‘I stopped at traffic lights, and suddenly Peaches was there with me’- Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof reflects on living with grief

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Brendan O’Connor, The Boomtown Rats frontman and political activist spoke about how he has dealt with grief in his life.

His mother, Evelyn, died when he was eight years old, and his former wife, British presenter Paula Yates, died of a heroin overdose in 2000.

The couple had three daughters – Fifi, Pixie, and Peaches. Their family later faced another tragedy when Peaches died of a heroin overdose in 2014 at the age of 25.

“I’ve been stopped at traffic lights. This happened the other day, and suddenly Peaches was there. She was with me, and I wept,” he said. “I wasn’t really aware I was weeping. I wasn’t sobbing, just tears as she was there.

“So all of these things I picture as like a memory stick for your laptop or something. And in that are all the memory, all the grief, all the pain, all the loss, all of that.

“And I stick that in an available compartment of my head. And when it erupts, as it does, unbeckoned, unbidden, at traffic lights stop, I can see it.

“I can take it out, and I say: ‘I know you, you little f**ker, get back where you belong’. And that’s how I deal with it.

“I’d be on stage. There was one of our songs, Diamond Smiles, and suddenly Peaches was there in that song.

“To just recognise it, I just would do a little waltz with myself. I’d wrap my arms around like I was wrapping around her, and I just waltz around the stage a little bit,” he said.

Geldof said it was his father who told him of his mother’s death, adding that he has a “clear memory” of the night she died.

“When Paula [Yates] died, all of this was very useful, and I remembered the directness of my father, and that’s precisely what a child needs. Tell me exactly, no obfuscations. When I had to tell my children that their mom had died, it was terrible.”

Recently, the 74-year-old travelled for the 10th anniversary of the death of his friend and singer David Bowie.

“It was weird that it was 10 years. It just doesn’t seem like it. The thing about Bowie is, you’re obviously of that generation, the distant artist, almost cold. He was the very opposite. He was a kind, thoughtful, caring man.

“Bowie’s backing of me from the very beginning of Band Aid right through to his death was huge. It was David people forget who launched the original Band Aid video on the BBC,” he added.

Last summer, the Dubliner expressed interest in running for the presidency, however, he later decided not to join the race.

When asked whether he thinks he “dodged a bullet”, he said: “Well, yes, without being rude, and not because of the contestants.

“I thought it was a flash election. I simply couldn’t do it. If I didn’t get the party nomination, I couldn’t do the 27 councils, and I don’t think they’d have nominated me.

“I had this moment of ‘I’m up in the Áras’, and it’s a year and a half into the job. I’m staring out through these big windows and these posh curtains, and I’ve just met a bunch of people in the morning, and I’ve got a couple of ambassador’s credentials, and I’ve put into the government: ‘Can I go back to England to see my children?’

“And they’re approving a speech or otherwise, and I’m looking out in the park, and I’m thinking: ‘Five and a half more years?’,” he said.

Meanwhile, the artist also spoke about turning 75 this year, adding that he has “completely planned his funeral”.

“It’s when you see Bob Geldof ‘bracket 74-75’, that’s when it hits you. It’s mad. What am I doing being 74? It’s ridiculous.

“I’ve completely planned [my own funeral]. Give me a break, you’re talking to Bob Geldof here. I completely planned the show. The show is written, and it’s to be a good time,” he added.

Geldof, who’s set to play the Hub in Kilkenny next Saturday with The Boomtown Rats, said it’s “utterly cathartic” for him to perform on stage.

“I could chat to you now at the side of the stage, and it’s like: ‘Bob, you’re on’, and suddenly, I start going nuts, and I don’t stop.

“It’s utterly cathartic. So if I’m doing the solo stuff, and I’ve done five or six solo albums, it’s more measured, and it’s clearly, because it’s you, the songs have a different sensibility.

“With the Rats, there’s still tunes that I write, but it’s the band propelling these songs into meaning.

“And I’m there, and I have to be the front man, I have to be the singer. I have to be the visual representation of what that sound is doing.

“But it’s what it’s doing to me, I don’t think about. I’m so uncoordinated. When I was a kid, they used to say it was Jagger-esque. No, Jagger is a ballet dancer. I’m the shambling ape. I love it. Bobby Boomtown is in the house,” he said.