It looked as severed as Morrissey and Marr, but Bob Geldof is to renew his alliance with the rest of the Boomtown Rats at this year’s Isle of Wight Festival, which runs from June 13 to 16.

It’s been 26 years since post-Live Aid the Dublin new-wavers broke-up. Various Rats line-ups have toured in recent years, but never with Geldof centre-stage.

“Playing again with The Rats and doing those great songs again will be exciting afresh,” he enthuses. “We were an amazing band and I just feel it's the right time to re-Rat, to go back to Boomtown for a visit. Also, I’ve always fancied playing the Isle of Wight Festival ever since I hitched there in the good/bad days when I was a kid. I saw The Who, The Doors (I think) Hendrix and Leonard Cohen, who incidentally blew Hendrix off the stage, and Kris Kristofferson, who was also amazing. God, so many cool bands! I also told several very boring frog anarchist types to go and fuck themselves and then stayed for a night in Hawkwind’s tent. That's pretty IOW. Maybe Hawkwind are playing again this year. Maybe I could use the tent again. It will be a privilege to be on that stage especially with a killer band like The Boomtown Rats.”

With IOW described as “a UK festival exclusive”, there’s every chance the chaps will slot in some more dates including Ireland.