A Social History of U2 1976-2005

The Collected adventures of U2, and several peculiar anecdotes

1976

September 3rd The Viking spacecraft beams back the first colour pictures from Mars. Back at Mount Temple, 14-year-old Larry Mullen takes tentative steps towards the stratosphere, by pinning a note on the school notice board. Larry wants to start a band. Seven pupils apply, including Adam Clayton, Dave Evans and Paul Hewson.
Bono arrives at the audition intending to play guitar; when it becomes evident that he can’t, he begins to sing. “He couldn't do that either,” recalls Mullen. “But he was such a charismatic character that he was in the band anyway, as soon as he arrived. I was in charge for the first five minutes, but as soon as Bono got there, I was out of a job.”

October 1st London band The Damned release New Rose, the first single to be marketed as punk rock. At Mount Temple, U2 perform their first concert, appearing under the name Feedback. A scrappy ten-minute set includes Peter Frampton's Show Me The Way and a Bay City Rollers song.

1977

June 16th Fianna Fail forms a new government; Adam Clayton is expelled from Mount Temple. He becomes the band's full time PR man, shrewdly using his spare time to collect information on the music business and harass musicians and record executives. He even sends fake fan messages to NME to get the band noticed.

August 16th The summer ends in tragedy as Elvis Presley dies in Memphis. Hot Press, the country's first dedicated music periodical, is launched (it would later be bailed out of trouble by Paul McGuinness). Journalist Bill Graham subsequently becomes a major influence on the band.

1978

March 17th Now known as The Hype, the group enters a Limerick Civic Week band challenge sponsored by Harp Lager and the Evening Press. By the time of the competition final on St. Patrick's Day, they've changed their name to U2. They scoop the first prize of £500. They spend the rest of the year playing venues like McGonagles, the Stardust, the Top Hat and Project Arts Centre, where they meet Paul McGuinness, a college friend of Bill Graham, after a show on May 25th. McGuinness agrees to manage them for a trial period of six months.

May 10th Bono celebrates his 18th birthday by writing Out of Control. The song becomes the opening track on the band’s debut EP single, U23.

September 28th Pope John Paul I dies a month after being elected, on the day that U2 debut in Cork. On the way home, Bono, along with Gavin and Guggi from the Virgin Prunes, decide to nick a boat while passing through Tipperary, and head off for an afternoon sail. Caught in a vicious current, all leap for safety as they near the coast, swimming toward a thin finger of land. Later that month the band appears on television for the first time, performing on RTE's Youngline.

1979

U2 sign a contract with CBS Ireland for Ireland-only releases. They start the first of a series of six gigs in the Dandelion Market in May. These shows become increasingly popular and see the beginning of a number of U2 concert rituals, such as spraying the crowd with champagne during the encore. In September, U23 is released on CBS. Dave Fanning plays all three tracks on his rock show on Radio 2 so listeners can decide the a-side. In December, they play their first London dates. On this short jaunt they are mistakenly billed as The U2, V2 and UR.

January 16th The band headlines the 24-hour Dark Space multimedia event. “It was a bit of a scene because those things didn’t really happen in Dublin at the time,” remembers Dave Fanning. “I had to review it for an early issue of Hot Press, from the midnight til 6am slot. There was a movie on in the next room; about a hundred people were trying to escape the racket coming from next door. U2 were doing their best to drown out the film for everyone; only about six people were watching them.”

May 1st Margaret Thatcher is sworn in as Prime Minister. At the same time, U2 set about earning the popular vote amongst Ireland's youth, with a series of now-legendary shows at the Dandelion car park on St. Stephen's Green. At the first show, a power failure cuts off Adam and the Edge mid song. Unperturbed, Bono invites two audience members on stage to hum the bass and guitar parts, thus allowing the gig to continue. Bono marks the occasion by spray painting U2 in large letters behind the stage.

September 29th Pope John Paul II draws a million people to the Phoenix Park: “Young people of Ireland, I love you.” They respond by declaring their love for U2, as U23 brings the band their first chart success in the country, selling all 1,000 limited edition 12 inch copies and countless more 7-inches. The single is not, however, released on cassette, meaning aficionados of the latest portable music experience to hit the shops, the Sony Walkman, have to make do with vinyl versions.

