Culture That Made Me: Arena presenter Seán Rocks picks his touchstones
The Sound of Music
I was in a production of The Sound of Music in primary school. I played Rolf, the Nazi sympathiser. In one scene, I had to walk on stage carrying this telegram. At this stage, Captain von Trapp knew I had some dodgy background. I thought to myself, I know what will help this scene. I dropped the telegram just as Martin McKenna – who was playing Captain von Trapp – asked me, 'What do you want?' I heard from the wings my teacher saying, 'Ah, he's after dropping the telegram.' I wanted to shout, 'I dropped it on purpose!' I remember, as I exited, there was a round of applause. I thought, that's interesting.
The Well of the Saints
I remember the Irish Theatre Company came to Monaghan touring JM Synge's The Well of the Saints, a story about this old, blind couple who have this beautiful love for each other. Barry McGovern played this wandering friar. The belief in the play is that if you rub water from the well on your eyes, you'll see again. I was thinking, how's that going to work? Will they have a well with water in it? When it came to putting water in their eyes, the well was nothing more than an upturned light. They put their head into the light and that was how they showed water pouring over their eyes. My brain knew there was no water, but my emotions made me believe there was water and they could now see. It was incredible. It was an awakening.
Boss Grady's Boys
I remember early in my acting career going to see Sebastian Barry's play Boss Grady's Boys. It was a production at The Peacock. The lighting again was incredible. There was just these shafts of light and this story of these two brothers – Eamon Kelly was the simpler brother, and Jim Norton was the more sensible brother. I remember the sheer beauty of the relationship between the two of them and the emotional intensity of it.
The Wake
I was in Tom Murphy's The Wake at the Abbey in 1998. I played the all-singing, piano-playing priest Fr Billy. It was a great part. I had great fun with it. Music was a big part of my background growing up. We all played piano to a certain level. I played guitar. We all sang in choirs. Family parties would be singing songs, all of us around the piano, singing anything from Stephen Foster Victorian parlour stuff to folk things, to Simon & Garfunkel.
Queen
Freddie Mercury of Queen.
The older brother of a friend at school had this amazing album collection. We'd be listening to his records in stereophonic glory. Queen became a big thing. I loved that Queen didn't use synthesizers – that every sound they made was made. Maybe I was a bit of a purist. We're more tolerant of electronic music nowadays. A lot of sounds in the Seventies were a bit kitsch.
Led Zeppelin
As a guitarist, I wasn't playing Led Zeppelin, apart from the unforgivable recurrence of the guitar riff at the beginning of Stairway to Heaven, which was de rigueur for any self-respecting 20-year-old who was playing guitar at a post college party. House of the Rising Sun was another staple. Now if I saw someone with a guitar at a house party, it would cause a shudder: 'Is that a guitar? Did he bring a guitar?'
Tune-Yards
I remember going to see the American artists Tune-Yards at Whelan's in Dublin many years ago. The lead singer was on Arena with me. I really liked the music. It was loops and pedals, very clever stuff. Some people would say it's too clever – that it's 'to be admired,' if I'm not misquoting one of our reviewers, 'rather than loved,' but I remember going to that gig, and the live experience was a whole different ball game, and brilliantly so.
The Gloaming
Another stand-out concert was The Gloaming. They are such a phenomenal group of players. Iarla Ó Lionáird is amazing, his facility with song. It was in the National Concert Hall. I remember thinking, this is extraordinary, I'm feeling it in the people around me.
It's not that it was a beginning. Irish music has been alive and well for several hundred years, but it was part of a resurgence, a renewal happening. They were bringing other elements of music and genres into what they were doing. You had this mix of instruments. I remember the atmosphere at the gig, the air of expectation before it started.
Janis Ian and Ralph McTell
I've been spoiled. In January 2024, I was at Trad Fest doing a live outside broadcast. Sitting across the stage from me was Janis Ian and Ralph McTell, both of them holding their guitars. She sang, 'I learned the truth at seventeen'. He jammed along. He started singing The Streets of London and she jammed along. I'm thinking this is the best gig I've ever been at! They were playing music almost to each other, and I was getting to watch that a few feet away.
