The Boomtown Rats and The Undertones are a great pairing for Swords Castle. Same-generation punk from south and north of the border.
The Undertones set is lively and jovial, with lots of Nordy banter and taking the piss. A bunch of now older blokes still with a teenager’s humour. They deliver a set that’s punchy, their short pop/punk tunes played hard and fast—like you’d want. They play a mix of stuff from their seven albums (the last being 2007), their bigger hits scattered throughout the set—and it’s great to hear Teenage Kicks thrown in the middle instead of the obvious encore. The crowd response is also lively, particularly for the classics, like their opener Jimmy Jimmy, the brilliant You’ve Got My Number, Here Comes The Summer and of course My Perfect Cousin. They finish with the blinder Get Over You. They’re still a really fun live band and Paul McLoone is great to watch, with his slightly camp mish-mash of Iggy/Jaggerisms.
The Boomtown Rats are stunning. I saw them (for the first time) play a brief set recently at Rewind, and I was really looking forward to a full set today. Bob is still a totally captivating frontman. He works the stage ceaselessly, and a bit like Jagger, he still appears to have major reserves of youthful energy. He really puts on a show—as does the rest of the band. It’s great to watch them completely take over the stage. And playing his home turf (Swords) is guitarist Darren Beale.
The set is from the first three albums ’77, ’78 and ’79) and the last album (Citizens of Boomtown 2020), with the exception of Banana Republic (from the forth ’81 album). Everything still stands up, and the new tracks fit like a glove with the old ones. They open with Rat Trap, Ireland’s first No.1, followed by Eva Braun and Like Clockwork, all three belters from their second album, A Tonic For The Troops.
And of course we hear I Don’t Like Mondays, with its pregnant pause (à la Live Aid) after the line “And the lesson today is how to die…”, at which point the lights go down and Bob is backlit with an arc of white spots, and he gives some words of support to the women and children of Gaza, and to the people fighting in the Ukraine. Then a classic live B&W photo of Sinead O’Connor appears behind him as he pays tribute to her on the second anniversary of her death—”The brave Irish woman, the brave rebel spirit”.
Their final song is The Boomtown Rats from the last album. When the bass kicks in, it’s so fucking loud you can see panic on people’s faces as they jam fingers in ears. It’s big, loud and long, an epic finale.
The band leave the stage. The crowd are shouting for more and Bob is asking if they have enough time for one more. They come back out and we’re treated to Rat Trap one more time.
The Boomtown Rats are still brilliant. The songs are still brilliant. It’s a very jubilant crowd that leaves Swords castle.
The Undertones photos & set-list:
Set-list:
Jimmy Jimmy
Male Model
The Love Parade
Thrill Me
Boys Will Be Boys
Hard Luck
You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It!)
It’s Going to Happen
Teenage Kicks
Here Comes the Summer
Wednesday Week
Girls Don’t Like It
My Perfect Cousin
I Gotta Getta
Family Entertainment
Get Over You
Boomtown Rats photos & set-list:
Set-list:
Rat Trap
(I Never Loved) Eva Braun
Like Clockwork
Neon Heart
(She’s Gonna) Do You In
Monster Monkeys
Someone’s Looking at You
I Don’t Like Mondays
Joey’s on the Street Again
Against the World
She’s So Modern
Banana Republic
Close as You’ll Ever Be
Diamond Smiles
The Boomtown Rats
Photos & words Cormac Figgis @themasterswitch