December 11th Ireland elects a new Taoiseach in Charlie Haughey. U2 leave the country. Having lived out of each other's pockets for years, the band borrows £3,000 from family and friends to finance a UK tour. They return home embarrassed after a host of poor performances.

1980

“I went for a drink with them to one of the pubs in Cork Street”, Jackie Hayden recalls, “and in the days before mobile phones I often had to interrupt to make a call or even to visit the loo. While I'd be away the band, who were, unknown to me, quite penniless, would devour a large percentage of whatever drink was left in my glass.”

February 26th Television audiences are stunned by events in Dallas, Texas, as a mystery assailant shoots JR Ewing. U2 begin their first nationwide headline tour, Come Out to Play. After their final gig in the National Stadium, Bill Stewart of Island Records offers a four-album deal. Two months later they release 11 O’Clock Tick Tock.

October 20th The release of Boy precedes the first hunger strike at the Maze. (The following year, the band will withdraw from the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York after Bobby Sands is made the honorary marshal to commemorate his death in prison.)

December 9th News of John Lennon's death in New York inspires an angry performance from U2, making their debut in Canada. Four days later, Bono leads a Boston crowd in an improvised chorus of Lennon's Give Peace a Chance during a rousing performance of Electric Co. The band receive their first mention in Rolling Stone magazine and spend nearly six months touring America. Only 12 people show up to watch them play in Anaheim, California, but the three month tour ends with sold-out shows at New York's Palladium and the Fast Lane in Asbury Park. Prince Charles and Diana Spencer marry in London.

1981

March 30th President Reagan is shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC. Later that day a Texan club owner pulls a gun on U2, insisting they accept payment by cheque; manager Paul McGuinness had earlier requested that the band be paid in cash. A few nights later, at a gig in New Haven, there’s an on-stage fist-fight between The Edge and Bono. Something to do with a chord sequence. Bono learns a lesson: “Do not pick a fight with somebody who makes a living from hand-to-eye coordination.”

May 11th Island records label mate Bob Marley dies of cancer at the age of 36. A posthumous bootleg emerges of what is claimed to be Bono, Bob Dylan and the late star singing Knocking on Heaven's Door. U2 can only dream of sharing a stage with such legends, and the release is soon dismissed as an elaborate hoax.

August 16th Supporting Thin Lizzy at Slane castle, Bono takes time out to address members of the press. “I'd like to tell you about a special sort of people,” he announces, “they're called reporters and they come with notes and pens in their hands. And they find somebody like that guy over there, who's throwing bottles in the air. And they take a photograph of him and print the photograph. And then you all are throwing the bottles. Do you see what I mean?”

October 1st Just 12 months after Boy, October is released . The album showcases the band's newly developed musical ability, while retaining the trademark U2 sound. Bono believes the album is the first difficult step on the road to rock immortality: “Even at this stage, I do feel that we are meant to be one of the great groups. There's a certain spark, a certain chemistry, that was special about the Stones, the Who and the Beatles, and I think it's also special about U2.”

1982

July 31st U2 play a turbulent gig in Gateshead, barely a week after the IRA kills eight people in bombings of Hyde and Regents Park in London. It is a difficult time for Anglo-Irish relations, but Bono is defiant, raising a white flag plucked from the audience during Electric Co. “There's only one flag... and that's a white flag,” he announces to the 12,000 strong crowd. The flag becomes a symbolic part of U2 performances for months to come.

August 21st Bono marries Alison Stewart at a ceremony in Raheny. The pair originally met at Mount Temple, where Bono “worked very hard at being the heart-throb,” according to Stewart. “He came up to me within the first day and asked, did I know where his class should be going? It was just an excuse to talk to me, and I thought, ‘What an eejit.’ I remember that on the fourth day at school I saw him walking across the courtyard and it was, ‘Bing. That's the guy for me.’” “I was given the job of hiring the wedding band for Bono and Ali's wedding,” remembers Shay Healy. “I hired a group called The Cyclones who I knew from school. It was a great wedding. I was invited to the afters and Paul Brady jammed, it was a real nice party. Even back then Bono was seen as a kind of leader and there was a kind of energy around the party. Bono was carried through the main rooms of the Sutton House Hotel on the lads' shoulders. It was like he was fated to be a leader.”

