Irlish Central reports that Bono the most famous busker has hit the streets again. Bono could be found on Christmas Eve in Dublin’s Grafton Street singing his heart out along with Oscar-winning musician Glen Hansard, Mundy, Declan O’Rourke and Hothouse Flowers rocker Liam O’Maonlai. Bono did the same thing last year which meant that crowds of people, warned in advance, were waiting for the superstar and his all-star entourage. In fact, numbers got so high that police were forced to ask Bono and his band to move on as fears were expressed for crowd safety. It was all in a good cause however, as all money collected was donated to charity.
From the Sky Down
From The Sky Down
From the Sky Down is a documentary focusing on the recording of Achtung Baby, which is seen as the crucial transition of the biggest rock band in the world.
Achtung Baby
The doccie is told via the band in present time with scenes in and around the recording of the album.
Achtung Baby found the band in a rather bloated position. With 1987’s The Joshua Tree 
The opening lines of the doccie begin with the words: “They say that a band is a clan. You may not be related, but you have pledged loyalty to each other.”
It then goes on to show band members Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullins jr waiting to go on stage at Glastonbury. (Of course they have to do it in slow motion, it being U2 and all.)
The narrative includes earlier footage of the band and shows exactly how much creative input Daniel Lanoi and Brian Eno, in particular, had on their creativity both in their music and emotional well-being. In fact, from the very beginning one of the secrets of the band’s success was the number of super-talented and intelligent people who surrounded them.
Bono initially comes across as a pretentious twat. But as the doccie evolves into a musical exploration you remember that he is essentially a musician, and a good one at that.
The doccie strips away all that bloated bull U2 are known for, and just as what Achtung Baby did for them then, this DVD brings out the real musician in each of them.
In parts the explanations are musically technical, but user-friendly enough that the average fan won’t get bored.
The story is told with frank honesty from all four members’s perspectives.
When they decided to record in Hansa, Germany, it was 1990, just after the Berlin Wall had been pulled down. But, say the band, it was a very dark time for them. They couldn’t find their groove. The breakthrough finally came when Bono found the chords to the song One. The rest of the creative process then flowed organically.
But what was interesting is that even though they had a straight-up rock sound with no special effects, their ensuing tour, ZooTV, was anything but.
“If we’re accused of megalomania then let’s do something to enhance it,” says The Edge. “Let’s give them rock star.”
Enter The Fly with his Lou Reid glasses, Jim Morrison leathers and Elvis Presley attitude. Throughout the tour U2 took on the role of the media, the concepts of truth and democracy, and Bono as we know him was born.
The question is: was Achtung Baby the way back to the roots of U2, or the beginning of a bigger and more bloated U2?
U2: From The Sky Down
Imelda and Bono
Looking like an Old Testament preacher on a festive jolly, Guggi was sitting next to me on Friday night at The 02 in Dublin. The artist smiled quixotically at me when I told him what was about to happen next was the worst-kept secret in Ireland.
Then, seconds later, Guggi’s best friend, a messianic fella by the name of Bono, joined headliner Imelda May and her band onstage for an audacious version of Desire by his band U2 (the rumour that Larry Mullen was to play drums proved unfounded).
The 12,000 crowd went mental. Harry Crosbie, who owns the venue, had told me earlier in the bar that tonight “we would be witnessing a magical piece of rock ‘n’ roll history — it was 23 years ago that U2 filmed music for the movie Desire in this building”.
When Bono and Imelda did another duet together — a suitably festive and out-of-kilter version of Phil Spector’s Christmas: Baby Please Come Home — everyone, including Guggi beside me and doubtless Harry elsewhere, was up on their feet dancing the recession away.
But this was Imelda May’s night. It is some achievement that the beautiful belle from the Liberties in Dublin sold out Friday and again last night at the country’s biggest venue. Wearing a tight-fitting silver dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Marilyn Monroe, she held the audience in thrall for a good two hours with her sassy blend of retro cool, surf guitars and rockabilly with a razor’s edge.
