Bob Geldof: The Moment

Bob Geldof grew up listening to the radio on the outskirts of Dublin, where his loneliness and resentment of prescribed drudgery manifested itself in an all-consuming desire to escape. It was an almost quintessential rock-star story — rebellion, transgression, fame, drugs, escapades, fading glory. That is, until he turned on the news one late-October evening in 1984 and saw a short story about a famine that moved him and changed his life. The next year, Mr. Geldof was in the Sahel region of Africa, overseeing distribution of the $140 million he and his fellow musicians ultimately helped to raise in one of the largest charity efforts ever organized.Bob Geldof grew up listening to the radio on the outskirts of Dublin, where his loneliness and resentment of prescribed drudgery manifested itself in an all-consuming desire to escape. It was an almost quintessential rock-star story — rebellion...