Irish band Boomtown Rats reunites for UK festival

Bob Geldof, former singer of the Boomtown Rats and organizer of the Live Aid concerts for Africa (L) sits next to Kai Diekmann, editor in chief of German newspaper Bild, during an editorial meeting in the newsroom of the paper in Hamburg, northern Germany May 31, 2007.

LONDON (Reuters) - Irish band The Boomtown Rats, best known for No. 1 hits "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays", will reunite for the first time since 1986 at the Isle of Wight Festival in June, organisers said in a statement on Monday.

Active in the 1970s and 80s, the group led by charity campaigner Bob Geldof will take the main stage at the festival held off the south coast of England.

Headline acts for the four-day event from June 13-16 are British bands The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and U.S. groups The Killers and Bon Jovi. Dozens of artists will join them, including Paul Weller, Fun., Ke$ha, The Script and Blondie.

"Playing again with The Rats and doing those great songs again will be exciting afresh," Geldof said in the statement.

The singer is best known for organising global charity concerts Live Aid and Live 8.

"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."

He recalled hitchhiking to the festival in the "good/bad days" of his childhood and seeing The Who, Kris Kristofferson, Jimi Hendrix and Leonard Cohen, "who incidentally blew Hendrix off the stage."

The Boomtown Rats, who split in 1986, will play on Sunday, June 16.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)