The Boomtown Rats 50th Anniversary UK Tour

by Glenn Sargeant | Aug 21, 2025

Your 50th, a time to celebrate, a milestone in anyone’s lifetime and not least in a band’s career. Press releases frequently proffer those titles of legendary or iconic, with little substantiation, but in this case a well-deserved moniker, recognising a band whose career has spanned decades and gripped generations of music fans.

Boomtown Rats are edgy, political, volatile & outspoken, a band with grit, passion and riffs that will stay in your psyche for life.

Formed in Ireland in the mid 70s, the band were drawn together from disparity, with a bleak future in sight, these young men decided to refuse to accept the rot that had set in across the country and surged out of the oppression on a wave of rage fuelled fucking great music.

Unlike many of their contemporaries at that time Boomtown Rats wouldn’t just play hard, fast, loose determined noises, this band would be different to all of the others around. This band had PURPOSE. This band believed rock‘n’roll was a sort of musical activism. They would kill assumptions, attitudes, failures, shoddiness and all the mighty bollox they and the rest of their country were having to contend with. And in so doing they would help to change the cultural landscape and make their mark on history.

The Boomtown Rats will be striding out with their iconic tunes and their crunching glam riffs from the last album Citizens Of Boomtown (BMG), delivering a perfectly raw sonic assault on the ears of audiences throughout the tour.

This band who played alongside The Ramones & Talking Heads on their debut tour, whose lead singer Sir Bob Geldof, was able to mobilise entire nations with Live Aid, inspired a young Bono to form U2 & whose influence can be heard in the music of generations of rebellious bands that have followed…are as astutely relevant today with their lyrical sucker punches and disruptive musical style as they have ever been.

The tour will be hitting 12 theatres across the UK, which will also include a screening of a brand new Boomtown Rats documentary, featuring exclusive unseen footage plus a very special show at London’s Eventim Apollo on 31st October, which celebrates the anniversary of their first ever gig, in Ireland 50 years to the day.

You don’t go to a Boomtown Rats gig for a string of top 10 hits, platinum albums Brit, Ivor Novello and Grammy Awards. You go because you belong to their dirty, fierce and beautiful rock new wave army of modern citizens who really Don’t Like Mondays!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOOMTOWN – Celebrating 50 Rat Years 1975-2025

2025 Theatre Tour Dates:

October 10, 2025 – Nottingham Royal Concert Hall

October 11, 2025 – Birmingham Symphony Hall

October 17, 2025 – Aberdeen Music Hall

October 18, 2025 – Glasgow Barrowland

October 24, 2025 – Sheffield City Hall

October 25, 2025 – Cambridge Corn Exchange

October 31, 2025 – London Eventim Apollo 50th Birthday Concert Night.

November 1, 2025 – Southampton O2 Guildhall

November 7, 2025 – Manchester Bridgewater Hall

November 8, 2025 – Gateshead Glasshouse