From the cruel sun, you were shelter, you were my shelter and my shade
16.9.09
(RED) Night with Gavin Friday and Friends 15 September 2009
October 4 at New York City's legendary Carnegie Hall, (RED) unites a world-class line up of artists for a special (RED) NIGHTS concert 'Hal Willner Presents: An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends.'
The star-studded evening will feature Laurie Anderson, Antony, Elizabeth Ashley, Bono, Adam Clayton, Andrea Corr, The Edge, Flo and Eddie, Joel Grey, Bill Frisell, Guggi, Scarlett Johansson, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Patrick McCabe, Maria McKee, Shane MacGowan, Eric Mingus, Larry Mullen, Jr., JG Thirlwell, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Chloe Webb, plus special guests.
Tickets for the event will go on sale beginning Wednesday, September 16 at 11AM EST via CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800, Carnegie Hall and the box office. As is the case with every (RED)NIGHTS show, a portion of the proceeds from the concert will go directly to The Global Fund.
Longtime friends and professional collaborators, Willner and Friday came together to bring the concert to life and raise awareness of (RED)'s mission. Friday, a childhood friend of Bono, is an Irish singer, composer and painter and founding member of the gothic rock group The Virgin Prunes. Willner has produced albums for Marianne Faithfull, Lou Reed, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, yet is perhaps best known for assembling tribute albums and live events saluting Leonard Cohen, Thelonius Monk, Tim Buckley, Edgar Allen Poe and Marquis de Sade.
Willner said, 'This unique evening is a celebration of Gavin and a gathering of friends and amazing musicians. We're all proud to partner with (RED) to help fight AIDS in Africa.' 'It's an honor to be a part of this (RED)NIGHT because I know the money generated will go directly to people who need it,' added Friday.
At each (RED)NIGHTS concert, the participating artists aim to inspire fans to join (RED)'s mission to eliminate AIDS in Africa by pausing to highlight the many ways to get involved and encouraging those in the audience to share the message and experience with others. Ultimately, it is the goal of (RED)NIGHTS to build a community - of artists, concertgoers and music fans everywhere - that is passionate about helping to fight AIDS in Africa.
For more information, please visit www.joinred.com/rednights or www.gavinfriday.com .
Transcript: U2 Dishes to Chris Cuomo Bono: You Can't Be 'Boss' in This Band Sept. 14, 2009
"Good Morning America" news anchor Chris Cuomo sat down with the international superstar band members of U2.
Read the transcript of the interview below. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
"Good Morning America" news anchor Chris Cuomo sat down with the international superstar band members of U2. (ABC News)
Chris Cuomo and U2 CHRIS CUOMO: So last night. Here we are in Chicago. And it is amazing how U2 literally changes this place. ... And it was almost like a cultural festival last night as well. Everybody wanted to be a little Irish last night. Is that a common experience for you all?
LARRY MULLEN JR.: I think, in general, the whole -- whole idea of U2 is to, like, engage with, like, our audience. ... So we had to figure out how to do it and how to really engage with (INAUDIBLE). That's what's special about this show. It's in 360. And the audience is such a big part of what we do. And I think last night, you -- you -- see that. But Italians are welcome. (CHUCKLE).
CUOMO: Thank you. I -- I felt like that, although I was playing a little to the Irish side, according to me... You're trying to find a way to make things more special. Well, the stage alone is just one of the most fascinating things ever to happen. Were you surprised when the concept became the reality, when -- what -- what it actually is?
BONO: Dangerously, being a rockstar bec sometimes people give you what you ask for. (CHUCKLE) And -- it's a (UNINTEL) make the crowd center of the show. By playing -- that's what happened. But how do you do that? How do you lift all that gear up and out of the way of the crowd? That was the engineering trick. Started off at -- the dinner table with forks and knives, you know, tryin' to imagine what this thing looked like that we hang all the gear off(UNINTEL). And it turned into the space junk you see behind you.
CUOMO: (CHUCKLE) No, it's really fascinating. And also, before it could start off here in Chicago -- Adam, when you think about it, you guys were touring here 20 years ago in such a different way. And now to be back in such grand fashion.
ADAM CLAYTON: Well, Chicago has just be -- always been a great music town, hasn't it? You know -- you know, there was always that -- the blues musicians comin' up in the '50s. And there's always something going off here. And I think it's very musician-friendly. So it's good to be back. And we've always had great audience and a great reaction. I think on the PopMart tour, we did -- we did three nights here -- which was, like, unusual compared to the rest of them.
CUOMO: People were screaming and loving it. But what is -- what is it like for you. Edge, you know, you did this -- your first show. You know, you're tryin' to get going, get into a rhythm with it. What was it like to have the first show?
