The Boomtown Rats gear up for their only Irish show announced in 2026 - and it's in Kilkenny this month!

Celebrating 50 years of internationally renowned Irish New Wave, The Boomtown Rats are gearing up for their only Irish show so far announced for 2026 in The Hub, Kilkenny on January 31.

This follows the release of their The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory. The collection spans from their debut single to their latest release, ‘There's No Tomorrow Like Today’. Tickets are available from www.theboomtownratsofficial.com, powertik.com and Ticketmaster.ie.

The Boomtown Rats' legacy is marked by their dynamic music and impactful contributions to rock history. Their 50th-anniversary highlights their lasting influence and connection with audiences old and new.

Long before Live Aid hero, Sir Bob and ‘conscience of the world’ Bob, there was a band called The Boomtown Rats fronted by  Bob Geldof along with his mates Pete Briquette on bass, Simon Crowe on drums, Garry Roberts on guitar, Johnny Fingers on piano and Gerry Cott on guitar.
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When The Rats arrived in London at the height of the punk explosion and found similar social conditions to those they had just left in Ireland (27% inflation, high unemployment, societal discontent) they fitted neatly in and were, thanks to their well drilled live sound and the considerable charm of their motormouth singer, an overnight sensation. Their debut single 'Looking After No 1’, taken from their 1977 debut album The Boomtown Rats crashed into the UK charts and was a sensation on their first TV appearance on the Marc Bolan show followed by a breakout performance on Top Of The Pops.

Their second album, A Tonic for the Troops (1978) featured the UK No 1 hit 'Rat Trap,' a powerful, lowlife narrative song, written by Geldof when he was working in an abattoir speaking to the hopelessness of an already doomed young couple that became the first UK chart-topping single by an Irish rock group and the first ‘new wave’ No 1. The album also included sophisticated songs like ‘(I Never Loved) Eva Braun’, the Paul McCartney approved ‘Me And Howard Hughes’ and two other top ten smash singles in 'She’s So Modern' and 'Like Clockwork,' and garnering the band an extraordinary hat trick Album Of The Year in NME, Melody Maker and the ITV Music Awards.

The Boomtown Rats’ biggest international success came in 1979 with the release of 'I Don’t Like Mondays,' a haunting ballad inspired by a tragic school shooting in San Diego, California. When 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer was asked why she opened fire on an elementary school, killing two adults and injuring several children, she reportedly said, “I don’t like Mondays.” Geldof turned this chilling quote into ‘one of the greatest songs on the uselessness of violence’ (Hot Press) that topped the UK Singles Chart and became a global smash, hitting No 1 in 32 countries. It was however banned in the US, the record company having been threatened with lawsuits, refused to distribute the song despite it being a massive radio hit.

Horrified by TV images of famine in Ethiopia, Geldof and Midge Ure wrote the 1984 Bandaid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”. The track brought together the UK’s biggest contemporary music stars, as well as his fellow Rats, and then became the best-selling single of all time. Geldof was later knighted and has been nominated eight times for the Nobel Peace Prize and received numerous honours. TAP HERE FOR MORE WHAT'S ON IN KILKENNY

The Boomtown Rats have released seven studio albums: The Boomtown Rats (1977), A Tonic For The Troops(1978), The Fine Art of Surfacing (1979), Mondo Bongo (1980), V Deep (1982), In the Long Grass (1984), and Citizens Of Boomtown (2020). They are regarded as one of the most influential and socially conscious bands to emerge from the late 1970s punk explosion, a group whose impact went well beyond the music charts, inspiring a whole new generation of Irish bands including U2 (Bono:

Tickets are available from www.theboomtownratsofficial.com, powertik.com and Ticketmaster.ie.