 who was doing the rocking, the cool looking dude in the shades whose sharp guitar playing, overdriven amps and rock'n'roll swagger helped drive the Rats all the way from heated up Irish pub rockers to international stardom. It was Roberts who originally gathered five young musicians together in a pub in Dun Laoghaire, south Dublin, in spring of 1975, to form a band that would do far more than just become the first punks to score a UK number one single. They would go on to help transform their home country. And it was Roberts who was instrumental in their revival in recent years, convincing multi-millionaire businessman and activist Sir Bob that it was time to get back to his punk rock roots. In recent times, The Boomtown Rats were in danger of becoming a footnote in rock history, almost totally eclipsed by the global fame of their frontman, reduced to just something Geldof did before Live Aid. Yet for a few years in the late Seventies, they had been the most interesting pop group in Britain and Ireland, scoring hit after hit with sharp-witted, punk inflected, new wave music, chock full of bright ideas, crammed with sparky hooks, and delivered in vivid, attention-grabbing style. Between 1977 and 1980, The Rats had nine consecutive top 20 singles, including two quite extraordinary number ones. Rat Trap was a Springsteen-style shap){kind=link}
Once the most interesting pop group in Britain, the Rats inspired a generation – largely thanks to the punk passion of their late guitarist
Garry Roberts of the Boomtown Rats has died, aged 72. Rock has lost another good one. “For fans he was The Legend,” the surviving band members wrote in a heartfelt statement. “For us, he was Gazzer, the guy who summed up the sense of who The Rats are.”
In a group publicly dominated by the big mouth, sharp elbows and high-wattage charisma of Sir Bob Geldof, Roberts may not have been a household name. But he was right at the centre of one of the greatest bands of the new wave era. “There was a lot of rocking going on that night” to quote the opening line of The Boomtown Rats’ 1978 number one smash, and it was Garry (with two R’s, from Garrick) who was doing the rocking, his sharp guitar playing, overdriven amps and rock’n’roll swagger helping drive the Rats all the way from heated up Irish pub rockers to international stardom.
It was Roberts who originally gathered five young musicians together in a pub in Dun Laoghaire, south Dublin, in spring of 1975, to form a band that would do far more than just become the first punks to score a UK number one single. They would go on to help transform their home country. And it was Roberts who was instrumental in their revival in recent years, convincing multi-millionaire businessman and activist Sir Bob that it was time to get back to his punk rock roots.
In recent times, The Boomtown Rats were in danger of becoming a footnote in rock history, almost totally eclipsed by the global fame of their frontman, reduced to just something Geldof did before Live Aid. Yet for a few years in the late Seventies, they had been the most interesting pop group in Britain and Ireland, scoring hit after hit with sharp-witted, punk inflected, new wave music, chock full of bright ideas, crammed with sparky hooks, and delivered in vivid, attention-grabbing style.