THE EDGE: Well -- it was very exciting to bring this (UNINTEL) the show to America. We've been touring in Europe for the last -- month and a half. Those shows were AMAZING. But, we're very proud to bring it here because, you know, we -- we're used to playing indoors in America where in Europe we play outside alot. And on this tour, I think we really worked hard to try and put together a production that made it -- made sense in the stadium ...
You know, we really wanted to make sense of the scale of the stadium venues. And our production, I have to say -- has -- has kind of -- it now looks like a piece of architecture designed to fit into this kind of venue. And weirdly enough, it creates a kind of intimacy which we never could have achieved in a stadium before because we're so kind of in the -- in the middle. We're so exposed. And -- and -- and when the four of us come together, there's this clear view for everybody. They can really see the interaction -- the chemistry.
CUOMO: Let me ask you, on the road, which of you -- what is the consensus? Who's the most fun on the road of you four guys?
THE EDGE: I think we all have our good nights and our -- our bad nights. It -- it changes. You know, the the baton gets passed Larry, I have to say, on this tour is -- is comin' up, comin' through on the fun stakes (UNINTEL). Adam obviously (CHUCKLE) -- Adam obviously was, early on. (CHUCKLE) But Adam's -- Adam's passed on the buck.
CUOMO: It's fun -- now, Larry, you started the band.
You know, there's this obviously famous mythical story, now about you putting up the ad saying, "I want to start a band." Do you ever regret about who you picked? You know, just to lay it out there? (CHUCKLE) You ever think, "Man -- "
MULLEN: No, no, I would -- I would like to say this. No... I didn't choose these guys. It (UNINTEL) turns out they chose me. AAAH.. I -- I -- so I didn't -- I didn't have much say in -- in how -- in how it worked. It's like -- it's like -- it's a little like -- (CHUCKLE)
CUOMO: Do you regret not sticking with the name Larry Mullen Jr. Band?
MULLEN: I do. As a matter of fact, that is one of my big regrets. I think we could've (UNINTEL) this --
THE EDGE: It would've been more popular -- U2 is such a crap name...
CUOMO: But it is interesting when you study the history, something that's so successful as your collaboration, the early thoughts of, "Oh, you know -- Bono, you know, takin' that name, later. Came in, no, the guitarist maybe, maybe not. Your voice, we'll see. But what charisma." You know, Adam used the right language and the Edge, obviously -- you know, you were taken with him as an addition right away. But do you ever think back on them, those kind of -- assessments?
MULLEN: Yeah -- you -- it is hard to look back and imagine that some kind of, you know, that you sat down with a blueprint and put things in place (UNINTEL). It's so random, in a way, and so extraordinary that randomly four people could have remained -- not only friends, but musical collaborators for such a long period. Now, we can't make that shit up. You know?
BONO: It just (CHUCKLE) -- it -- it's a really -- it's a very difficult thing full stop. -- thing. Business relationships, you know, marriage and lovers, whatever it is, sticking together is almost impossible.
These -- in fact, the odds are against us. And I think that's perhaps when we walk out on stage, what people are feeling, I think, these people come through a lot together. And -- and I've heard people say that even if they don't like the band, that they have an involuntary reaction when the band walks out on stage.
Their hair stands up. What they don't know is -- is -- and it's a strange thing, but, that also happens to us. I don't know what -- what that is. But something about -- I think it's something about that it -- it -- it's against the odds to have to suffer, you know, so -- so -- sublimate your ego, your -- 'cause someone wants to be the boss. And you can't be in this band.
CUOMO: You can't be, 'cause Larry's boss.
THE EDGE: Yeah, that's why its lasted so long 'cause -- 'cause everyone thinks it's their band.
CUOMO: You think you all let -- but it worked. It worked. It worked. And I thought it was interesting last night. Everybody knows that this band distinguishes itself in terms of sense of purpose, a message -- that you try to attach to the music. Some of the choices that you're making on this current tour, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," obviously a very, very famous song. You, the images last night, you were talkin' about the Iran election. You had Arabic up there. You had pictures and scenes from Iran. What's the thinking there? What are you -- what are you tryin' the relay to people?
BONO: That if the songs change their meaning and you get truth you know, they fit different aspects of life -- and it's strange, but the -- the heroes on the streets of Iran, those that are fighting for their freedom at the moment (UNINTEL) non-violently , fighting, a matter of fact, protesting, for their freedom, they chose the color green. So this sort of segue into the Irishness of -- of Sunday Bloody Sunday seems perfect.
