Is the second coming better than the first time?

ArrGee · Back To Boomtown

Is the second coming better than the first time?

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

It's a hard one. Back then, it was all happening. They were charting. All the teenage or preteen excitement. It was all new. Even in 1979, after being a fan for 2 years already. Now, it's all the fans, it's meeting the band. I'd have ran a mile back then. Middle aged excitement lol. The fact they were never going to reform. Then they did. They're still going. Having funds and independence to follow them around.

on balance I think the second coming is better.

-- Edited by Jules on Saturday 22nd of November 2014 06:40:54 PM

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

Jules wrote:
It's a hard one. Back then, it was all happening. They were charting. All the teenage or preteen excitement. It was all new. Even in 1979, after being a fan for 2 years already. Now, it's all the fans, it's meeting the band. I'd have ran a mile back then. Middle aged excitement lol. The fact they were never going to reform. Then they did. They're still going. Having funds and independence to follow them around.

on balance I think the second coming is better.

-- Edited by Jules on Saturday 22nd of November 2014 06:40:54 PM

Agree with everything you say 100%. In my opinion this 2nd coming far much better. And as Bob loves to point out the song are as fresh today as they had been all those years ago. I also think that Bob singing has gotten much better over the years as well. Great wee band. To date no other band has ever made me sit up and think Fu?k this is great. In my life time, I found that wee band in the Rats, God bless you guys.

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

ArrGee wrote:
Having latched onto the Rats a little late in the summer of 1978 and only managing to see them live a couple of times in 1979 and 1980, I am starting to believe it is far better now. Ok, it lacks the thrill of making number one, and hearing songs for the first time, but since The Barton Rats played the 100 club in 2008, I have had far better experiences from that first date via whyteleafe, Upstairs at Whelans' , the polo club, cork, the roundhouse, the forum and onto Maida Vale. All I had back in 1979 was a school friend, yet now there are umpteen people I have been to gigs with and had a great time with all of them. I have even met and spoken to most of the band.
The original was good, but in all honesty it is better now. Maybe cos I feel like I am participating rather than spectating.

Have to say well put. For me I was to turn 14 that September of 77. I had just turned the tv over to the Late late show and for me that's when my life began. There was Bob given it his all hate the world the, things that were coming out of his mouth took mo to another place. Then they sang Looking after No 1. Gay Byrne turn round to them after the song was done and said great song lads. Geldof turn round and said well if it's that fu@king great go out and buy it. I new then that was me well hooked into this wee band for the rest of my life time. Funny thing was at the time my Da was in the back ground telling me to turn it over cos of the way Geldof was getting on. This was the only time I did no listen to my farther (Thank god)

Melv · Diamond Smiles

I think it's better this time. Yes. as ArrGee and Jules says there was the excitement in the late 70's. I was 16 when The Rats burst onto the music scene. By this time I was already well into the punk scene, the music, not so much the fashion! I bought Lookin' After No1 as soon as it came out in 1977 and then Tonic For The Troops the next year and was hooked. For some reason I never caught them live around that time although I saw many bands such as The Clash, Buzz****s, Joy Division, The Jam in the late 70s.

I never expected The Rats to reform and was surprised when I saw last year's tour advertised on Ents 24 so resolved to see them. Living in Wakefield at the time I got tickets for Leeds and joined this forum and met Suss for the first time, for a beer beforehand. The gig blew me away and I got tickets for Doncaster a few days later.

Since then Michelle and I have seen them live at Butlins, Wolverhampton, Leicester and the bonus of Maida Vale for me this year, all were excellent.

The difference for me is in two main areas. One, as Bob said at Maida Vale, today the band are relaxed as there aren't the commercial pressures of the past, they connect with the songs and they certainly give it their all. Second, is that now that we've got the social media channels we've been lucky to meet some fantastic people and have had some fantastic times before and after the gigs (usually in the pub!) We wouldn't have had the chance to meet these people in the late 70s. We were also lucky enough to meet the band on one occasion which would have been pretty much impossible then.

So, yes, this second time round is better than the first for me. smile

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

Another about being older and meeting the band now is we are more on a level with them. Not just teenagers, just a bunch of kids to the band.

Scottie · Loudmouth

of course it is better for me second time round because I absolutely hated them in the 70s. Quite like them now. They are great guys, all of them. Irene/Scottie (Still prefer solo though)

Mark L · Loudmouth

For me, it's too simplistic to talk of better now than then or vice versa. Both are excellent life experiences for different reasons. You can't have the now without the then. The then was amazing for me, the toppling of American bubblegum nonsense, the excitement of chart activity, the teenage adoration, the highs and lows, the willing of each single to go higher, the first ever rock/pop gig, all viewed from a fresh teenage perspective - then the 'this is what I've been talking about' feeling when Geldof masterminded Band Aid/Live Aid - the latter an incredible experience in '85. Actually, I empathise a fair bit with Joseph O'Connor and what he writes in Memories of a suburban Irish childhood.

Now is different, but still wonderful. That this could emerge from the unpleasantness of the '90s and noughties, the going to gigs as an adult, meeting fantastic like-minded adults and appreciating a shared-kinship, this forum, the quality of the gigs, the near-universal sentiment that they can still put on a pretty damn good show, meeting the band after Wolverhampton, and the feeling right now that the answer to 'Is that It?' is thankfully for the tine being, no.

So, better? No, different. Both amazing? Yes, in their own way.

Tango · In the Long Grass

Obviously I was suffering something of an existence problem the first time around, but like a few people have said the songs certainly still resonate, and even if based solely on live recordings Bob's voice has come on a good way in both tone and control.
I put in a biased 'vote' for the second coming ;)