Bob Geldof has claimed that he would have "walked" the Irish Presidential Election had he chosen to run.
The former Boomtown Rats singer made these comments while speaking at Technological University Dublin at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the band's first gig at the venue on 31 October 1975.
Geldof had been previously linked with a potential run for the Áras, having revealed that he did speak to the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Mairtin on the subject over the summer.
"If I'd stood, I'd have walked it. And I would have been really good. I could only do it if I had been nominated by a party and they didn't know I was interested", Geldof said.
At the event, Geldof had unveiled a special commemorative plaque on the front of the Bolton Street campus of TUD with bandmate Pete Briquette. The gig took place at the then Bolton Street Technical College on 31 October 1975, a show which Geldof had initially thought would be a "disaster".
"I never wanted to do it because I'd never heard myself. I was singing through a bingo microphone and they were playing really loud. I think the microphone was plugged into the bass amp - you know, like kids just playing," he said.
"I just thought, this is going to be a disaster. We got on this teacher’s platform in the classroom - about thirty people there. I thought we should call the band The Nightlife Thugs, so somebody had written that on a blackboard. But I changed my mind the night before, and when we got up on stage it just kicked off".
Elsewhere, Bob Geldof explained how halfway through the set, the band released that something special was on the horizon.
"Pete - the bass player - said that halfway through, he got really excited by this band that we didn't even know we were in, because we’d never really heard ourselves. About halfway through we took a break, I went over to the blackboard where The Nightlife Thugs was written, and with one wild sweep I wiped it off and wrote The Boomtown Rats. And there we were", he said.
To this day, Geldof admitted that it still feels somewhat strange to be honoured for something which began as "that sort of crappy band from Dún Laoghaire".
He said: "Without that gig at Bolton Street that Halloween night, you don't get the rest," he said. "You don’t get the articulation and the rage about what was happening to Ireland and in Ireland, the sort of social sickness that was occurring. There was this great silence – we all knew – but we said nothing. And then these kids from South Dublin decided, well, they would say something".
Geldof added that the band's music went on to become part of a broader cultural pushback during what was a difficult period for Ireland, which saw unemployment and inflation at a major high amid widespread strikes.
"Time telescopes itself, and I remember that period vividly," Geldof stated. "The noise was one of rage and rejection. It was the beginning of a pushback against that".