I can't quite remember how it happened in our rehearsal, but we started using this beautiful Sufi singer from Iran. And we commissioned an Iranian artist -- who put up the -- put some of her video art. And now I -- I -- I -- I've heard on -- on the radio -- I think it's radio free Asia, They talk about this every day that U2's spending -- I mean, it's tiny things for us in Chicago. But it means a lot to people out on the streets of Iran that there's a sense that the world is watching.
CUOMO: And right now, Adam, what is your take in terms of what people's appetite are with their minds and their hearts for reaching out to other hard situations, to wanting to care what was going on? What do you sense?
CLAYTON: I think it's difficult for people. But fundamentally, people are decent and they have a lot of compassion for -- for what's going on in other parts of the world. And -- and I know, you know, everyone's thoughts are with the troops that are in Afghanistan and what's going on there.
And these moments of -- of -- of freedom that people glimpse at like what's happening in Iran, like what's happening in Burma, for instance Au Sung Su Kyi (UNINTEL), I think -- I think the world does watch. (UNINTEL)
THE EDGE: They really get this stuff. They care deeply about it. So they don't like (UNINTEL) impact in the band because they actually go on. They do it.
CLAYTON: They join Amnesty. So it's really a culture in the sense (UNINTEL) morale up and our views (UNINTEL). We're -- we're kind of the cheerleaders for their activism.
CUOMO: It's -- it is a good way to put it because there is an atypical approach. You do not lament things that are wrong with the world. Like, last night, you had Desmond Tutu come on. He didn't talk about any negative instruction. He's all about the power of the positive and what we can do through loving one another and being considerate in situation. Is that intentional, Larry? Anybody can say, "Things are bad out there." But you, more, are tryin' to raise awareness through saying how much better it can be.
MULLEN: I think that's part of it. I mean, you just -- you -- you don't -- you don't wanna get into a situation where it becomes one big hug and love fest. it's a rock and roll band. We come from a place where, you know, political activism, you know, it's part of the D.N.A. of great rock and roll.
Clash, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, I mean -- the list goes on. So, it's part of who we are. And, you know, Desmond Tutu, and what he does and how he speaks -- and the fact that, you know, he -- you know, in charge of the truth and reconciliation -- court -- do they call it court? Yeah, in -- in -- in South Africa. Yeah, that's a huge political statement.
BONO: So, it's (UNINTEL) people -- they -- if people owned up to their crime, South African apartheid, they were -- they were set free. But one -- it -- honesty was -- the crux of it. The absolutely revolutionary radical thought --
MULLEN: I mean, so having him there, there's a lot of resonance there. It's not just about him talking about, you know, being positive about South Africa. He stands for something incredibly powerful.
THE EDGE: I think we've always believed (UNINTEL). I think our approach and, you know, early day punk rock's so moany. It's like everyone's writin' just phony lyrics about -- about -- we -- we were more like Bob Marley. We kinda, you know, knew there was bad shit goin' on. But we were -- we wanted to try and find some kind of hopeful angle to it all.
BONO: We always thought Ireland is kinda like a Jamaica type of situation. It's true, actually. Our music's (UNINTEL) community, family. It's a little rascaly actually.
CUOMO: They're actually parallel. It was interesting last night. I didn't hear any Obama talk. You guys performed at the inauguration.
BONO: Well, we mentioned the inauguration. We mentioned the inauguration and -- (UNINTEL) rights and -- and -- and what I said it was such an honor to serve the President on that occasion. But, you know, we didn't wanna get -- dragged into -- to any divisive stuff. See, the most incredible thing was around that election, you know, for those of us in Europe and people who love the United States were watchin'.
You look so close as a country. And politics are the -- you know, the way John McCain behaved with such dignity. Obama was amazing. They never, you know, they -- it was -- it was really something to see. And now, America seems so divided again.
And it's gettin' really messy out there. And -- and I -- I would say that that is the biggest casualty is that the biggest casualty of that is America itself, because the world needs America right now. Doesn't need this fractious... And whatever you think about somebody's politics -- you know, it's just very important not to demonize either on the left or on the right.
BONO: And there's a little bit of that creepin' back in. So we want our -- we're here to bring -- peace.
What we're sayin' is, "Let them Irish fight in the stadium. Everybody gonna be in (UNINTEL)." (CHUCKLE) Here, no problem, you can buy it. You can sell it. Whatever you (UNINTEL).
CUOMO: Have you -- is it -- encouraging to you that the tour has been as successful from the ticket sales, respective -- given the environment in the world right now, you know, with the recessionary -- year?
THE EDGE: We were blown away. I mean, you know, once -- like you say, we -- we weren't certain how the -- how the tickets would sell. But, it's been amazing. I mean, it's pretty much all sold out.
