Bob & Pete On A Train - The EXETER Edition of The Zone, PART ONE!

WELCOME TO THE EXETER EDITION OF THE ZONE, PART 1! The Rats in Exeter turned out to be filled with so many surprises, one day of the week was NEVER going to cover it all! So every single day this week is going to feature all of the thrills & excitement of the Rats' Saturday night performance & you DON'T WANT TO MISS ONE SECOND!

By all accounts, Saturday night's show in Exeter was one of the very best the Rats have ever done! Maybe this is because they arrived so rested. Look at the above photos of Bob & Pete as the beautiful scenery outside the window of their train on the way to the show goes flying by! Incredible bright blue skies & white fluffy clouds! A total scene of relaxation ~ Bob catching up on Trump and Pete catching up on men's fashion. Speaking of which!...

On Saturday night, on the stage of Let's Rock Exeter, Pete wore a truly beautiful t~shirt in honor of Sinéad O'Connor. And actually, this is something that goes much beyond fashion into the truest kind of beauty ~ showing deep love for a friend.

From that sweet note to...Let's talk "You and Me Against The Whole Fucking World"! That's not at all a disrespectful merging because I'm certain Sinéad O'Connor loved "Against The World" as much as I do! As much as I know WE ALL do! It has to be experienced! So, just click on this link for a performance so powerful, so passionate, you'll feel like you were there! I genuinely feel like I'm sitting in the middle of the stage every time I watch this. I can't get enough of it!

While thinking about Sinéad O'Connor, I want to share that "Diamond Smiles" was one of her very favorite Rats songs. On this night, Bob introduced it as a Taylor Swift song! One thing I can tell you Bob and Taylor Swift have in common is never shying away from looking difficult topics straight in the eye. In 1979, Bob Geldof was way ahead of his time in being so sensitive as to realize the trauma that a relationship gone wrong can make a person go through ~ all the way to the point of deciding to take their own life and he wrote about it beautifully & compellingly. Taylor Swift looks these topics in the eye all the time and writes about them very directly but it was not so common in 1979. Both Bob Geldof and Taylor Swift save lives all the time by doing this.

To experience the depth and beauty of "Diamond Smiles" on Saturday night, click here:

To go back to fashion and appearances for a moment, I do want to let you know that just as I asked extraordinary photographer, Jules Koretz, to photograph the Rats in Northampton last Saturday, I asked equally extraordinary photographer, Amanda Hindshaw, to photograph the Rats in Exeter. The two beautiful photos from "Diamond Smiles" are hers. But it wouldn't be Amanda if included in the bunch were not GREAT photos of Bob's hair, which she regularly professess her love for!:

The bounty simply doesn't end here! So many extraordinary things came in from Exeter, you simply have to come back to Citizens of Boomtown every day this week to experience it all! Tomorrow, of course, is the Pete Briquette edition of The Zone because July 2nd is Pete's birthday! So, come back & wish Pete a Happy Birthday!

Wednesday? It's not going to be your run~of~the~mill Wednesday! It's Sneaky Snap Wednesday with the behind~the~scenes photography of Paul Cuddeford! And you thought he was just an amazing guitarist! He knows how to convincingly pretend he's about to make a phone call while hovering his finger over the camera button! THAT'S how he caught Bob & Pete in such a sweet moment of relaxation on the train...See You Tomorrow!

🔹🔷🔹