December 20th The debut airing of Sunday Bloody Sunday in Belfast comes at a time of renewed hostility in the North, and as such, the first half of the gig is especially tense. As the opening notes of the song chime out, Bono nervously tells the crowd that it’s a song written especially for them and stresses that it's not a rebel song. He promises that if they don't like it, U2 will never play it in the North again.
The crowd listens to the military-style drumbeat and confrontational, but optimistic lyrics... and scream their heads off. U2 end the year with three nights in the SFX Hall, finishing on Christmas Eve.

1983

February 28th Industrial unrest and factory closures dominate news bulletins; thousands are made redundant at factories up and down the country. It’s War in the record shops as U2 release their third album to universal acclaim. The first single, New Year’s Day, hits number 9 in the UK, their first top ten hit. An auspicious debut.

April 23rd Larry admits that the band's experiences with US-based IRA supporters prompted them to write Sunday Bloody Sunday: “Americans don't understand it. They call it a religious war, but it has nothing to do with religion. During the hunger strikes, the IRA would say, ‘God is with me. I went to Mass every Sunday.’ And the Unionists said virtually the same thing. And then they go out and murder each other.” Midway through their first US tour, the band stops off at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver; the filmed concert becomes immortalised as the Under a Blood Red Sky album.

1984

Tired of conventional recording studios, U2 follow up War by recording The Unforgettable Fire in Slane Castle. It is the first U2 album to feature Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois as producers.

July 8th Backstage at Bob Dylan's Slane gig, Bono is asked to join the singer for a duet. Flattered but embarrassed at his lack of knowledge of Dylan's back catalogue, he agrees to join the troubadour on stage for a rousing version of Blowing in the Wind. Not sure of the lyrics, Bono improvises his own version, throwing in lines about barbed wire and the Northern troubles to the crowd's roar of approval and the astonishment of Dylan. Closer to home, depression and unemployment leaves Dublin in the grip of a heroin epidemic, with inner-city communities devastated. The crisis inspires U2 to write Bad.

August 14th U2 relocate their Dublin homecoming bash to the great outdoors of the Phoenix Park Racecourse. Big Country, Eurythmics and Simple Minds complete a bill full of preposterous early eighties bombast. A plastic bottle thrown at Annie Lennox prompts a sermon on peace and love from the carrot-topped diva. News of Eamon Coughlan romping home in Helsinki filters around the crowd before Simple Minds take to the stage. After the show, Bono insists that this is the end of U2 Mk 1, the final realisation of a journey that had begun in the Dandelion Market.

October 1st The Unforgettable Fire is released. The title comes from an exhibition of paintings by survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In keeping with dramatic coincidences occurring around U2 releases, the IRA bomb the Grand Hotel in Brighton hotel during the Tory party conference.

1985

April 29th Bono shines a spotlight on his father while playing in Atlanta. When the light hits him, Bob Hewson gives his son the middle-finger salute.

June 28th Rehearsing for their Croke Park homecoming the next day, U2 find a bemused audience half a mile from the stadium at the Rosmini Community School, where students are struggling through the Leaving Certificate exams. The school caretaker walks up to the stadium to explain the situation, and Bono calls a halt to the rehearsal.

June 29th U2 play the first of their legendary Croke Park gigs. The poignancy of Sunday Bloody Sunday is not lost on the crowd, as the hallowed GAA ground was the scene of the first Bloody Sunday in 1921. Onstage in Rotterdam a few days later, a fan throws both the Union Jack and Tricolour onstage, possibly as a gesture of peace and good will or an acknowledgement of the band's mixed backgrounds. “I get tired with all these flags,” says Bono, “Union Jack and Green, White and Orange, Stars and Stripes and Hammer and Sickle.”

July 13th On the morning of Live Aid – a turning point for the band, Bono’s mullet and, indeed, the music industry – Bono issues the following statement: “For the price of Star Wars, the MX missile defence budgets, the deserts of Africa could be turned into fertile lands. The technology is with us. The technocrats are not. Are we part of a civilisation that protects itself by investing in life... or investing in death?” Later, an Island spokesperson admits: “It wasn’t what they wanted. They preferred something glib.”

August 25th U2 make a surprise appearance in Cork, at the Lark by the Lee festival. In nearby Ballinspittle, a statue of the Virgin Mary is seen moving by two local women. The grotto site attracts 10,000 pilgrims per week. Within two decades, Bono’s Killiney residence will attract similar numbers.

