lead singer Geldof was a "bit of a smart-alec."

Which he is, of course, and proud of it. The band was formed six years ago as a co-operative, with Johnnie Fingers on keyboards, guitarist Gerry Cott, bassist Peter Briquette, drummer Simon Crowe and guitarist Gary Roberts, along with Geldof, who, however, has emerged as its spokesmen.

Early gimmicks

They'd all walked out of or dropped out of various schools and jobs. Appropriately enough, they took their name from a gang of ne'erdo-wells in Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory. Early on, for instance they came up with a number of gimmicks, such as giving away various organs of the body as dance prizes. As one press release has it, "This type of behaviour wins press attention."

And if the singer has his way, it always will. This time around may be the band's last for a while, mainly because as Geldof said "Things shouldn't be too repetitive. So much has changed over the past four years and you get to a point where so much has become unnecessary. I'm sick of interviews. I've said what I've had to say. But never have I been tired of getting up on stage. I'd miss that terribly."

Credit: Michael Tutton of Canada
(see his band: Marni And The Men)

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