They had some great singles and I really liked them at the time but they weren’t outstanding and Bob seems to have a bigger opinion of their influence than they really had, possibly due to people like Sinead O’Conner.
I was never a fan of their music. Bob Geldolf did help me once though, unknowingly. He is about the same age as me, a year or so younger, and his mum died when he was about six, as did mine. He was explaining a sadness that is still there after all these years and it helped me knowing that I wasn’t the only person who felt that.
The BTR were good and I bought several singles at the time. But they were not the best band in the world, they weren’t even the best band in Ireland (Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones were better).