The music throughout, courtesy of Imelda’s bewitching voice, was evocative of what you’d hear in a David Lynch film. I could see why Rolling Stone described her as exuding “the dangerous allure of a Fifties pulp pin-up, the kind with race-car red lips and a dagger in her boot”.
A bluesy rendition of Spoonful by the Chicago bluesman Hubert Sumlin (who only died on December 4) was followed by Psycho, Tear It Up and Big Bad Handsome Man, with her own big bad handsome man, husband Darrel Higham, on guitar beside her.
“The music he plays, the way he moves me and sways,” she sang. “Rocks me to the core/When he sings in my ear/He makes me shiver and leer/Leaves me wanting more and more.”
It was the sentiment of the audience watching her perform, too. She has bona fide star quality; the authenticity of her music emphasises that star quality.
Ireland’s First Lady of Rockabilly isn’t anything you could remotely call manufactured. She isn’t pretending to be Wanda Jackson or Patsy Cline or Billie Holiday. She only knows how to be one thing and that’s herself.
She charms the crowd almost as much with her raw Dublin girl lingo as she does with her songs that have charmed everyone from Jools Holland to Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck to Van Morrison.
Imelda will be making steps (with a dagger in her boot or not) to the Forum in Waterford tomorrow, the INEC in Killarney on Thursday and the Big Top in Limerick on Friday.
Impossibly hip Irish band The Last Tycoon are the (very) special guests on the last two shows.
“We’re delighted to be asked to open for Imelda again,” Tycoons frontman Stephen Fanning told me — he and his band flew specially from their base in Berlin for the gigs.
“We played with her in Berlin last May and after seeing us, she invited us on the rest of her German tour, which was amazing. She’s been really supportive of us and her fans were great to us as well,” Stephen said, before adding that the hotly tipped group have their own headline show in the Workman’s Club in Dublin on December 28 with a new album on the way in 2012.
Now that will be mayhem.
- Barry Egan
One Band on a Mission
For his part, Bono makes it clear his praise is directed to a higher power. “They’re all, to me, songs of praise to God and creation, even the angry ones,”
Should U2 a band on a mission? A band with a strong sense of integrity and purpose, which so many say, is the foundation for their music. They have sold massive amounts of records, tours and estimations that the group could be worth at least a cool billion including the 17 Grammy Awards this band has pass the test of time in an industry where longevity can be measured in months.
For all the celebrity hype, Bono retains a certain authenticity, a centeredness and seems humble, which has come out many times during the 360 tour “You have given us a good life” He reminds us that we are the reason for the bands success. That our marriage with him and the rest of the band is not taken lightly.
360 is behind us, yet some part of us want to revisit with our old friends and hold on to those youthful times of our lives when music, religion and war had our focus and our attention to get some resoling foundation of peace and faith. U2 you have given us a good life.
Would you call the following lyrics statements of faith ?
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (from Joshua Tree)
I believe in the Kingdom Come,
Then all the colors will bleed into one
But yes I’m still running.
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains.
Carried the cross and all my shame,
You know I believe it.
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
“Grace” (from All That You Can’t Leave Behind)
Grace, it’s the name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world.
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stains.
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things.
Faith is nothing more than your ability to believe in something you cannot see yet you know to be true within your heart. In a time when we all need a little faith why not believe in something greater than yourself why not have a little faith.
Bono was the only Christian in the early days. He started sharing his feelings and thoughts about God. And it seemed a natural progression from what happened in school to go along to meetings outside school.
“I realised that was where it was at and about the same time Larry and myself became Christians. From then on it seemed that there was a purpose for the band, if you know what I mean. Bono felt this from the beginning I think…”
“I believe in God very strongly and I don’t believe that we are just kind of exploded out of thin air. I can’t believe it. I think it is that spiritual strength that’s essential to the band. We want to offer people hope, but we don’t want to freak them out. We feel the Spirit is doing something different. Jesus taught in parables and some of our lyrics are like that.”
