Boomtown Rats Guitarist Garry Roberts Dies at 72

- “We feel strangely adrift without him tonight,” band says

Garry Roberts, guitarist and co-founder of the Boomtown Rats, died Nov. 9, his bandmates said.

Roberts was 72; no cause was given.

“We have known Garry since we were children and so we feel strangely adrift without him tonight,” band members Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette and Simon Crowe said in a statement issued “with very great grief.”

The Rats formed in Ireland in 1975 and scored hits such as “Like Clockwork” and “I Don’t Like Mondays” before their initial split in 1986. The band reformed in 2013 and released Citizens of Boomtown, its first album since 1984, in 2020.

Imelda May remembered Roberts as a “total legend and thoroughly nice man.

“Sending love to his family, friends and band family,” she wrote on Twitter.

11/9/22