LIVE AID KILLED US OFF, WITHOUT A DOUBT

Boomtown Rats musician Pete Briquette explains why he doesn't begrudge Bob Geldof's solo success

- BY FRAN WINSTON

SCHOOL shootings in America have sadly become an all-too-regular occurrence these days. But there was a time when they were so rare they merited having a chart-topping song written about them.

Irish band the Boomtown Rats' enduring hit I Don't Like Mondays was written by lead singer Bob Geldof after he read about a fatal shooting in Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, in January 1979.

The killer, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, told a reporter her motive was, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." Reflecting on the nearly five-decade-old tune, which stayed at No 1 in the UK for four weeks in the summer of 1979, the band's bass player Pete Briquette, now 71, says: "It was one of the first ever school shootings, and it shocked America. Now school shootings happen increasingly regularly in America, and we're still singing that song and it's still relevant." The track remains the band's best-known song. Six years after its release, it was one of the highlights of their 1985 Live Aid set when Bob paused after singing the line, "The lesson today is how to die." The moment has gone down in history particularly this year as the "Global Jukebox" marks its 40th anniversary.

Live Aid heralded a great success for Bob, who had spearheaded the event, and the charity single Do They Know It's Christmas? which preceded it to raise funds for famine aid in Ethiopia.

But for the rest of the group - which along with Bob and Pete comprised of Gerry Cotton rhythm guitar, imon on drums, Pete's cousin Johnnie Fingers on keyboards, and Garry Roberts on lead guitar - it marked the end of that chapter of their careers and started a hiatus lasting nearly 30 years.

Reflecting on this four decades later, Co Cavan native Pete says he has no bitterness about the way things panned out.