CUOMO: I mean, from -- everybody's havin' to adjust. You -- you hear about the big sports teams are pulling back. Big events are pulling back. There was speculation about the sales.
THE EDGE: But, so -- but I think 'cause we kept the ticket price low, which is one of the -- the other benefits of playing outdoors is because you're meeting demand, you don't get that awful scalping, secondary ticket market thing that happens when -- when you play in small venues. Here, the -- you know, what it says on the ticket's pretty much what you buy the ticket for. So, our younger fans have access prob'ly for the first time a few tourists took to these shows(UNINTEL), so it's really a thrill.
BONO: Yeah, and -- and they know that at the very -- the seat at the back and i've sat in about every one. And, you know, and -- yeah, I mean (UNINTEL) or even if they're playing, someone will be -- while -- while they're playing, I've gotten, you know, walked around and passing out -- and it is even better (CHUCKLE) right at the back. I mean, it's part rave, part, you know, I don't know what -- it's part political rally, part, you know, people can lose it -- down the front. But actually, up at the back, it's (UNINTEL). And it's a very, I think, very good -- value in that sense.
THE EDGE: Yeah, that's where the value of the (UNINTEL) really pays off.
BONO: I can't believe I just said the word value. But --
We -- all those times doin' the shows, I've done it all my life. You can't hear anything or see anything. It's like, you know, okay I'm tall so I can see. But, you know, all the people around me all the small people.
CUOMO: Gives you guys a real chance to exercise yourselves up on the stage. When I was watching yesterday, you were runnin' around. You had the bongo drum. You literally were havin' to, like, sprint over across the bridge you go. We were talkin' last night, Adam, 'bout the challenge of being on the moving bridge. How are you -- how are you adjusting to all this?
CLAYTON: A bit wobbly on the moving bridge... I don't like it.
CUOMO: So, you started here. You're heading up to Canada. When you start off on a tour like this, you have all these dates in front of you, who knows how far they'll extend, what kind of goal do you give yourself? Or where do you put your mind in terms of what you want to come out of this? Or do you not at all? Do you not even think of it that way?
THE THE EDGE: Oh, you know, the real challenge is to keep the show alive, so -- so that takes up a lot of time. But we're already working on the next album. I mean, you know, we're already talking about the new sounds.
CUOMO: Now, is there any chance the next album will actually be from the Larry Mullen band? (chuckle) is there any … 'cause I've heard that.
MULLEN: No. (chuckle)
CUOMO: 'Cause there is -- there's speculation.
BONO: I have to confess that Larry -- Larry put out that speculation.
MULLEN: I'm working' on my solo record
CUOMO: So, when you're taking this all in, right, this screen is a phenomenal dynamic that you have for being connected. Even though we've seen big screens, right… what do you think this does in terms of the dynamic that it's creating? 360 aside, like, just what it gives you in terms of presentation value?
THE EDGE:
Well, it makes (unintel). Terrible thing about most screens, you're -- you're looking' off -- off to the left or the right. You -- you can't get a sense of the performance and -- and -- and see it. So with this screen, it's right over. So the -- it's -- it's really it -- keep looking' at us and get a sense of what's happening on the screen.
CUOMO: Any funny stuff happened up on there, yet?
BONO: No, no -- nothing -- too comic, yet. But I will say the -- there's been a little bit -- of -- of magic. The magic act is that, you know, with all the trucks and all the engineers building this Spaceship, for me, there's a moment in the show when it just disappears. It just -- it seems to go away. And you're just playing a song with your audience and you're completely intimate, is the word. And that's the magic act of this show, because if people go away with just that, I -- I think we'd be disappointed. As sad as we are to be art objects.
CUOMO:
I guess the statement, too, was the power of the Music, in itself, right, is that you could have something as gigantic as This and it winds up becoming secondary in terms of people's experience.
THE EDGE: yup. Well, the thing about this during the day is so impressive looking at night is (unintel) light. The lesson is what you light is what you see. And -- a lot of the show is dark. All you're seeing is the band performing.
CUOMO:
It was phenomenal last night. It's a real kind of statement up how things have changed or how they stay the same. Last night you said, "We'll make a U2 milky way, here. Everybody hold up their cell phones, which is such a new thing. You know, you'd see obviously, lighters, right? But, I took a picture of that and I showed it to you last night. It really does look like -- just a complete celestial sea of cell (chuckle) phones. You don't see any of this. You just see all the people and what they've kind of made as a community around you.
BONO: Tonight, we're trying a piece for a song we've never played before from an obscure album called the (unintel). And it's where we connect with the people in the international space station.
CUOMO: Oh.