1986

May 17th U2 headline Self-Aid, a concert in a similar vein to Live Aid the previous summer; here the focus is on the famine of jobs affecting the country. Unlike Live Aid however, the event is a minor catastrophe, with little money raised and no jobs created. An In Dublin cover story, ‘The Great Self-Aid Farce – Rock Against the People,’ leaves Bono bemused. He adapts the lyrics of Elton John's Candle in the Wind: “They crawled out of the woodwork/ Onto the pages of cheap Dublin magazines..”

1987

The tipping point. The Joshua Tree becomes the album to catapult U2 from band to cultural phenomenon. They become the first rock band to make the cover of Time magazine. Touring takes its toll, and at the end of the year Bono reveals that the new decade will usher in a new era of U2.
“Helter Skelter was exactly what we were going through on the Joshua Tree tour,” Bono explains. “It was one of the worst times in my musical career. First, a falling light cut me and I had to be stitched up. My voice failed for the first week. The world press came to the opening of the tour and I couldn't sing... we played some great concerts on that tour, but there was a lot of madness.”
Back home, punk band Paranoid Visions spearhead a backlash against U2 with their FOAD2U2 campaign (FOAD= Fuck off and die) that spreads onto walls, buses and leather jackets all over Dublin. They release the I Will Wallow single and a parody of the Boy album cover featuring a gap toothed child with one finger in the air.

June 25th U2 drop in to RTE for an interview. The band reveals the background to The Joshua Tree, and a lot more besides. “It was a hot summer,” Dave Fanning recalls, “and it was very warm in the studio. I asked Bono some questions about the music, and he was reluctant to answer. “We come in every year and give the same answers to the same questions,” he said, “maybe we'd say something different if we were naked.” Meanwhile, the head of the radio department had brought his son in to see U2 and walked into the studio to be confronted with five guys sitting there stripped down to their boxers, drinking beer, chatting away as if it was the most normal thing in the world.”

November 4th Eamon Dunphy’s The Unforgettable Fire: The Story of U2 is published. A bestseller, the book is so riddled with inconsistencies, according to [professional groupie] Neil McCormack, that it “results in farce at times, as Dunphy recounts anecdotes which he patently doesn't understand… the crazily uneven nature of the book is not only an indication of Dunphy's bias but also of his weakness as a biographical journalist.” Whether Roy Keane ever read that review, or the book, is unknown. Eamon Dunphy remains one of Paul McGuinness’ best friends.

1988

October 27th Rattle and Hum premieres in Dublin, two weeks after the release of the album. The band play a short gig outside the Savoy cinema. Criticism of the movie is met with a stern rebuke: “I couldn't really give a shit,” The Edge says, defiantly. “We're not movie stars, we're a rock’n’roll band; it doesn't really bother me.” “Besides,” Adam laughs, “We can always go back to our day jobs.”

1989

April 27th Gavin Friday hosts a launch party for his debut solo album in the Pink Elephant. Bono joins him to sing We Are the Champions and My Way.

August 6th Adam Clayton is arrested outside the Blue Light pub in Glencullen, for possession of 19 grams of marijuana. A judge orders him to pay £25,000 to The Women's Aid Refuge Centre. As the incident takes place the day before the August bank holiday, the press make the most of it: think pictures of famous musician outside a courthouse, under lurid headlines like 'U2 MAN ON DRUGS CHARGES!'

December 26th U2 play four shows at the Point, amid controversy over inflated ticket prices (£25). A Catholic youth organisation criticizes the band, claiming they have a responsibility to the people of Dublin. Paul McGuinness counters: “It must now be asked whether this peculiar coalition of priests and other commentators will be bringing their enormous influence to bear on the other more essential pricing issues of the day. Petrol? The cost of travel? Should the agricultural sector be subsidised? What about interest rates? Coal and butter...?”

1990

U2 set up camp in Berlin, recording in the legendary Hansa Studios where Bowie had made Low and Heroes. In a tacit admission that their critics may have had a point when describing U2 as “overblown” and “increasingly dull,” the band set about re-inventing themselves. The process involves shedding much of their blues-based, rootsy American sound and adopting a new set of ‘post-modern’ European influences.
During the pre-album hiatus, Larry Mullen co-writes the official World Cup Song Put 'Em Under Pressure. Jackie's Army progress to the Quarter Finals of Italia '90 thanks to a heart in mouth penalty shoot against Romania and Packie Bonner's legendary save.
Back home, Mary Robinson is elected President, while in South Africa, Nelson Mandela tastes freedom for the first time since 1962.