“I’m not cynical or pessimistic about the future and a lot of that must come down to my beliefs. It’s my belief in God that enables me to get up in the morning and face the world. I believe there is a reason and logic to everything.”
“I want an audience to feel washed after a U2 gig. I don’t like music unless it has a healing effect. There’s a huge spiritual battle going on in the world. It’s big and it’s serious and if you want to get into the battle you’ve got to get under covering. You’ve got to be part of a body.”
Its not a question of U2’s beliefs as it is what our belief provides us when we hear U2 songs, for some its just some words that provide the back drop to a great melody to others is a source that provides growth to the seed inside of all of us. Now before we upset those that do not care to believe that U2 has blended faith with rock music and that rockers can have faith expressed in songs with out attachment to a christain label, maybe your right, maybe faith better be left to your private thoughts and one should not sing in joy.
Perhaps it gives God goosebumps to hear these Irish rockers touch millions with their music while acknowledging and praising his name, even as they wrestle with him on a very public stage. May Bono’s voice and U2’s music ring out for a long, long time to come…
Highest Earning Tour of 2011
Shock! U2 lead Billboard’s year-end report of the top touring acts of 2011, with their “360 Tour” raking in $293.3 million in box office revenue from nearly 3 million in ticket sales for the year.
Bono and crew were on the road from June 30th 2009 to July 30th 2011 with their giant claw on the “360 Tour” and broke the all-time touring industry records by bringing in a staggering $736,421,586 with more than 7 million punters attending the shows.
Bon Jovi had one of the biggest years of their 28 year career and Take That made a lazy $185 million from their comeback tour with Robbie Williams, which included a record breaking eight nights at Wembley Stadium. The Wembley shows alone earned the band $61.7 million breaking the previous venue record of $38.7 million that had been set by Bruce Springsteen’s ten sold-out shows at New Jersey’s Giants Stadium in 2003.
Highest-Earning Tours of 2011:
01) U2 – $293.3 million
02) Bon Jovi – $193 million
03) Take That – $185 million
04) Roger Waters – $150 million
05) Taylor Swift – $97.3 million
06) Kenny Chesney – $84.6 million
07) Usher – $75 million
08) Lady Gaga – $72 million
09) Andre Rieu – $67 million
10) Sade – $50 million
Wish U2 Merry Christmas
Bono and Glee
Ahead of the Glee Christmas episode called Extraordinary Merry Christmas, Fox released a new preview of the holiday Glee goodness with Bono of U2 and Sting of The Police who reflect on the classic charity song Do They Know Its Christmas by Band …
The Future Needs A Big Kiss ! Rock Giants
Rock giants U2 have pledged to nurture and inspire more of Ireland’s young musicians with the rolling-out of a tutoring programme.
The Music Generation scheme will invest 1.7 million euro to help children and young people in Cork city, Laois and Wicklow get access to vocal and instrumental tuition in their local area.
The Edge said: “Access to music for children and young people is something that is very close to our hearts. We believe that every child should have the choice to get involved in music, irrespective of their background.
“Music Generation is addressing the gap in individual and group vocal and instrumental music tuition in our education system, and we are delighted to be playing a part in nurturing and inspiring Ireland’s young musicians of the future.”
Music Generation was launched in 2009 after a five million euro donation from U2 along with another two million euro raised by the Ireland Funds. The donation was the largest-ever single philanthropic gift to music education in Ireland in the history of the state.
The programme, which last year ran in Louth, Mayo and Sligo, is expected to create substantial job opportunities for local musicians over the next five years.
Music Generation chairman Dr Tony O Dalaigh said: “Music Generation would not be happening without the contributions made by U2 and the Ireland Funds.
“In practical terms it means that Music Generation can provide access to music education which is currently unavailable to the majority of children, as well as employment for musicians in their locality.”