BONO: So we've been having this ongoing relationship with the astronauts and cosmonauts that they take two and half hours to -- to orbit the earth. And we have one of the astronauts performing a lyric. And he -- he recites a lyric at the end of the song. So, Tonight's the first time trying it.
CUOMO: Real time?
BONO:
It is -- no, he's being recorded doing it.
CUOMO: It was a real pleasure to see the first show. I know it's very important to you, certainly Important to everybody. I wish you continued luck.
BONO: Thank you, chris. And we wish you safety and in Afghanistan and for Diane. Also, we treasure your reporting, your, and -- your courage, and your pursuit of the truth
CUOMO: Thank you. You give us reason to do it because You keep people's awareness up.
U2 Reinvent the Stadium Show as 360 Tour Launches in Chicago 9/13/09, 1:05 pm EST
Photo: Getty The last time U2 played a stadium concert in America it was nearly 12 years ago at the tail end of their disastrous Popmart tour. Terrible record reviews and half-empty stadiums for their gigantic production brought the band’s spirits to an all-time low. “If we come back again I think it’s going to be something very different,” Bono had told the crowd at Seattle’s Kingdome. “Because I don’t think we’ll ever be able to afford this again.” Their next two American tours were stripped down affairs confined entirely to arenas, but last night at Chicago’s Soldier Field U2’s 360° Tour returned to American stadiums with the biggest concert stage ever built. It was, in every way, a huge success and proof that rock & roll can work in venues designed for 80,000 screaming football fans.
The show began with a recording of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as steam began shooting out of the claw-like stage the band has dubbed “the spaceship,” making it seem like it was about to launch into orbit. As the lights went out, the band ran onstage and kicked into an electrifying “Breathe” from No Line on the Horizon. It was the first of four consecutive tracks from the album. That’s often a recipe for sucking the life out of a crowd, but the anthemic songs translated perfectly to the stage and few seemed to mind the glut of new material. In fact, the only track played in the first hour of the show not written in the 2000s was a rather tepid version of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Before “City Of Blinding Lights,” Bono briefly discussed President Obama, who played the track at many of his campaign rallies. It wasn’t the only political moment of the evening. The stage was light green during “Sunday Bloody Sunday” to show solidarity with the dissidents in Iran. Bono dedicated “Walk On” to jailed Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. During the song about 50 people walked onstage holding photos of Kyi up to their faces like masks. Before an encore of “One,” a video Archbishop Desmond Tutu played where he spoke about aid to Africa.
After nearly a quarter-century or more in near constant rotation, U2 finally retired concert warhorses “Bullet the Bullet Sky,” “New Years Day” and “I Will Follow” — as well as more recent live favorites like “Mysterious Ways” and “Until the End of the World.” That left room for not only the majority of the new disc, but rarities like the title track to 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire (not played stateside since 1987) and “Ultraviolet (Light My Way),” which hasn’t been performed since Zoo TV in 1993. The latter — one of only two tracks from U2’s stellar 1990s catalog — was one of the show’s highpoints. Bono wore a laser-coated suit while singing the song into a target shaped red microphone that lowered down from the sky like a boxing announcers mic. “Your Blue Room” — a fantastically rare song from the band’s 1995 Brian Eno collaboration Passengers — has been reportedly rehearsed at great length recently, but unfortunately wasn’t played at the show.
Stadium shows of the past have been marred by lousy sound and an incredible distance between the performers and the vast majority of the crowd. To overcome this U2 not only constructed an incredible soundsystem, but built a round stage with long ramps that stretch out far into the crowd. This meant Bono could never face the entire crowd, so Edge and Adam Clayton picked up the slack and made sure to often be on opposite sides of the stage. Even Larry got up from behind his kit for a dancehall remix of “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” and walked around the stage with a tiny drum. Despite their efforts, it never felt as intimate as an arena, but was pretty much the best possible setup for a venue of that size.
After a crowd sing-along “With Or Without You” Bono told the crowd to wave hold their cellphones into the air. “Turn this place into the Milky Way,” he said as a giant disco ball came out on top of the stage. The simple effect truly made it seem like the stadium had reached outerspace, with thousands of cellphone lights turning into stars. They ended with an emotionally charged “Moment of Surrender,” perhaps the best song they’ve written this decade. As they took their final bows to thunderous applause, Bono looked quite pleased as he walked up to the mic one last time: “Thank you,” he said. “What an opening night!”
Since their beginnings in the troubled Dublin of the 1980s, U2’s political message has stayed strong. From speaking out about Pinochet’s crimes in Argentina to working in Ethiopian refugee camps, Justin Kavanagh explains how singer Bono has kept up his activism while evolving with the times.
Rock star as activist: Bono speaking with officials at the IMF
From the start, U2’s songwriting confronted the problems of the world.