January 31st Bono and the Edge compose background music for a Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Disagreements follow backstage as the duo and producers attempt to fit the tracks to the script. Bono advises Burgess to “stick to writing books. He's better at that.” Meanwhile a stagehand is heard to quip: “There's Bono... I liked him better when he was with Cher.”

October As Achtung Baby nears completion, The Edge’s marriage to Aislinn O’Sullivan falls apart (“Did you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?” – One).
U2 release a blistering cover version of the Cole Porter classic Night and Day for Red Hot and Blue, with the proceeds going to AIDS charities. The video enjoys heavy rotation on MTV, with the lyrics offering a strangely optimistic view of the world at a time of renewed conflict in the Gulf.

1991

April 20th Bono reveals that Running to Stand Still is inspired by the view from his childhood home in Cedarwood Road, as lush fields gradually gave way to the Ballymun flat complexes. Having seen struggles in places as far away as Ethiopia and El Salavador, the memory of witnessing drug addiction at first hand meant his mind would always return to the flats. “Sweet the sin/ But bitter the taste in my mouth/ I see seven towers/ But I only see one way out.”

November 18th Eighteen months of reinvention comes to fruition with the release of Achtung Baby. Bono says the album is “the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree.”
The cover features a collage of photographs including a bizarre shot of a naked Adam Clayton on the inside cover. The censored American edition has a shamrock covering Adam's manhood. It is the band’s most extensively marketed album (with the buyout of Island records by Polygram, the album is released in four different formats, with a video soon to follow). The band prepare for their most sycophantic/ironic nod to commerce, Zoo TV. Message? Thou shalt not worship false idols... but what else is there?

1992

February 29th Zoo TV tour begins in Florida. Bono switches stage personae the way others change costumes, flitting between The Fly, McPhisto and Mirrorball Man. The tour is heavy on incident, as Bono calls the White House, orders pizza for 10,000 people, duets with a pre-recorded Lou Reed on Satellite of Love and turns the Bono-isms up to eleven under the guise of his new alter egos. “In some ways it was getting back to some of the very earliest shows that we'd done in McGonagles,” recalls The Edge. “We were touching on a performance art mixed with rock & roll.” Bono pulls a Jamie Oliver: “Zoo TV cost so much, I mean it cost a quarter of a million dollars a day to take that thing around. So if 10 per cent less people had come to see us, we'd have gone bankrupt. And with those kind of bills you don't go bankrupt a little, you go bankrupt a lot.”

March 27th Bono surprises guests at London's Nikita restaurant by stripping naked during an interview with a journalist. Again. According to his spokesperson: “The writer was so unimaginative, so frozen, so unloose that Bono thought it would be a good idea to take his clothes off...and there wasn't much of a reaction.” “He was very nice and very civilised”, said the owner of the restaurant. “I think he just felt more comfortable with nothing on.”

June 19th U2 take part in a Greenpeace protest at Sellafield donned in full-body radiation suits. The band arrive at the site at 6.30 am, direct from a protest gig in Manchester the previous night (original plans to play a gig at Sellafield itself are quashed by the High Court). The band bring with them barrels of contaminated mud from coastlines across the Irish Sea. With his wife Ali becoming increasingly involved in Adi Roche's Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, later to incorporate the Chernobyl Children's Project, Bono takes up the mantle with aplomb. “They can call us mad Paddies if they want to, but we can't put a lot of faith in politicians.”

1993

July 5th U2 release Zooropa whilst still at the height of their Zoo TV tour. At a gig in Bologna, Bono calls Sarajevo via a live satellite link up, reminding the crowd of how close to home the atrocities really are. “We're only about 500 kilometres here from a city very different to this city...”

August 24 By the time it arrives in Ireland, a portion of the Zooropa show is axed. Each night, a satellite link with Sarajevo had featured interviews with Bosnian artists and writers. The segment was slated by the British press, who said it was at best awkward and at worst exploitative. Bono sends an axe – as in hatchet job – to NME journalist Stephen Dalton. Meanwhile, Cork County Council rules that U2 condoms cannot be sold at the Pairc Ui Chaoimh concert. Paul McGuinness personally hands out condoms to fans at the show, prompting criticism from the city's mayor.

