Bob Geldof to give concert in Malta
Joanna Ripard
Anti-poverty campaigner and rock star Bob Geldof is to perform in
concert in Malta to raise funds for YMCA, a spokesman for the
charity told The Sunday Times last week.
The concert will be held on June 28, at a venue yet to be
announced.
Bob Geldof, the creator of the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, has
pledged his support to YMCA, and the Malta event aims to raise
awareness of the plight of the homeless in Malta.
The concert falls within a string of the star's European dates
and rounds off a trio of big names to play in Malta in early summer:
Sting stages a concert here on June 6 and Roger Waters on July
10.
Bob Geldof's commitment to YMCA's cause is a huge coup for the
charity.
YMCA has worked hard to turn the spotlight on Malta's homeless in
recent years. Last year, the YMCA assisted 9,000 social cases,
although not all were homeless. About 300 people officially don't
have a roof over their heads in Malta, where many people still find
it hard to believe homelessness is a big issue.
Born in County Dublin, Geldof, 54, fronted the Irish new wave
band Boomtown Rats in the Seventies and Eighties and shot to
international fame in 1979 with I Don't Like Mondays. But in 1984,
he was famously moved by BBC footage of starving children in
Ethiopia and vowed to do something to help. He teamed up with
Ultravox's Midge Ure and co-wrote the smash hit Do They Know It's
Christmas? which was recorded by a host of British and Irish stars
in a group called Band Aid.
Riding on the success of the single, Geldof organised the Live
Aid charity concerts in London and Philadelphia in July 1985 and
raised unprecedented funds to relieve African suffering.
A year later he was given an honorary knighthood in recognition
for his work. As a non-British national he did not become "Sir Bob"
but can use the letters KBE after his name if he so wishes.
Ironically he is still nicknamed Sir Bob and even St Bob. Geldof has
also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Boomtown Rats, which had released seven albums, split that
year and Geldof launched a solo career and released four albums.
On July 2 last year he organised another string of mega-concerts
in major cities across the world, this time called Live 8, part of
the Make Poverty History campaign. U2's Bono, founder of DATA (Debt,
AIDS, Trade, Africa), was also heavily involved. The ONE campaign to
Make Poverty History was spawned from DATA.
The object this time was not to raise cash but to exert as much
pressure as possible on the G8 leaders, who were meeting at
Gleneagles in Scotland a few days later, to cancel Third World debt.
An estimated three billion people watched the event.
In the end, G8 leaders agreed to double aid to Africa to $50
billion by 2010 and cancel the debts of the 18 poorest nations.
Geldof and his collaborators are now working to make sure those
promises are kept. | 
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