FRI AUG 10TH - CLITHEROE, The Grand Doors 7pm. £10 (advance)
http://www.thegrandvenue.co.uk/FeaturedEvents
The Boomtown Rats crawled into the semi-darkness of founder member Garry Roberts' kitchen in Dublin in 1975. Guitarist Garry and drummerSimon share a passion for raw R'n'B and rock music and have been playing together since they formed a band at school. Now, some three decades later, these Rats have returned to reclaim their lair as true pioneers of New Wave.
The Boomtown Rats began as a hard-hitting, guitar-driven Rhythm and Blues band with a straight up, stripped-down sound. Their first album was considered a classic R'n'B offering - likened to the early Stones and Dr Feelgood. Their debut single ‘Looking After Number One’ gnawed its way into the UK charts in 1977. This was the first of a succession of Rats' hits spanning the next decade.
The hits kept on coming, with ‘Mary Of The Fourth Form’, ‘She’s So Modern’ and ‘Like Clockwork’. Then, in 1978, the band released ‘Rat Trap’ which shot straight into the number one slot and remained in the charts for 15 weeks. ‘Rat Trap’ was the first New Wave Number One and the first UK Number One for an Irish group since The Bachelors 'My Diane' in 1964. The band's second album ‘A Tonic For TheTroops’ also went to number one, staying in the album charts for an amazing 47 weeks, and was voted the Number One Album by Melody Maker readers. The Rats were now well established.
1979 saw the massive international number one‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ followed by major top five hits ‘Diamond Smiles’, ‘Someone’s Looking At You’ and ‘Banana Republic’.The band continued having million selling albums and chart success up to 1986,when Bob Geldof left the band to pursue his solo career.
Garry Roberts and Simon Crowe, the dynamic force behind the Rats sound, have put their powerful alliance together once again to re-ignite and develop the essence of their music with its driving rhythms and meaty guitar riffs.
Their new band, Boomtown Rats Garry Roberts and Simon Crowe, performs all the classic hits, along with live favourites like ‘Joey’s On The Street Again’ and ‘Neon Heart’. Their music still holds its appeal and is a reminder of how this vital outfit is as relevant today as it ever was.
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