March 16, 1979 Gusto concert review: The Boomtown Rats at Uncle Sam's

 

Bob Geldof before he became the guy we all know from Live Aid.

March 16, 1979

The Boomtown Rats

          “I don’t know about you guys,” singer Bob Geldof said somewhere in the middle of the Boomtown Rats’ set Thursday night, “but this is the first time we’ve been in a disco, let alone played in one. Now what you people really ought to do is move into the center there. I find this place kinda inhibiting.”

          England’s newest hitmakers were not at all at ease as they inaugurated Festival East’s fresh rock showcase arrangement with Uncle Sam’s in Cheektowaga, which most nights is a giant suburban disco. Though Geldof gave disco all due contempt, it wasn’t really the fault of the club.

          If anything, this was a rock showcase as rock showcases should be. First of all, there was plenty of elbow room, more than sufficient for a crowd of about 500. Secondly, the stage was spacious enough to handle all six Boomtown Rats and their equipment with ease. Third, the stage was high enough so that people in the back of the room could see.

          What unsettled Geldof was that the back of the room was sitting on its hands. The big white dance floor cut a swath down the middle of the audience and only a small cluster of fans ventured onto it. Sound was OK in the rear, but the band seemed far away. Had the place been fuller, the frenzy might have taken hold.

          The Boomtown Rats should have blamed that on the local radio stations and their reluctance to expose new artists. The Rats have not gotten first-class airplay here and the crowd, for the most part, simply was not familiar enough with the group’s best tunes to go ga-ga over them.

          When the Boomtown Rats are good, they’re very, very good. They peaked in the middle of their set when they struck up their biggest English hits – “Like Clockwork,” with Geldof’s twitchy, mechanical Roxy Music vocal, and “Rat Trap,” an epic Springsteen-style piece which got an extra push from Graham Parker’s saxophonist.

          Geldof finally exhorted dancers to come up on stage to do The Rat, a peculiar dance originated by the band in their native Dublin, Ireland. It involved dropping to the ground and making one’s hands into rat whiskers. For the guy in the rat costume, it must have come naturally.

          In baggy trousers and a shabby T-shirt, Geldof made an intensely dramatic focus, always in motion, always straining at the edge of self-control. The two guitarists and the bassist pounced back and forth as he prowled the stage. Johnny Fingers in his striped pajamas stayed close to his keyboards.

          Compared with their recordings, their live songs jumped with the heat of the moment. Guitars pushed to speed up the rhythms until the second encore, which was done with just piano and harmonies. It was a new number, a sharply nihilistic number about a 16-year-odl San Diego girl who recently shot up her school because she hated Mondays.

          Opening were the Rockets, playing the first date in support of their new album on their new label – RSO Records. A Detroit boogie band, they last were seen here opening for Kiss. They’ve progressed to the point where they’re kind of like Starz without the charisma, but their two-guitar attack and their screaming Robert Plant-style singer lacked any particular distinction.

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IN THE PHOTO: The Boomtown Rats in 1979. Bob Geldof is lower right.

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FOOTNOTE: The Boomtown Rats were out in support of their second album, "A Tonic for the Troops," which had gotten a belated release in the U.S., and recording their third with producer Matt Lange. That encore number, "I Don't Like Mondays," was released in July and went to Number One in the UK. They kept touring and recording until the Live Aid charity concert in 1985, after which Geldof began focusing on saving the world and starting a solo career. They reunited in the 2010s and returned to the studio.

There are no songs from the Uncle Sam's show on setlist.fm, but it probably was a lot like what they played on March 7 at the Paramount Theatre in Portland, Ore.:

Blind Date

(I Never Loved) Eva Braun

Neon Heart

Me and Howard Hughes

Don't Believe What You Read

Like Clockwork

Rat Trap/Kicks/Joey's on the Street Again

Living in an Island

(She's Gonna) Do You In

She's So Modern

Looking After No. 1

Mary of the 4th Form

Do the Rat

(encore)

I Don't Like Mondays