FRESH from an enforced delay at Paris airport you could forgive Bob Geldof for being less than eager to do an interview about a show in Preston.

Certainly it was fortunate it wasn't for radio as the singer launched into a verbal tirade about air travel in general and his fellow passengers in particular.

But Geldof without a rant is rather like Morecambe without Wise, the sum of the parts is integral to the whole thing.

Geldof is something of a force of nature. Even down a phone line you get a sense of the energy of the man who persuaded some of the biggest stars in music to unite in the Live Aid project. There is a livewire mind, constantly leaping from one topic to another and the expletive-laden conversation soon becomes endearing rather than shocking.

Tomorrow night Geldof will be performing with his 'other' band the Bobcats at Preston Guild Hall - a show which will cover both his solo material and songs from the Boomtown Rats.

"The shows I do with the Bobcats are a more mellow, laid back affair," he said. "It's a more considered show. I play a bit of guitar and I get the chance to chat in between songs, explaining how some of them came about."

The more intimate shows require Geldof to tone down the full-on persona seen when he fronts the Boomtown Rats, the band he formed in Ireland in the late Seventies and who went on to have a string of hits including I Don't Like Mondays and Rat Trap.

"With the Rats, Bobby Boomtown comes out to play," he laughed. "Bobby Boomtown needs to be a frontman, his job is to be a singer and visually represent the totality of the band. I can't just walk out on stage and be that snotty, arrogant little (expletive deleted) but it’s not an assumed personality either.

“That is part of my personality. I have my routine to get myself in the right place. Before a show I’ll go into a room on my own for 15 minutes, put on the suit and then I’m ready to go.”

The Boomtown Rats have been playing to festival crowds this summer, including headlining the recent Rebellion punk festival in Blackpool a couple of weeks ago.

“It can get a bit confusing when we have Rats shows and Bobcats shows interweaving,” he said. “Pete Briquette who has been with me from the start with the Rats and is also my musical director with the Bobcats often has to remind me which show we’re going to do next.”

For all the Boomtown Rats festival successes, Geldof is realistic about the band’s chances of recording new material.

“I’d love to record a new Rats album but no-one would be interested in it,” he said. “You might think that’s sad but you’ve got to be realistic. Look at the Rolling Stones, if they brought out a new album no-one would really buy it. The world of massive album sales has gone, even bands like the Stones use a new album as a reason to go out on tour.

“With the Rats we had 17 hits and being honest that’s what people want to hear.”

But that doesn’t prevent Geldof from writing new solo material.

“Enough people will buy a new album which makes it worthwhile for a label to keep me on,” he said. “I’m 63 now and I don’t have to do this but it’s what I want to do.”

Looking back on a career that is now in its fifth decade, Geldof said: “I’m glad that the Rats helped to change Ireland. It was never done intentionally, mostly it was because we just wouldn’t shut up but we were talking about things that were happening to average people.

“It’s not some Celtic romanticism, we were actually banned from our own country for goodness sake.

“When we came over to England in 1976 we continued with that desire for change which caught the mood.”

Geldof remembers playing the Lodestar at Ribchester, the Rats first gig in England.

“I still have the telegram from the record company wishing us well,” he said.

“I thing being able to change things through music is so cool but it is something to be used wisely.”

Geldof remains an intensely private person and shuns the celebrity lifestyle he could easily enjoy.

“I hate all that red carpet stuff,” he said. “but celebrity is a currency and it all depends on how wisely you spend it.”

Bob Geldof, Preston Guild Hall, tomorrow. Details from the box office on 01772 804444.