Bob Geldof

“It's very simple, Governor. When people are hungry, they die. So, spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you're going to get it to these people.”

Robert Fredrick Zenon Geldof was born on a sunny but windy day on the 5th of October 1951. He was born in Dun Loaghaire, Ireland to parents Robert and Evelyn Geldof. When Bob was six, his mother died. As a child, he attended a private Catholic Blackrock College but he did not enjoy it, and was bullied for not being good at rugby. At school, he was not a very well-behaved student and would often have bad test results. After school, he formed an Irish punk rock band in 1975 called the Boomtown Rats, which didn’t have a lot of success. In 1984, something momentous happened that changed his life and the lives of many others. He watched on television like everyone else, the effects of the terrible famine in Ethiopia, but instead of switching the channel he decided to get on a plane to see for himself. And what he saw shocked him to the core.

When he arrived, he saw poverty- and grief-stricken families whose family members had passed due to the famine. He witnessed the wrath of the death as people died in front of his eyes. He wrote in his diary his thoughts and feelings. He decided he needed to do something about this terrible catastrophe. He was angry that the E.E.C (European, Economic, Community) burnt their leftover crops - they used 265 million pounds to burn the two million tons of fruit and vegetables – instead of feeding the hungry people in Ethiopia.

He decided he couldn't turn his back on these people. Bob wasn’t a politician, he wasn’t a farmer, but he could use his skills and connections as a musician to make people care. He set off to make a song with the goal of raising money for the famine and gathered the most famous singers of the day to make a classic ‘Do they know it's Christmas?' After his song became number 1 in the UK, he went on to set up Live Aid in 1985, a concert held in Wembley stadium which 72,000 people went to. He assembled a star-studded line-up that consisted of bands and singers such as Queen, Elton John and Madonna. Live Aid was one of the most memorable events in music history; a concert watched worldwide by 1.9 billion people, ‘95 per cent of the television sets on Earth watched that concert.’ It raised $127 million for famine relief.

Bob Geldof encountered people who didn’t believe that his idea would work and people who thought that the cause wasn’t important. Some people were arrogant, selfish and didn’t care about problems in Africa. He said famously about Africa that is was “not the Dark Continent. This is the Luminous Continent.” People in Europe thought they had nothing to do with what was happening in a continent far away. Bob Geldof worked hard to change people’s ideas and to care for others. He worked hard get his idea for the charity song and concert up and running. He did have luck and help from other musicians, to make the greatest show the world has ever seen.

I felt a connection to Bob Geldof and chose him because I love music and he was a musician. While I was looking for a notable figure to write about, one thing that caught my eye was the sentence ‘Bob Geldof launched Band Aid in 1984 to help African famine’. I remembered I had seen a specular scene from the movie ‘Queen’ where Freddy Mercury performed at Band Aid/Live aid, and this raised my interest to learn more about the event and the man who was the brain and heart behind it all.

Why is Bob Geldof Notable

Bob Geldof has all the traits to be notable. He is compassionate about people and countries in need. He wanted to bring awareness to developing countries that were fighting disease and war. The world’s spotlight has grown greatly on poorer nations after Bob Geldof held the Live Aid concert and told them all about the troubles in Africa. His efforts in England inspired one of the biggest pop stars in the world to do the same, Michael Jackson. He followed Bob’s example to gather a team of American performing artists to record the song ‘We are the world’, for example, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen and other amazing talents. They also held a concert themselves at John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, USA. The show attracted 89,000 people to attend.

Bob Geldof did not have to do all of this. After all he was just a musician but after he heard about the Ethiopian civil war and its effects on the people, he decided he needed to use his musical talents to help. He visited in 1984 and saw the effects first hand. Most people would have just given up. Feeding a country that was going through civil war and a country that had 40 million people was impossible without the resources, right? Wrong. Bob Geldof did just that by using all his skills and letting the ordinary person at home donate money to a cause they felt strongly about. This was the beginning of big charity events for public.

He was given an honorary knighthood from the Queen in 1986 for his charitable work in Africa.

However, as he is Irish and not a citizen of the commonwealth realm,

he cannot be called ‘Sir’. Despite his fame,

Bod Geldof has had a difficult personal life, losing his wife, Paula Yates.

‘Geldof said the shows had a huge personal cost on his life’ and later his daughter died too.

I believe that his childhood of being bullied and having his mother die

may have led to him being very emphathetic to others because he went through problems like them.

Sir Bob is still one of the most loved musician- activist today, and is truly notable.

List of Awards:

2005: Received a Man of Peace Award.
2006: Awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
2006: Awarded the Freedom of Dublin City for his humanitarian work. On 13 November 2017, he returned the award as a protest over Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi also holding the accolade, stating that he does not "wish to be associated in any way with an individual currently engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of north-west Burma"
2010: Awarded Hon. Master of Arts degree from the University for the Creative Arts.
2013: Awarded the Freedom of the City of London.
2014: Awarded with BASCA Gold Badge Award in recognition of his unique contribution to the field of music production.