boomtown-rats

The Boomtown Rats prep first LP in 36 years (listen to "Trash Glam Baby")

Irish rock vets The Boomtown Rats reformed a few years back and now original members Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette, Simon Crowe and Garry Roberts are set to release Tales of Boomtown Glory, the band’s first album in 36 years, on March 13. The first single is “Trash Glam Baby” which Bob wrote about the ’70s Kings Road punk scene and what that neighborhood is now. Here’s Bob on the song’s origins:

Back then I’d written a song about the amazons I’d encountered making the scene in the late 1970s: ‘She’s So Modern’ was a hit. [“She’s so 20th century/She’s so 1970s”]. A millennium and 2 decades later down at the S-bend of the KIngs Road, that squiggle that becomes the Worlds End and where those girls would inhabit Lloyd Johnson’s and Vivienne Westwood’s shops, the glam has gone and moved east. But Vivienne is still there. Now opposite and beside her shop Sex there are 3 decent charity shops. I go there to check out cool shirts etc. On a Saturday in 2017 there was a glorious kid of around 16/17 talking to her friend behind the counter. She was fabulous. Like a bastard hybrid of The New York Dolls and early Roxy Music. A sequined tramp. A living glitter ball. They were moaning about it being Saturday and nothing to do and no money to do it with. The usual anthem of the bored weekend. She didn’t look consciously “retro” or anything, she looked wonderful and beautiful in that damned youth way. She wasn’t beautiful (but she was), a pleasant, normal girl from the blocks down the road, who intuitively understood the theatre of the self, which that peculiar part of the world has always engendered since….oh since the bohemians of the late 19th century through to the 60s and the Stones, the 70s and The Pistols, the 80s and Durans/Anthony Price shop and then – like the rest of the 90s – not much. But here she was again, doing that unique thing English teens uniquely do, a grumpy, normal English teenager being extraordinary, looking the bollox. She should be a song. Here she is. She’s so 21st century….

You can listen to “Trash Glam, Baby” below.

The Boomtown Rats have UK/Ireland tour dates on the horizon. Those are listed below.

THE BOOMTOWN RATS – 2020 TOUR DATES

MARCH

26 BRIGHTON The Dome
27 CHELTENHAM Town Hall

APRIL

15 BIRMINGHAM Town Hall
17 LIVERPOOL Grand Central Hall
18 CARDIFF The Great Hall
24 CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange
25 YORK Barbican
29 MANCHESTER The Ritz

MAY
1 LONDON The Palladium
2 NEWCASTLE The Sage, Gateshead