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Geldof ranted that his audience was wearing "wall-to-wall f******* Primark" Credit: ian davidson
Bob Geldof is 64 years old apparently. I say apparently, because every time he pops up in the news he seems to behave like a curious mixture of Kevin the Teenager and Neil from the Young Ones: grunting, scowling, effing and jeffing like a schoolboy who has just discovered swear words and can’t believe how grown-up this makes him.
Whether it’s flicking V signs at hard working fishermen who happen to hold a different opinion to him (see the Thames flotilla during the EU referendum) or exploding at Sky News presenters for daring to ask him about the tax practices of artists appearing on the latest version of his Band Aid single, Geldof has the ability to make my three-year-old mid-tantrum look positively grown-up.
My first reaction to this was: ‘Seriously? The man still earns money performing music?’
And now he is back making headlines after abusing a crowd who had paid to watch him perform at a music festival. My first reaction to this was: ‘Seriously? The man still earns money performing music?’ I was then reminded of perhaps the only classic Russell Brand joke: “No wonder he’s an expert on famine, he’s been dining out on I don’t like Mondays for thirty years”. (I think it's forty now, actually).
But I digress. To recap: Geldof - Saint Bob to himself, that sweary bloke who needs to brush his hair to everyone else - appeared at the Brentwood Festival last weekend, a family event that bills itself as ‘the festival that keeps giving’. (It sure has, almost a week on, hitting the headlines thanks to Geldof’s behaviour). ‘In Aid of Charity’ it says on the promotional poster for the festival, with the logo of Blesma, the organisation that raises money for limbless veterans next to it.
Geldof's rant came at the Brentwood Festival Credit: SWNS Cambridge
Seeing this, I thought that maybe we should go easy on Bob - perhaps, as a well known proponent of charitable giving, he had waived the Boomtown Rat’s performance fee in an act of altruism. Alas, a call to the Brentwood Festival failed to establish whether this had happened. When I asked if the band had been paid, I was told that it was “nobody’s business”.
Anyway, Geldof turned up, played one song, and stopped to complain that the event was “boring and tame”. (As I’ve got older, I’ve realised that boring and tame are really rather admirable qualities, and a whole lot better for one’s wellbeing than wild and crazy). In an address that would have made the writers of Spinal Tap laugh, he announced to the crowd: “We don’t do Abba. We don’t do Robbie f******* Williams. Brentwood, we are the Boomtown Rats.” He then went on to complain about the attire of the festival goers, ranting that they were wearing “wall-to-wall f******* Primark”.
His defenders said this was a protest about capitalism on the high street. In which case, perhaps he could have a go at Primark’s owners, rather than the people who shop there - people who wouldn’t be likely to be able to spend £350 on a fake snakeskin suit, which was the cost of the outfit Geldof was wearing on stage.
Farage and Geldof go head to head on the Thames Play! 01:37
The thing about Geldof though is that he’s simply emblematic of a growing group of self-confessed ‘liberals’ who profess to care about people while simultaneously not being able to tolerate them. He is the leader of the Sneerers, a left-leaning lot who whinge about poor nutrition choices fuelling the obesity crisis without any knowledge that their organic fruit and veg and meat is significantly more expensive and less filling than the less healthy alternatives.
They are the people who think that going to Primark is morally reprehensible, while having questionable tax arrangements (Geldof is a non-Dom; when a journalist asked him in 2012 how much tax he paid, he exploded at her saying: “My time? Is that not a tax?” No, Bob.. No it isn’t). They are the people who are endlessly negative about bands like Abba, on account of the fact they give so much joy to so many of us.
The Sneerers are the people who have no idea that by scowling and spitting about the divides in this country, they are only making them even bigger
The Sneerers are the ones who claim to fight for justice and fairness; the ones who then take to their social media bubbles to whinge about democratically-made decisions that they don’t agree with.
(See: Brexit; a Tory win - I say this as someone who voted to Remain and who voted Labour at the last election). They’re the people who are sitting at the islands in their expensive renovated kitchens drinking rosé and dipping crudites in hummus moaning to their friends about the stupid people who voted to Brexit because now their Polish cleaner/nanny might have to go home. The Sneerers are the people who have no idea that by scowling and spitting about the divides in this country, they are only making them even bigger.
On stage at Brentwood, Geldof wondered why the crowd had reacted badly to his rant. “Why are you booing? We’re in f****** Brexit land here guys. Yeah, we’re Irish, we’re still in Europe.” The idea of restricting free movement within Europe is one of the things that appalls me most about leaving the EU; a pointless and nasty exercise that would take far more than we could imagine. But in the case of Bob Geldof, I might just be willing to make an honourable exception: if you don’t like it in the UK, or the people that live here, Bob, then you could always think about buggering off back to Ireland.
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