Janelle Monáe
janelle Monae. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty)
I remember broadcasting at Electric Picnic, probably 2010. Janelle Monáe performed. She was really impressive. She walked off stage and across the field to where we were recording an interview. It was as if the air moved out of her way. People playing in those big arenas, if they don't have star quality they're going to disappear into nowhere. She had it. You could see it with her – that is star quality walking across there.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
I remember reading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as a 17-year-old and in particular the appendix at the back for Newspeak – the Orwellian language of control, doublethink, people in charge imprisoning people for thought crimes, pulling people off the street because they weren't obeying the party. People who went to war were the Department of Peace. If the party said it's true, it was true whether it's true or not. How that has come to pass. We live in an era where you need to be discerning. Language is such a potent thing.
Claire Keegan
Claire Keegan.
Claire Keegan's writing possesses such integrity. The stories she tells are so wonderfully condensed. Not a word too much. Never a melodrama, just this economic, potent, thought-through sentence after sentence. If I had to pick a contemporary writer, she stands out.
My Left Foot
I can still remember the opening sequence to My Left Foot – where he picks up the stylus of the record with his foot and puts it on the record. That's how the film started! I blubbered uncontrollably. It was an extraordinary moment.
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Irish Times
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Bob Geldof: ‘I never read about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say'
Bob Geldof has yet to sit down to Live Aid at 40 , the BBC's gripping and expletive-filled account of how he wrangled some of the world's biggest pop stars into appearing at the era-defining 1985 charity concerts at Wembley in London and in Philadelphia . 'I never watch anything that I'm in. I never read anything about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say. I can't stand looking at my crap hair and all that sort of stuff. But I know about it and the response has been amazing. I was in Britain on the 'anniversary day',' he says, referring to Live Aid's 40th 'birthday' on July 13th. 'Even calling it the 'anniversary day' is weird to me.' Live Aid at 40 portrayed Geldof in a largely laudatory light. There were quibbles about the lyrics of the 1984 Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas? Ethiopian politicians were offended by the song's title, explaining that, with their rich history of Christianity, they were perfectly aware of the birth of Jesus. [ Live Aid at 40: Bob Geldof emerges from this less sanitised version of events seeming somehow more admirable Opens in new window ] But the film's wider message was that Geldof had done something extraordinary by cajoling music's brightest lights – most famously Freddie Mercury and Queen – into coming together to raise millions for the victims of the Ethiopian Famine. He is pleased the documentary was well received, and that the anniversary hoopla has refocused attention on the plight of so many in Africa today. 'The nicest thing I read was that the greatest achievement of Live Aid was, in this world of indifference, [it] put poverty in Africa back on the agenda 40 years later.' READ MORE Geldof (73) has a reputation as a garrulous interviewer and someone prone to going off on a tangent. However, he is chatty and considered when talking to The Irish Times ahead of a performance next weekend by his group the Boomtown Rats in Co Waterford. It's possible we've caught him at a good moment. He's out on the road, leading the band on a 50th anniversary tour and playing to packed houses (a new compilation record, The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory, follows in September). Though Live Aid and his campaigning have arguably eclipsed the Boomtown Rats' melodic punk pop, music is still his first love – and on stage, he burns with the same anger that has been a defining quality of his band since they played their debut concert on the campus of Bolton Street Institute of Technology in 1975. His rage came from his experience as a young man coming of age in the near-theocracy that was 1970s Ireland. He wasn't the only one to bristle under the dead hand of the Church – but he spoke out about it where others refused to. That need to lash out was the driving force behind the Boomtown Rats' first single, Rat Trap – inspired by his experience working in an abattoir in Dublin and observing how Catholicism and a life of narrowed horizons had beaten down and hollowed out his colleagues. He was only getting started. He and his band were