‘Suits you!’- Hats off to Bob

As if sharing the same stage as The Boomtown Rats’ Bob Geldof wasn’t enough, fellow musician and skilled local tailor Terry Brady went that extra mile by presenting the iconic frontman with a bespoke cap.

Terry from Mountain Lodge, who back in 2019 reached the finals of the Golden Shears, a prestigious UK competition widely considered the Oscars of Savile Row, greeted Geldof back at their greenroom after the band stormed their way through an hour and a half set and two-song encore in tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor.

From the time Terry learned that The Boomtown Rats were to play Cavan Calling 2023, he set about designing a hat to suit Geldof who is famed for his individual style and penchant for baker boy style hats.

When Terry, who provides backing vocals and like Geldof himself plays harmonica, learned that he’d be taking to the stage as a member of The Savage Hearts in support of the Rats, he knew his plan was akin to “fate”.

“I knew I had the in and I had to make it happen.”

A tailor by trade, Terry began styling and designing gent’s hats under ‘T Brady Bespoke’ during the pandemic, and work on trimming suits all but dried up.

He shares his work online, and often wears his designs himself, including on stage at the weekend.

For Geldof’s design, Terry researched the style first before settling on a fabric - a London green with bird’s eye pattern.

“I know he wears these big floppy caps with the button undone so it’s flopping back, with the peak down over his eyes like he’s going incognito. I did a couple of drafts, got the pattern right, and then I picked my cloth. I’d seen him in a green suit, with a birdseye pattern so I picked something that’d match.”

Terry says Geldof appeared “chuffed”.

“He took out his own cap and showed me first, and told me he has a guy in London who makes them for him, really nice, really nice style. And then I showed him the one I’d made for him and he was like ‘holy sh*t’. It was dead on. He was chuffed with it.”

The reaction, and seeing someone “love what you do and appreciate it, is what makes it worthwhile”, Terry tells the Celt. “Something they can wear for years to come, and love, it’s a great feeling. I don’t know this guy or how he’d react, but he seemed really pleased. He was so nice about it, so nice.”

They exchanged details also, with Terry telling Geldof, if he ever saw another hat he liked, or owned one he’d prefer in a different colour, to contact him and he’d make it specially.

“He loved the material for the hat I made and said he’d love a suit in this material. I said to him ‘you can have that’, no problem, anytime.”