Few bands have drawn inspiration from such a global diversity of subjects: from Hiroshima’s holocaust (“The Unforgettable Fire”) to Martin Luther King (“Pride (in the Name of Love)”) to third-world hunger (“Crumbs From Your Table”).
U2’s music challenged listeners to hear nuance beyond the catchy choruses.
Their debut album Boy hinted at an idealistic belief in the power of the imagination to shape a better world. Bono sings, “I thought the world could go far/ if they listened to what I said.”
Critics consistently pointed out the paradox of rich rock stars acting as spokesmen for the downtrodden. Years later, when Bono met Horst Kohler — then head of the IMF, and now the President of Germany — the politician challenged him directly, saying, “So you’re a rock star. You make a lot of money and then find a conscience?”
In fairness, the singer had earned the right to rage. He wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” after he and wife Ali spent time as volunteers in an Ethiopian refugee camp.
“Bullet the Blue Sky” described the fear experienced on a visit to Nicaragua and El Salvador, arranged through Amnesty International. They had witnessed first-hand the fighter planes and artillery fire of the Reagan-funded Contras.
Performing the song led the singer into another contradiction. “Outside, it’s America,” he would intone darkly on stage in New York, D.C. or L.A., trying to evoke in spoken lyrics the terror felt by Latin Americans at the forces which they associated with the superpower to the North. But such political sermonizing went largely over the heads of U.S. audiences.
When Bono met Horst Kohler, the politician challenged him directly, saying, “So you’re a rock star. You make a lot of money and then find a conscience?”
Still, U2’s music challenged listeners to hear nuance beyond the catchy choruses. The militaristic drums of ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ made it a stadium favorite, yet, like “40,” it concealed the biblical yearning to sing a new song.
Such subtleties were often overlooked, as many mistook the historical twist in the title for nationalistic rabble-rousing. Remember, the vitriol in the verses of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” suffered the same fate in Reagan-era America.
Elsewhere, audiences proved more perceptive. In Chile, the band used a live TV broadcast to showcase their lament for the country’s political victims, “Mothers of the Disappeared,” at a concert in the Estadio Nacional. The stadium was sacred ground, infamous for its use as a prison camp by the military regime following Pinochet’s coup d’état.
The band invited the madres onstage to display pictures of their long-gone loved ones and gave them time to name each victim individually. Bono then spoke directly to the camera and said, “General Pinochet, God will be your judge. We will not. But at least tell these women where are the bones of their children.”
Many cheered, but many in the audience hissed and booed, too. Bono, ever the arch-contrarian and agent provocateur, was pleased at this mixed response. “I was flattered that we weren’t just playing to people who all agreed with us,” he claimed.
An aversion to sycophancy is rare in the realm of rock, but U2 remain a gang of friends who still like to be challenged, and to challenge each other. Bono has reflected on the danger of rock-star privilege invading real life.
Bono had earned the right to rage. He wrote “Where the Streets Have No Name” after he and wife Ali spent time as volunteers in an Ethiopian refugee camp.
“After you go home, you return to be lords of your own domain,” he said. “That is the way of males in particular, they rid the room of argument until they have no one left — except people who agree with them. It is understandable. But I like a good argument. It’s a rare privilege to be in the company of people who you started out with and who can see through you.”
If egos were self-regulating within the band, it wasn’t always obvious from the outside. By the end of the 1980s, U2 were fast becoming caricatures. However worthy the causes, embracing the world and its contradictions was seen as political heavy-handedness and God-bothering grandiosity. In Dublin’s culture of fond mockery, Bono was ridiculed for his assumed messianic complex.
A faux tribute band called the Joshua Trio played U2 covers wearing angels’ wings, and its singer arriving on stage astride a donkey.
So, the four non-prophets decided the time was right to change their tune. U2 reinvented themselves for the 1990s, adapting the age-old adage of “Fear the devil, and he will taunt you, mock the devil and he will run.”
“I’m ready,” sang Bono as he air-kissed his preacher-man persona goodbye, “ready for the laughing gas.” As the Zoo TV tour reinvented the rock show, out went the white flags and the preachy speeches. In came disguises, masks and the electronic razzle-dazzle of an age in thrall to technology.
Drawing on their playful Dada past, U2 introduced a cast of cracked characters that minced a fine line between method-acting dementia and demonic evocation. The Fly was a know-it-all barfly philosopher. MacPhisto was a “fat Elvis” version of the Devil himself, a menacing mix of world-weary Vegas crooner and faded Satanic majesty.