more or less blacklisted from Ireland after Geldof went on The Late Late Show in 1977 and denounced 'medieval-minded clerics and corrupt politicians'. He also had a go at some nuns heckling from the audience – telling them they had 'an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church'. The appearance caused a furore – even the unflappable Gay Byrne looked shocked. The Boomtown Rats would not play again in Ireland until 1980. It was a price he was happy to pay – a point he made clear in the 2020 documentary Citizens of Boomtown, released along with a well-reviewed comeback album of the same name. Bob Geldof: 'I have more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine.' Photograph: Chris Hoare/New York Times Geldof performs with The Boomtown Rats at Leixlip Castle in 1980. Photograph: Paddy Whelan 'There was certainly a focused anger with me,' he says today. 'Perhaps less so with some of the others [in the band]. An inchoate undetermined rage was definitely the fuel. If there was this society that was just stuck, and there didn't seem to be any way that it could unstick itself, we would just go – along with hundreds and thousands of others. But in our going we articulated, I think, that rage – either literally in the songs or in the sound we made.' Decades on, a new generation of Irish musicians has taken up the baton – most prominently the Belfast-Derry rap trio Kneecap and Dublin/Mayo indie band Fontaines DC, who have advocated fiercely on behalf of Gaza. Does he see something of himself and the Boomtown Rats in those artists? [ Citizens of Boomtown: 'Bob Geldof drove me out of my f***ing mind' Opens in new window ] 'As I said, rock'n roll is essentially an articulation of the hitherto inexpressible. If there's something bothering you and you're inherently musical it will find its way. And it is something that seems to catch the zeitgeist. That's why these things become popular. The attitude of Fontaines and Kneecap ... there's a direct line back to Little Richard. It's corny and obvious but it's true.' The distinction, he believes, is that music is no longer at the centre of the culture of protest. It isn't that bands today care any less than their predecessors or that their fans are any less invested. But society no longer looks to music for answers in the way it once did. 'The difference is that ... this is contentious, but why not? I think that rock'n'roll as the spine of the culture was a 50-year phenomenon,' he says. 'In my lifetime rock'n roll was the arbiter of the social dialogue. The role of music has been taken by social media. Pop was our social media.' Everything changed in the early 21st century, he believes. The internet assumed dominance, and music became just another art form rather than a lightning rod for dissent and challenging the status quo. Bob Geldof and Darren Beale of The Boomtown Rats on stage at the Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, earlier this month. Photograph:'The year 2004 was when Google first made a profit. And 2004 was when this new thing appeared called Facebook. From that point on [music reverted to being] like music in the 1920s, '30s, '40s. Brilliant artists, brilliant writers, wonderful music. Fantastic songs. 'That doesn't mean music has lost all meaning. Just that it is no longer a pillar of social protest. You will always remember the feeling when you first kissed a girl, first kissed a boy. That will always be there,' he continues. '[But] it's been taken over by social media. 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At that moment, he understood that being a rock star could change his life. Relocating to London, the band had huge success with singles such as I Don't Like Mondays. The country myself and the Rats left was a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body — Bob Geldof Geldof entered a relationship with TV presenter Paula Yates . They had three daughters and eventually tied the knot, though the marriage fell apart after Yates embarked on an affair with Michael Hutchence of INXS, with whom she had another daughter. Hutchence died by suicide in 1997. Yates suffered a fatal heroin overdose in 2000. In April 2014 there was further tragedy when Geldof and Yates's 25-year-old daughter Peaches died , also of a drug overdose. In a statement, Geldof said the family was 'beyond pain'. Geldof is widely admired, but he is not above criticism. After Live Aid, he was accused of encouraging a White Saviour attitude towards Africa. The naysayers have included Ed Sheeran who said last year that his vocals were added to a new remix of Do They Know It's Christmas? without his permission. His contribution was taken from a 2014 version of the song, and Sheeran said that, were he asked to participate today, he would decline. He quoted an Instagram post by singer Fuse ODG, who said undertakings such as Live Aid 'perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately … destroying its dignity, pride and identity'. Geldof and Paula Yates in 1979. