Sir Bob Geldof addresses death of Peaches Geldof for the first time since inquest confirmed heroin the likely cause

The singer addressed the tragedy after taking to the stage at Volksfest in Plymouth during his set with The Boomtown Rats that evening

Farewell, my lovely: Peaches Geldof with her father, Bob (Rex Features)

Sir Bob Geldof has spoken about how he feels in wake of the death of his late daughter, Peaches Geldof, for the first time since a preliminary inquest into her sudden passing ruled heroin to be a “likely” cause.

The singer addressed the tragedy after taking to the stage at Volksfest in Plymouth during his set with The Boomtown Rats that evening.

“It’s very cathartic, you know,” The Sun quotes him as saying.

“There’s a lot of things going on in my head at the moment and you can just purge them and the crowd allow you to do that.

“I will sleep well tonight, which will be the first time in weeks I’ve slept well.”

It was expected that Geldof would cancel all upcoming tour dates as he struggled to come to terms with her passing.

But, he said, he is determined to keep going in spite of all: “You walk on the stage and you want to be mega, and if the crowd is going crazy then it all helps.”

He went on to tell the publication that he’s found a renewed vigour for the band’s old tracks, having released best of album Back To Boomtown: Classic Rat Hits last year.

“Playing the songs again, that I wrote years ago, is exciting,” he continued.

“I can remember writing some of them but not all of them. But they could have been written yesterday. You are never really aware that the sound you make is powerful after such a long gap. You get together and you say, ‘F***, I didn’t know I was in a good band’. You hear it as a punter again.”

Fans of the band can expect to look forward to seeing them at several more festival sets scheduled in over the summer.

“I think I prefer just doing festivals to normal gigs,” he concluded. “I’m a cr*p dancer but that’s what I feel like doing and I’m not really thinking about it, you know? It’s powerful — I want to move to that.”

Peaches Geldof, Pixie Geldof, Tiger Lily Geldof and Sir Bob Geldof in 2006 in Dublin (Getty Images)

Geldof spoke publicly for the first time following Peaches’ death back in May, when he discussed the kidnapping of 200 school girls by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in a Channel 4 interview with Jon Snow.

“Boka Haram is an excrescence of poverty, as famine is, as hunger is, as corruption is, as war is, as lack of education and health is,” he said.

“If you’ve got a job and you’ve got some stature, some dignity and you have a family, then you don’t pick up a gun. If the only way of earning any money whatsoever is to take a gun and direct it at a target…”

He went on to dismiss the current media campaigns launched urging military intervention to recover the girls – with supporters including Malala Yousafzai, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.

A full inquest into the death of Peaches Geldof is expected to be heard this July.

Soon after her funeral in April, Sir Bob Geldof announced his engagement to long-time partner Jeanne Marine.