August 27th Another Dublin show begins in controversy as the advertising for the RDS Zooropa gig – featuring Bono smoking a cigar – breaches advertising regulations. Meanwhile beer company Foster's proudly proclaim that they are serving at the U2 concerts. Wanting to distance themselves from the perception of corporate sponsorship, at least for the time being, the band withdraw the agreement.

September 29th U2 go looking for food in the Manhattan Grill at 3am. They can’t find it, but end up in another equally salubrious café. Seated between framed photographs of Jim Kerr and Wendy James, Bono jokingly tells the waitress that he will not order until they put up a photo of him too. She says there’s already a poster of U2 in the café. Over the urinal in the men’s room.

October 1st Gavin Friday gets married. At the wedding reception in the Clarence, which Bono and The Edge have just bought, U2 stumble through a rendition of The Boys are Back in Town. Sarah Delamere Hurding, author and celebrity psychic, recalls her special role that evening: “As he grew steadily drunker, Bono requested I keep him plied with wine, claiming the staff kept running off with the bottle. It was an arduous task, but I was more concerned with the look on his father's face. Definitely not amused.”

November 26th Adam Clayton becomes the first member of the band to miss a show, in Sydney. A roadie takes his place. Upset about the break up of his engagement to Naomi Campbell, Clayton's absence is the result of a drunken binge.“It was a pretty special couple of years,” he later admits. “I mean, it was a pretty mad couple of years where reality and fantasy and everything got kinda mixed up big time.” Shortly after the Sydney mishap, Clayton gave up drinking; he hasn’t touched a drop since. “We thought that was the end,” Bono recalls. “We didn’t want to go on if someone was that unhappy and not enjoying himself.”

1994

February 14th The Kitchen opens its doors on Valentine's Night 1994. The band hire Macnas to keep the crowd at the crash barriers entertained with a spoof paparazzi show, descending on bewildered members of the public with cameras, lights and microphones. A DJ who refuses to play a Prodigy request for Naomi Campbell soon finds himself in slightly less glamorous employment.

October 13th Northern paramilitary groups broker a historic ceasefire. A new sense of togetherness grips the nation for the first time in over 20 years. U2's music is part of this catalyst. At a book launch the same week, author John Waters explains that we should be proud of U2, “not in the normal political, commercial, financial and world record breaking sense,” but as a group of people “who had tapped into something there in our culture, which was latent and unexplained, and which they had made into a new force in the world”.

1995

June 25th Rory Gallagher dies in London at the age of 47. Bono describes him as one of the top ten guitarists of all time, adding: “More importantly, he was one of the top ten good guys.”

November 7th The band release Passengers Original Soundtracks Volume One in collaboration with Brian Eno – a record which Larry Mullen famously dislikes. “There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence,” Larry maintains. “We crossed it on the Passengers record.” Bono counters, “Larry just didn't like it because we hardly let him play the drums.”

July 29th Mojo publishes its all-time top 100 albums. U2 fail to make the list. Features editor Jim Irving explains: “The albums we've listed are classical music for tomorrow's generation. It's for the die-hard music lover, not someone who wants to buy an album to play as background music.” U2 choose not to comment.

November 23rd At the MTV European Music Awards, French President Jacques Chirac is the target of an angry outburst from Bono. “What a city, what a crowd, what a bomb, what a mistake… what a wanker you have for president,” Bono rants, referring to French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. Meanwhile, in the closest referendum in the country's history, 50.3% of the Irish electorate votes in favour of divorce. Bono declares his support for Taoiseach John Bruton in his campaign for a Yes vote, joining in a pro-divorce rally on the Sunday before the votes are cast.

1996

January 1st Bono celebrates the New Year in Sarajevo. “I’m really happy to be the first tourist in the new Sarajevo,” he said. “We really just came because we heard it was going to be a great party.” Gavin Friday blames Ireland’s antiquated drink laws for the closure of Mr Pussy’s Café de Luxe in March. A Canadian fan stalking the band is sent home by the Gardai. Before his arrival in Ireland he bombards the band with phone calls and letters. He is subsequently found in the grounds of Adam Clayton’s house.

