Posted on 07/22/2006 11:39:55 AM PDT by pissant
Rome - Live 8 hero Bob Geldof has been forced to cancel two concerts in Italy because of lack of public interest, after only 45 people turned up to see him perform in Milan, Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported on Saturday.
Geldof walked out of Milan's 12 000-capacity Arena Civica on Friday without playing, given the paltry attendance. His manager explained that a concert for less than 400 people would not be viable, the newspaper said.
The 54-year-old Irish rocker, who said he had flown in from South Africa for the gig, sought to placate angry fans afterwards by promising to give a free concert in September.
A scheduled performance in Rome on Saturday night, for which 300 tickets had been sold, was also cancelled, La Stampa said.
Geldof was the driving force behind 10 Live 8 concerts worldwide a year ago, timed to coincide with a G8 summit hosted by Britain, to raise awareness of the plight of millions of Africans living in poverty.
A decade earlier, he spearheaded the Live Aid concerts to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.
He originally became famous for leading the punk rock group The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s.
I saw them in 1975 (November I think, maybe October), what I consider the classic lineup (Jeffrey, John, Barriemore, Martin, Ian); I saw them, hmm, in the 1990s I guess, and only Ian and Martin remained. The drummer was a very goofy blonde hippie young guy; Dave Pegg was on bass. The audience was a bunch of aging fans, plus their adult or teen children.
It's painful enough to watch aging NFL players hang around collecting a paycheck. At least the team can usually sweet-talk them into retiring before being embarrassingly cut from the team. Since Geldof is his own boss and doesn't have the sense to know when the show's over and retire, he has to find out this way. Obviously, his manager and handlers didn't have the guts to give him the bad news. They let him wander out on stage, look at the 50 people who showed up, and figure it out for himself. Sad.
Ian Anderson's glory days are far behind him. But I'd still rather see Tull than about 99.5% of other Rock & Rollers. I can count on my fingers how many bands I'd walk across the street to see for free, much less pay $50 for the deal.
But yes, from their inception until the end of the 1970s, the band was excellent.
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