Geldof is reluctant to analyze his motivations. But others have studied his biography, scarred by loss, for clues to his intensely driven personality.
Geldof's mother died of a brain hemorrhage when he was seven. His longtime partner Paula Yates, mother of his three daughters, died of a drug overdose in 1998. Geldof has raised their children, Fifi, Peaches and Pixie, and also adopted Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, Yates' daughter with the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
Born in 1951 in an Ireland he recalled as dull and repressive, Geldof soon escaped to a music career -- initially as a rock journalist with Vancouver, Canada alternative weekly The Georgia Straight.
Returning to Ireland in the mid-1970s, he formed The Boomtown Rats, whose reggae-inflected sound and edgy lyrics caught the emerging punk mood. The band scored several British hits -- the snarling Rat Trap knocked John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John off the top of the charts in 1978.
Described by Geldof as ``perennial outsiders, anti-establishment and anti the anti-establishment,'' the band is best known for having its song about a high-school shooting rampage, I Don't Like Mondays, banned by many US radio stations.
By the early 1980s, the Rats' fame was in decline. Geldof continues to produce solo records, but is now far better known as a campaigner. He seems to accept that will be his legacy. His charitable work gained him an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1986. (Because he is not British, he can't officially call himself by his nickname, Sir Bob.)
Geldof has said he is proud of his musical legacy, but told a reporter in 2003 that he'd been awed to meet people like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, ``because they're ... amazing artists and ... well, I'm not.''
On the Net:
Live 8 official site: www.live8live.com
Geldof official site: www.bobgeldof.info
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