Bob Geldof Say He Got Texts Full Of ‘Despair & Sorrow’ From Friend Sinead O’Connor Before Her Death

During a concert, Irish singer-songwriter and political activist Bob Geldof paid tribute to Sinead O’Connor, who died Wednesday, July 26, at the age of 56.

Geldof said he was “very good friends” with O’Connor and was her neighbor when they were growing up. He told the audience that she often came to see his band, the Boomtown Rats, as a teenager.

As a photo of O’Connor was projected on a screen, Geldof and his band dedicated two songs to her: “Dave,” which is about carrying on when faced with tragedy, and “Mary of the Fourth Form,” which he said was O’Connor’s favorite song of theirs.

At the concert, he mentioned that they were “talking right up to a couple of weeks ago.” “Some of the texts were laden with desperation and despair and sorrow and some were ecstatically happy,” he continued. “She was like that.”

He also recalled O’Connor’s infamous 1992 Saturday Night Live appearance, where she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse within the Catholic church. Geldof joked that she was inspired by the Rats tearing up a photo of John Travolta to protest disco on the British TV show Top of the Pops.

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He went on to honor her character, saying, “She was relentless, she had a voice like none of us had ever heard, so pure… She meant a lot to everybody, she meant a lot to us. Her voice represented her soul and spirit. And whenever we hear that, we will always be with a great woman.”