morningside:: U2 :: issue 8

Had the new record not saved their reputations as the seminal conscious rockers of my generation, I might not have paid much attention to the pervasiveness of U2 in Ireland. Of course, the night I walked up Grafton Street – past the old man with his coat spread out, singing for pint money – and had to file through barricades penning in the camping throngs of would-be ticket buyers the next morning, I probably wouldn't have been able to ignore it.

Who knew the hometown team still generated such loyalty? The band led by big-headed Bono, the band that broke out of Dublin in 1980 and indelibly marked pop music with at least three monumental albums (The Unforgettable Fire – screw The Joshua Tree – Achtung Baby! and the new one, All That You Can't Leave Behind), the band that's referred to semi-affectionately around Dublin as "our largest multinational corporation" (they do the same thing in Athens with R.E.M.) – they still generate hordes of fans camping out overnight to buy tickets. Their music is still played all over Irish radio (of course, so are the Boomtown Rats, for whatever that's worth). They still start political arguments – even unintentionally.

At the front of the Grafton Street line was Martin Shanahan, a 38-year-old die-hard who claims to have seen U2 nearly 350 times in the last 22 years, including their first gig at Arcadia in Cork in 1979. He was eager for the HMV doors to open at 7 a.m. and continue his hot streak.

The ticket grab was for an Aug. 25 show at Slane Castle outside Dublin – the castle where The Unforgettable Fire was recorded and which stars on its cover, also where U2 last played 20 years ago opening for Thin Lizzy and their first Irish show since the Pop tour in '97. About 80,000 tickets were available, and they were all gone in 45 minutes (that's 2,500 a minute). People complained about this for the duration of my stay. Two middle-aged men in Cafe du Journal shared horror stories about their kids.

Thing is, even their older music is still so resonant and vital, particularly across the Irish landscape. During my stay in Ireland, an official inquiry was being conducted into the events of Bloody Sunday – Jan. 30, 1972, the day the 1st Batallion of the Parachute Regiment, British Army, fired into a crowd of civilians conducting a civil rights march, killing 13 and wounding 14. More than 29 years later, an official inquiry is dredging up the chronology of that afternoon, as is a film about Bloody Sunday being filmed in Derry right outside the inquiry. The investigation had been going on for 90 days.

My Ireland mix features a live recording of U2 performing their early hit memorializing the incident, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," in concert in Dublin several years ago. Bono gives a great homily in the middle of the song:

Let me tell you something: I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30 years coming up to me and talking about the resistence, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory of taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of people of my country don't want. No more! Say no more!

In a conversation during the trip, Charles Aaron from Spin claimed that Rage Against the Machine, who he'd recently interviewed post-breakup, was the first powerful political band since U2. This took me back a bit – was U2 really the most prominent political voice in music all those years? The '80s are not always thought of as a politically active era in pop music. Whatever your opinion of Live Aid, it was an important moment in pop's political consciousness. It was also the brainhild of another Irishman, the Boomtown Rats' Bob Geldof. But it was U2's show. No one remembers Geldof or the Rats anymore – only in Dublin would I walk into a shop and hear "Rat Trap" playing – but Bono in that fringe jacket, well, that imprinted on my mind forever ... for numerous reasons. Bono is a self-righteous prig, for sure, but he walks it like he talks it – and talks it and talks it and talks it. But people listen to him talking – from the Pope to the U.N. – if not always to him singing.



					`Theme: U2` They built portholes for Bono, so he could gaze Out across the bay and sing about mountains Maybe. You are what you own in this land. You can be King and it all depends on the view and what you can see. — Whipping Boy, "We Don't Need Nobody Else" Had the new record not saved their reputations as the seminal conscious rockers of my generation, I might not have paid much attention to the pervasiveness of U2 in Ireland. Of course, the night I walked up Grafton Street – past the old man with his coat spread out, singing for pint money – and had to file through barricades penning in the camping throngs of would-be ticket buyers the next morning, I probably wouldn't have been able to ignore it. Who knew the hometown team still generated such loyalty? The band led by big-headed Bono, the band that broke out of Dublin in 1980 and indelibly marked pop music with at least three monumental albums (The Unforgettable Fire – screw The Joshua Tree – Achtung Baby! and the new one, All That You Can't Leave Behind), the band that's referred to semi-affectionately around Dublin as "our largest multinational corporation" (they do the same thing in Athens with R.E.M.) – they still generate hordes of fans camping out overnight to buy tickets. Their music is still played all over Irish radio (of course, so are the Boomtown Rats, for whatever that's worth). They still start political arguments – even unintentionally. At the front of the Grafton Street line was Martin Shanahan, a 38-year-old die-hard who claims to have seen U2 nearly 350 times in the last 22 years, including their first gig at Arcadia in Cork in 1979. He was eager for the HMV doors to open at 7 a.m. and continue his hot streak. The ticket grab was for an Aug. 25 show at Slane Castle outside Dublin – the castle where The Unforgettable Fire was recorded and which stars on its cover, also where U2 last played 20 years ago opening for Thin Lizzy and their first Irish show since the Pop tour in '97. About 80,000 tickets were available, and they were all gone in 45 minutes (that's 2,500 a minute). People complained about this for the duration of my stay. Two middle-aged men in Cafe du Journal shared horror stories about their kids. "Mine were on line for 82 hours and never got on." "My daughter and five friends were up at six and never got on." "I thought there were more young people out early that morning." "It was all hype. Where did all those tickets go?" "They sold them in big heaps on the Internet. The kids hardly got any." Not bad for a 21-year-old band, esp. from the post-punk era. Thing is, even their older music is still so resonant and vital, particularly across the Irish landscape. During my stay in Ireland, an official inquiry was being conducted into the events of Bloody Sunday – Jan. 30, 1972, the day the 1st Batallion of the Parachute Regiment, British Army, fired into a crowd of civilians conducting a civil rights march, killing 13 and wounding 14. More than 29 years later, an official inquiry is dredging up the chronology of that afternoon, as is a film about Bloody Sunday being filmed in Derry right outside the inquiry. The investigation had been going on for 90 days. My Ireland mix features a live recording of U2 performing their early hit memorializing the incident, "Sunday Bloody Sunday," in concert in Dublin several years ago. Bono gives a great homily in the middle of the song: Let me tell you something: I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30 years coming up to me and talking about the resistence, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory of taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of people of my country don't want. No more! Say no more! In a conversation during the trip, Charles Aaron from Spin claimed that Rage Against the Machine, who he'd recently interviewed post-breakup, was the first powerful political band since U2. This took me back a bit – was U2 really the most prominent political voice in music all those years? The '80s are not always thought of as a politically active era in pop music. Whatever your opinion of Live Aid, it was an important moment in pop's political consciousness. It was also the brainhild of another Irishman, the Boomtown Rats' Bob Geldof. But it was U2's show. No one remembers Geldof or the Rats anymore – only in Dublin would I walk into a shop and hear "Rat Trap" playing – but Bono in that fringe jacket, well, that imprinted on my mind forever ... for numerous reasons. Bono is a self-righteous prig, for sure, but he walks it like he talks it – and talks it and talks it and talks it. But people listen to him talking – from the Pope to the U.N. – if not always to him singing.

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Theme: U2

`Theme: U2`