It would be nice to spend some time with Bob Geldof, wouldn’t it?
I was thinking this when I walked out of the Brisbane Powerhouse a few months ago and almost bumped into him. He was deep in conversation at the time, but I’m pushy and was going to butt in, but my wife held me back.
Geldof was a guest of the Brisbane International Film Festival that night and was also shooting a cameo in a zombie flick on the Gold Coast, as you do. The film is called Zombie Plane and also stars Chuck Norris and Vanilla Ice. Can’t wait.
Passing him that night I said to my wife, “He looks pretty damn good for …” I paused to Google his age … “73!”
Slim, wearing an immaculate suit with a Nehru collar, his mane of silver hair intact. It’s how a lot of us would like to look at that age. Well, me at least.
I had never met Geldof in a long career in journalism and he has spent a lot of time in Australia since first coming here in the late 1970s.
Then the offer came through for an interview. Why? Well, Bob was keen to spruik his upcoming show, An Evening With Bob Geldof: Songs and Stories from an Extraordinary Life, which kicks off in Sydney on March 15 before moving on to Newcastle, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Auckland, Wellington, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Perth, where he will wind up on April 5.
It will be something of a whirlwind, a travelling gabfest with a cast of one, although his wingman Mark Cowne is along for the ride and helping out. (Cowne is not a roadie – he’s a co-owner of Kruger Cowne Ltd, a company that represents Sir Bob Geldof and other keynote speakers.)
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And it’s Cowne in the background when I chat to Geldof on a rainy Monday, the appropriate day to speak to the man whose most famous song is I Don’t Like Mondays. Geldof shouts out to Cowne as we chat …
‘… when you find yourself in a situation where sh-t happens, you go WTF. Right?’
“They’re advertising it as An Evening With Bob Geldof!” he hollers. “Am I supposed to agree with that because the advertising says that’s what the show is called? It’s actually called Life – WTF?! Life happens to everybody and when you find yourself in a situation where sh-t happens, you go WTF. Right?”
I’m not sure if he’s having a lend of me or not but it doesn’t matter because I’m just happy to be talking to him. And audiences will be happy to be spending time with him soon. Two hours and 20 minutes (including interval), according to the QPAC website. But wait a minute. That’s wrong, too.
“No way will be I be doing two and a half f—ing hours,” he says in his unmistakable Irish brogue. “It will be 90 minutes.” Glad that’s settled.
We are approaching the 40th anniversary of Live Aid – one of the world’s most iconic charitable events – and Geldof was the main force behind that and other initiatives rallying musicians and the world. Geldof is a global icon whose impact spans music, activism and global change. But what do we really know about him?
In this night of chat (he’ll talk and sing and we will listen) he will take us from his teenage years in Dublin to his groundbreaking music career with the Boomtown Rats and his tireless global activism through Band Aid and Live Aid. He will share his driving passion for global justice, revealing the man behind his groundbreaking story.
The blurb for the show says it will be “a unique blend of live storytelling with intimate acoustic performances of his favourite songs, revealing the backstory of a multi-faceted and enduring career.
“Engaging conversations, enriched with multimedia presentations offer a rare opportunity to experience the charisma that has defined Bob Geldof’s extraordinary life journey.”
Expect F-bombs throughout, too, a trademark of Geldof’s (the F-word is just punctuation, we agree), but he says there is nothing to worry about because there will be no C-bombs. That word is reserved for a certain American president of an orange hue, but don’t get him started on that subject.
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“I’ve been working for 40 years on an issue Trump just demolished,” Geldof says. “Trump is stupid and dangerous and the people around him are sociopathic and have no empathy whatsoever. Everything is transactional to them and that has to be resisted. Those people are disgusting.”
Geldof has always been rather good at calling a spade a f—ing shovel. Pardon the French.
Now, I wouldn’t normally cuss in an interview but it’s liberating to be able to for a change. And to be cussing with a knight of the realm! Sir Bob is an honorary one because technically he’s not British or from a Commonwealth country. He’s Irish.
‘I do f-ck all to keep in shape. Mick has nutritionists and a team’
Sir Bob looks pretty good and, as I have said, that’s something I observed almost running into him outside Brisbane Powerhouse. So what does he do to stay in shape? I ask the question referring to other vital ageing rock stars, including Exhibit A, one Mick Jagger, aged 81.
“I do f-ck all to keep in shape,” Geldof says. “Mick has nutritionists and a whole team working on him and he does ballet and yoga. I do f-ck all. I mean, if I’m putting on a few kilos, I’ll watch that. I only eat once a day, around 3pm. That’s when I get hungry.”
“So that’s the secret,” I say. “Perhaps we could put out a book, The Bob Geldof Diet?”
“We can make a fortune,” he agrees, adding that he does like a drop of wine now and then, but there are no exhausting regimens behind his relative youthfulness.
He might tell his audiences some of this stuff as well as stories he has never told before in public. He’s still working on the final format for the show and the challenge is to cram such a rich life into 90 minutes.
“They wanted me to do a Q&A at the end, but I don’t think there’s time,” he says. “I mean, if you’re doing six songs and telling your life story, well, that’s difficult to tell in 90 minutes.
“I could spend a whole afternoon just talking about Live Aid. I’m used to playing music, although I have done a lot of political conferences where I have talked for over an hour.
“But to do it as entertainment is different. I mean, with someone like Stephen Fry, well, it is second nature to him. But I want to do it differently and I have to sing songs, too.”
He will have an acoustic guitar with him on stage so his performance will be relatively unplugged, although there will have to be some sort of amplification.
There will also be film footage to spice things up.
“Narrowing it all down so it flows effortlessly, that will be hard,” Geldof says. “I’m not nervous about being on stage. It’s where I feel good usually, but I’m nervous about the process of getting there with this show.”
Frankly, whatever he says or does will be enough for us.