A review by ianbanks
Is That It? by Bob Geldof

5.0

The Fine Art Of Surfacing is one of my favourite records - it's also about the only Boomtown Rats album I can listen to all the way through without wincing. It's interesting to note that this album was produced by someone other than their regular producer until then, and their work afterwards was produced by others also. I mention this because this book is a fusion of several different genres and styles and feels to have been different things along its gestation as well.

It starts with a bog-standard in media res stadium rock moment (Live Aid, July '85 about halfway through "I Don't Like Mondays," the only Live Aid moment that has really stuck in my mind, if you're interested), then loops back to Mr Geldof (KBE)'s childhood and his growing up in Ireland

I'd've hated to have had Bob in my class: he's opinionated, undisciplined, argumentative, and he comes across in some instances as the kid who starts arguments with the crap excuse that "I was just trying to make things interesting." However, despite the troublemaking, you get to see the social conscience and anger forming, as well as the pragmatism that has made him one of the most admired and detested figures in modern music history. He constantly looks for an escape and what we get is a story of a boy who seeks a way out through literature and music. Then he leaves his school, his home, his town and family and makes a series of spectacular bad moves before seeming to find stability and a measure of success. That's bio number one.

Bio number two is the rock star story: the graft as the band gets together and tries to make it big. And here we see more of Geldof's drive as he tries to create a model for music distribution that hadn't previously existed in Ireland. He takes the hostility directed at the Boomtown Rats and makes lemonade from it (he takes reviews that slate them and uses them as ammunition for publicity: "The Boomtown Rats have learnt a new chord - you can hear it at..."), he and the band work hard to become modest successes then breakout successes - with more than the usual amount of controversy, mostly due to Geldof's mouth - then charts their decline into spent forces, wondering what happened (although Geldof is usually able to pinpoint exactly where it happened and how).

Bio number three is the story of Band Aid, Live Aid and what happened around those times. Here Geldof takes his drive and pragmatism and uses it to get stuff done. He states constantly throughout the book that when he wants to achieve something, he'll do whatever it takes to achieve it, a trait that endeared him to very few people as a musician, but which serves astonishingly well at getting food to Africa. His honesty is refreshing on the page but it would be a pain in the arse in reality, I imagine.

There are some inconsistencies here, mostly to do with some passages where Geldof talks about something then seemingly contradicting himself on details a few dozen pages later, but they come across as more poorly expressed rather than hypocritical, and the change the book takes in the latter stages where it becomes the story of Band Aid rather than of Geldof is a little disconcerting but it moves so fast that you are willing to roll with it.

It's also touching and sad to read this book in the light of history: Geldof's own relationship with Paula Yates is lovely and sweet to read about here, but heartbreaking in hindsight, as is the brief passage about how marriage to Diana changed Prince Charles for the better, making him more confident and relaxed.

It doesn't feel as though Geldof has pulled any punches here, although he may have glossed over some details. He is honest, sometimes breathtakingly so, seemingly at peace, or at least at terms, with some of his decisions and history and tells - with the help of Paul Vallely - a refreshingly fluff-free story of a life.