Boomtown Rats ~ I Don’t Like Mondays

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdA-2oXzk10[/youtube]
For those of us old enough (or young enough) to remember Live Aid, it was indeed an amazing phenomenon. We missed a lot of it in California, being 8 hours behind England, and 3 hours behind Philadelphia, and it being announced not too long before the concerts were held. But wow, the work that went into that…without email, without cell phones, all of that. And a lot of it didn’t make it to MTV at the time. Originally, Geldof didn’t want the concert to be re-broadcast, saying that it would have more power in our memories than in being replayed over and over again. Not like today, where it would have been available via OnDemand and broadcast over and over again. Thankfully, it has lived on via DVD, between the BBC and the vaults at MTV. What an amazing coming together of a lot of huge egos, really big stars, all putting it aside to raise money for a wonderful cause.

In case you don’t remember, the event was organized by Bob Geldof, he of the Boomtown Rats. I don’t know a lot of their songs. Their most famous song, in my mind, is I Don’t Like Mondays, which was based upon the first really well known school shooting, in which two men were killed (the school principal and the custodian, who were trying to protect the students) and eight children were wounded at an elementary school in San Diego in 1979. The 16-year old girl who committed the crimes from her house across the street, when asked why she had opened fire on a group of children, said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” The insanity of that statement hit a lot of people hard, including Geldof.

She came up for parole a few weeks ago, btw, and was denied, yet again. She has never shown any true remorse, and never fails to try to push the blame onto others.

Back to Live Aid, I think that while this song never fails to bring tears to my eyes, never fails to break my heart just a bit, what touched me even more was when Bob Geldof looked out at that huge audience that he had brought together in the biggest fund-raiser ever, and said, “I just realized, this is the best day of my life…” I think he says it right after the end of this clip, sadly.

Geldof is still involved in the fight to eradicate poverty. You can read a bit more about his efforts, here. And if you want to read about his controversial career, life, and interesting names he has for his children, check out the wiki.