Rather than protesting stridently, the singer now loosed his demons onto global affairs. MacPhisto implicated the powerful and the complicit by warm association. For instance, he would call the White House nightly to tease and taunt George Bush (the elder). And he would invite Salman Rushdie onstage to to speak about his infamous Verses.
In Dublin’s culture of fond mockery, Bono was ridiculed for his assumed messianic complex.
Yet, underneath the eyeliner and the red horns, the message remained the same: The world was still going to hell — but now U2 offered us the warm hand of the devil to take us there… and the descent would be televised on the world’s largest TV screen.
With Bono as Beelzebub’s mouthpiece, the band tuned to the zeitgeist of capitalism’s moment of historic triumph. It was the end of the 20th century, the end of the Cold War and the End of History, some said. While Vaclav Havel was rocking in the castle with the Rolling Stones, U2 were fast-forwarding rock into the age of New Media.
The walls were coming down, and the screens were going up. Global telecommunication offered a transparently two-dimensional world, which promised to be even better than the real thing.
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on U2. Read Part I here.
They started out in Dublin, hollering about hope on a divided island. Two decades later, the spiritual and political messages of U2’s music continue to subvert all rock-star conventions. As their 360º tour comes to the United States this weekend, Justin Kavanagh, a Dubliner-in-exile, looks at the local inspirations and global aspirations of the world’s biggest band.
Have yous far to go?” asked the singer.
A cold, December night, 1980. We’re offered a ride home outside the TV Club in Dublin. It’s a warm gesture shown to two, cold-looking kids by a band whose first single has just broken the UK top 100.
To sing of joy, hope, and peace in a country entrenched in violence was to bring on the brickbats. U2 relished the contradictions of using rock and roll to raise heaven rather than hell.
Their concern for their audience seems real, heartfelt, but we opt to wait it out for my father. When he finally shows up, he gets an earful about these local lads, the band we’re convinced will be the next big thing.
Nearly thirty years later, when my father picks me up from Dublin airport, the talk still turns to the local heroes. U2 are pretty much rock’s only big thing these days. Even Bono knows that in the new millennium, “hip-hop drove the big cars.”
Back in the late 1970s, disco was the music pulsing through the world’s capitals, but Dublin was musically mute. The Irish capital was a dour, depressed place — a cultural backwater bypassed on the major tours of rock’s biggest acts.
Yet as the fallout from London’s punk rock explosion reached Dublin, garage bands began to spring up like mushrooms in the gloom. The problem was the absence of venues and a local music industry. Yet rock and roll offered an exotic escape route from a country split by religious traditions.
U2 began in a void: Bono later admitted to Bob Dylan that musically, the nascent band “had no tradition, we were from outer space.” Their influences came from London (Bowie and the Clash) and New York (Lou Reed and Television) — places far beyond the young band’s horizons.
U2’s sound, and their sensibilities, sprang from the late 20th-century’s teenage wasteland, the suburban sprawl common to every modern city.
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim recently documented the teenage Edge’s burning passion for self-expression in a gray place where rock and roll was foreign, almost alien. His film, It Could Get Loud, observes the Dubliner’s frustration that no one was playing the guitar in a way that spoke for him.
Back in the late 1970s, Dublin was a dour, depressed place — a cultural backwater bypassed on the major tours of rock’s biggest acts.
U2’s music was an attempt to tear down the rock-god status of bands like Led Zeppelin, whose guitarist, Jimmy Page, also features in Guggenheim’s movie. In their first flush of youthful idealism, U2 scorned rock stars as false idols. If punk sparked the band’s negative charge, the positive flowed from a spiritual quest that led three of its members to a Christian prayer group called Shalom.
From the start, U2 were outsiders. Paul Hewson was the son of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. David Evans’ parents were Welsh. Adam Clayton was the son of an English RAF pilot. Only Larry Mullen came from an “archetypical” Dublin clan.
Navigating North Dublin’s adolescent world of gangs, drink and dope, the band’s members showed an early talent for subversive reinvention, inhabiting a mythical mindscape they dreamt up called Lypton Village.
They conceived fresh identities too: David Evans became The Edge because of his angular face. The noise-box, nuisance son of the Hewson household became Bono Vox, taking the name from a hearing-aid shop on O’Connell Street.
“We just didn’t like the world we were living in, so we started re-imagining it,” said the singer.
Religion has always been the source of much tension, creative and otherwise, within U2. Bono spoke often of the strangeness of Sundays in his household, when his parents would attend separate churches.
U2’s music was an attempt to tear down the rock-god status of bands like Led Zeppelin.
The singer shared deep-rooted Christian beliefs with The Edge and Larry Mullen, and many early songs reflected the fervor of their faith. No stance could have made the band less cool. After all, for many young Dubliners at the time, the Catholic Church was a bastion of conservatism and hypocrisy, the antithesis of the wild promise of freedom inherent in rock and roll.
