Mixing punk's raw drive with new wave's refined edge, the Irish rock group the Boomtown Rats secured a run of U.K. hits that established their commercial standing from the late 1970s into the early 1980s. Their reach in the United States remained limited outside the single "I Don't Like Mondays," although frontman Bob Geldof emerged as a globally prominent activist through his leadership of the charitable supergroup Band Aid and his organization of the massive 1985 Ethiopian relief concerts Live Aid, on whose stages the band also appeared. The ensemble disbanded in 1986 yet reassembled in 2013 for repeated tours, ultimately issuing their seventh album, Citizens of Boomtown, in 2020.
The Boomtown Rats originated in 1975 in Dun Laoghaire, adjacent to Dublin, when former journalist Geldof joined forces with keyboardist Johnnie Fingers, guitarist Gerry Cott, lead guitarist Garry Roberts, bassist Pete Briquette, and drummer Simon Crowe. Initially operating as a pub rock act, they adopted their name from Woody Guthrie's novel Bound for Glory. October 1976 brought the collective to London, where they aligned with the punk and new wave movements. Under contract with Ensign Records, they issued their first single, "Lookin' After No. 1," in August 1977, beginning a sequence of nine consecutive U.K. Top 40 entries.
Their self-titled debut album arrived in September 1977 on Ensign in the U.K. and Mercury in the U.S. The follow-up, Tonic for the Troops, surfaced in June 1978 domestically and contained their opening U.K. Top Ten single, "Like Clockwork." Later that year "Rat Trap" ascended to number one, while the American version of A Tonic for the Troops reached Columbia in February 1979 after two tracks from the first album replaced selections on the British edition.
The band's next U.K. chart-topper, "I Don't Like Mondays," arrived in summer 1979; drawn from a California teenager's shooting spree and her offhand use of the title phrase, the song appeared on the October 1979 album The Fine Art of Surfacing and became their sole U.S. singles-chart entry, accompanied by the further U.K. Top Ten hit "Someone's Looking at You."
November 1980 brought the final U.K. Top Ten placement with "Banana Republic," followed in January 1981 by the fourth album, Mondo Bongo. Guitarist Gerry Cott then exited, leaving the group a quintet. V Deep emerged in Britain in February 1982; Columbia first offered only a four-song EP drawn from it before releasing the complete LP in September, when it failed to register on American charts. That same year Geldof appeared in the film Pink Floyd: The Wall.
Columbia presented the six-song anthology Ratrospective in March 1983 yet declined the newly recorded sixth album, In the Long Grass, which Ensign issued in England. In 1984 Geldof and Midge Ure composed "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and assembled the all-star Band Aid to record it for Ethiopian aid, producing the biggest-selling single in U.K. history. Geldof next coordinated the dual Live Aid concerts staged on July 13, 1985, in London and Philadelphia. Heightened visibility prompted a delayed U.S. release of In the Long Grass, but its lack of chart impact left the Boomtown Rats without a label. After the band dissolved in 1986, Geldof began a solo career with Briquette continuing to work alongside him, while Crowe and Fingers pursued their new project Gung Ho.
The band's catalog received remastering treatment and a best-of compilation in 2005. In 2013 the Rats formally reunited to tour behind another anthology, Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits. Although Fingers and Cott opted out of the reunion, the quartet of Geldof, Roberts, Briquette, and Crowe maintained occasional touring through the decade and later returned to the studio. Citizens of Boomtown, their seventh studio album and first since 1984, appeared in early 2020. Lead guitarist Garry Roberts died on November 9, 2022, at age 72.