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images Live Aid: Geldof and fellow musicians on stage at Wembley in 1985. Photograph: BBC/Brook Lapping/Mirrorpix/Getty Geldof, along with his contemporary Bono, has also been attacked for staying 'quiet' about Gaza. Last year, singer Mary Coughlan said: 'We all saved the world when Bob and Bono were talking about saving the world, and I couldn't understand what was different about this situation in Gaza. Why would they would be so quiet about it?' 'Well of course I have opinions, like anybody,' he says of Gaza, adding that, as a trustee of the Band Aid Charitable Trust, his work with Africa is his primary focus. 'Whether I like it or not, I am associated with Africa. I've spent 40 years … Every day, I wake to at least 10 Band Aid emails about the latest situation. [The charity is] still building hospitals or … dealing with children Sudan. Or dealing with the ruined bodies of gang-raped women … And trying to give them some semblance of a future life. That's what I wake to every morning and have done for 40 years,' says Geldof. 'So you'll forgive me when I speak I stay focused on that where I know from whence I speak. I can literally do something about that. I have obviously more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine. And, as you know, the answer to the issue of Palestine – it's not as if it's unresolvable. It is a two-state solution. And one way or the other that will ultimately occur. ' He points out that in 1984, nobody was taking a public stand about the famine in Ethiopia. He was the first musician with a platform to do so. Today, there is a chorus of voices about Gaza. 'There was an opportunity to give a focus point,' he said of Live Aid. 'There are plenty of focus points with regard to Palestine. But nothing is going to happen there until the wanton killing is stopped.' What about the argument that Ireland and Britain have flipped positions since Geldof was an angry young man? Once hidebound by religion, the Republic has blossomed into a poster child for progressive values – or so we like to tell ourselves. Meanwhile it has become voguish to paint post-Brexit UK as a wasteland of hollowed-out town centres and red-faced men in Wetherspoons complaining about refugees. [ The unsung Irishman behind Live Aid. Not Bono, not Bob, but Paddy Opens in new window ] 'I'd be wary of the starting point with regards to Britain ... It's a dynamic and creative country. Regardless of what you think, it's still the seventh biggest economy on the planet. In Ireland's case, it is transformative. I come back to what I always thought the country could be. That is not to say I don't know very well indeed the contemporary issues. I follow it rigorously and avidly. My family are in Ireland. I'm back all the time. I follow the politics etc. Having said that, the country myself and the Rats left [was] a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body.' Bono makes an interesting point in the Live Aid documentary about he and Geldof, being Irish, having a folk memory of the Famine. Geldof wasn't aware of Bono's comments – as he says, he didn't watch the series. But he does wonder if being Irish did help put a fire under him. In one scene in the BBC film, he browbeats Margaret Thatcher into essentially removing VAT from Do They Know It's Christmas? He looks her straight in the eyes and talks without fear or deference – something it's hard to imagine even the most ardent English punk rocker doing. [ Live Aid spurred me into becoming a GOAL volunteer on the ground in Africa Opens in new window ] 'One of my pet theories is that punk is largely the product of the first generation of the Windrush people [ie migrants to Britain from the Caribbean] and the first generation of the 1950s mass migration out of Ireland. I don't think it's an accident you had Elvis Costello, Shane MacGowan, George O'Dowd [aka Boy George], Johnny Lydon, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, the Gallagher brothers. A very antsy attitude. Then you had the actual Irish like us. Some of us were friends some of us weren't – rivals or whatever. I always got on really well with Johnny. We always seemed to get on well with each other. Did it make a difference with Live Aid? I don't think anyone was surprised it came out of the Irish community.' The Boomtown Rats play All Together Now at Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford, over the August bank holiday weekend. The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory is released September 19th
The Irish Sun
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Shock moment The Bill legend Reg Hollis helps tackle shoplifter to the ground in real life arrest leaving cop stunned
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