The Promised Land for Dublin bands was London, as it was for all those who aspired to be part of the UK music scene. A well-honed cynicism was as necessary an accessory as a black leather jacket.
U2’s early songs, such as ‘Gloria’—with its Latin exultations — were acts of defiance against all prevailing notions of cool. To sing of joy, hope, and peace in a country entrenched in violence was to bring on the brickbats. U2 relished the contradictions of using rock and roll to raise heaven rather than hell.
Their lyrics were rife with Biblical allusion. “Scarlet” urged the faithful to rejoice, “40" cited Psalm 40 in the Psalms of David, pleading for peace in the homeland…“How long to sing this song?” In 1997, “Please” made a similar appeal to Northern Ireland’s politicians at the time of the Good Friday Agreement.
By the time they wrote “Yahweh” in the early 2000s, their spiritual and political vistas were global. The hymn-like song was written with a proposed European cathedral of understanding in mind: The Eye of Abraham envisioned a common prayer ground where Jews, Muslims, and Christians would come together to worship.
Bono spoke often of the strangeness of Sundays in his household, when his parents would attend separate churches.
“I had this idea that no one can own Jerusalem,” Bono explained, “but everyone wants to put a flag in it.”
Another song from the same album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, demanded “Love and Peace or Else,” urging the sons of Abraham to “lay down your guns.”
Rock stars threatening world leaders with Armageddon unless the fighting stopped was pushing the extremes of all U2’s contradictions — but this was by now familiar territory.
“Right at the center of a contradiction, that’s the place to be,” Bono said recently.
This is the first of a three-part series on U2. Read Part II here.
U2 Kicks Off North American Tour In Chicago by Gary Graff, Chicago | September 13, 2009 11:31 EDT
Declaring that "all you need is love -- and a spaceship," U2 brought its 360 Tour to North America on Saturday night (Sept. 12) with the first of two shows at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Playing its first full-scale U.S. concert since 2006 before a packed house, the Irish quartet presented a 23-song, two-hour and 15-minute show that followed the mold set by the European leg of the tour earlier in the summer. And like those dates, the star of the show was The Claw, the 164-foot-tall, space-age, crustacean-like stage that houses a variety of visual effects that U2 frontman Bonn told the crowd "we built..to bring us closer to you" via a series of ramps and bridges, as well as a large circular video screen that expanded and contracted, accordion-style. Even drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., was able to play to all sides of the stadium via a rotating platform for his kit.
But unlike previous stadium tours such as 1992's Zoo TV Outside Broadcast and the 1997-98 Popmart trek, neither U2 nor its songs was dwarfed by the visual spectacle. Rather, The Claw and its components enhanced the songs, which included seven from the group's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon" -- four of which opened Saturday's show -- and a careful selection from U2's 29-year recording catalog. "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" remained in the set after more than a decade and a half away each, while "Elevation" and "Bad" were special "treats," the latter concluding with snippets of the Rolling Stones' "Fool to Cry" and U2's own "40." The group also slipped a bit of the Beatles' "Blackbird" into "Beautiful Day," Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" into "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello into "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which was accompanied by video images of this year's violent Iranian election protests.
The emotional high point, however, was "Walk On;" dedicated, as usual, to imprisoned Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi, it was performed while three-dozen "volunteers" stood on the lower stage ramp holding masks bearing her likeness in front of their faces and was followed by a powerful version of "Where the Streets Have No Name." The tour program also included Suu Kyi masks for audience members to wear.
Bono also celebrated the tour's opening locale, telling the Chicagoans "there is nowhere else we'd want to be this evening than hear, the heart of America" and claiming "small part" for the Irish in the city's "majestic skyline." "We're the wind in the Windy City," he noted, subsequently explained a lack of humility by explaining that, "When you put this band with this crowd, there is no room for modesty. Anything is possible."
U2 will be in North America until Oct. 28, when the tour wraps in Vancouver. The group's 2010 itinerary has not been revealed, but it's expected to return to North America in June and July, then reprise Europe in August and September before heading to South America later in the year.
The set list for U2's North American opening night included:
"Breathe" "No Line on the Horizon" "Get On Your Boots" "Magnificent" "Beautiful Day" "Elevation" "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" "Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" "Unknown Caller" "The Unforgettable Fire" "City of Blinding Lights" "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Redanka remix)" "Sunday Bloody Sunday" "Pride (In the Name of Love)" "MLK" "Walk On" "Where The Streets Have No Name" (encore) "One" "Bad" (encore) "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" "With or Without You" "Moment of Surrender" billboard