April 16th U2 fly home from Miami to attend the funeral of Hot Press journalist Bill Graham in Howth. Bono performs Leonard Cohen's Tower of Song at the service, in which the singer and Edge are pall bearers. Bono pays tribute to Graham's integrity and honesty. “Bill introduced me to myself. That's exactly what he did. He was the spirit of that early time.”

April 23rd Bono kisses Liam Gallagher after an Oasis concert. “Actually, what happened,” says Bono, “was he had a guitar pick in his mouth, and he dared me to take it off him while the paparazzi were standing around. I couldn't resist. I can't say his breath smelled sweetly – let me put it that way.”

October 31st Bill Clinton wins the US Presidential Election, while back in Ireland Paul McGuinness receives third degree burns when a firework explodes in his face at a party in County Wicklow. Articles claim that McGuinness will require “extensive plastic surgery.” He returns to work three weeks later, somewhat nonplussed by the media attention.

1997

The Irish Supreme Court rules that two U2 shows planned for the Landsdowne Road can proceed on August 1. Three local residents had challenged the concerts. A frustrated Paul McGuinness is quoted before the decision as saying, “We can take PopMart anywhere on Earth, but we can't play our own hometown.” The concerts take place on August 30 and 31. Bono refers to the debacle onstage, “We pulled it off! Paddy Power!” Later in the show, he announces, “I wouldn't have you in my back yard either.”

March 5th Pop is released, with guitars dropped in favour of synthesisers for the first single, Discotheque. Journalist John Waters sums up the new direction: “U2's later music has been forged and guided by a desire to reinvent conventional images of goodness and sanctity, to build a Trojan Horse of kitsch and make up in which to carry the flame of their core beliefs into the modern pop marketplace. Much is made of the ironic nature of U2's persona, but this is just a joke screen to obscure the reality that the band's core purpose is as solemn as ever.” However, Pop only sells around 7m compared to The Joshua Tree's 17m. For too many fans, synthesizers and irony are a poor substitute for guitar-driven anthemic stadium rock.
The PopMart tour, a “ridiculous, swollen circus where megalomania transcended any intended irony,” is beset by technical hitches and sluggish ticket sales. Paul McGuinness: “I think the band would say that Pop wasn't finished creatively. An album with the slightly provocative name of Pop has to have perfectly finished pop singles. I think we curtailed the process slightly because we were ready to tour and we let the tour and the album bang into each other. Too much was committed and we ran out of time.”

August 31st News of Princess Diana's car crash filters through as the first Lansdowne Road gig draws to a close. At the following night’s concert, Bono pays tribute to the people's princess by invoking the lines ‘Sleep, sleep tonight,’ originally written in honour of Martin Luther King, as an image of Diana appears on the giant screen at the end of the show. The band also pay tribute to the fans who have been queuing outside the British embassy down the road all day.

1998

January 21st While Bill Clinton gets embroiled in a sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky, U2 celebrate an altogether different sort of affair, as the band celebrates the 20th anniversary of its first proper gig in McGonagles. “We never really wanted to stay the same,” explains Larry. “We are not really good at repeating ourselves, so today, we are a different band. We've always pushed the envelope and we do things that maybe everyone doesn't like and that's just part of the deal we make with ourselves and our audience.”

April 26th The hit TV comedy series The Simpsons has Homer joining U2 on stage for its PopMart concert in Springfield. U2 play Belfast's Waterfront Hall in support of the Good Friday agreement on May 18th, three days before the referendum. Bono invites John Hume and David Trimble onstage, raising their linked arms for a famous photo opportunity. It’s hard to imagine him pulling off a similar stunt today with Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley, and it mightn't necessarily be Paisley saying no as Adams once called Bono “a little shit” in a press interview and allegedly took down a U2 poster in the Sinn Fein office. Meanwhile, U2 appear on the 200th edition of The Simpsons and Bono supports Homer's stance for the post of Springfield Sanitation commissioner.

1999

March 12th In a rare outbreak of humour, the Irish Times publishes a Top Ten Terrible Things About Dublin list, with people who know U2 personally popping in at number nine. “There you are, chatting away about how U2’s new album isn’t as good as their last one, when this person pipes up, ‘I know U2 personally, so you better watch what you say.’ They then go on to imply that Bono may have you evicted from your house, The Edge can get you fired from your job, and Adam Clayton could arrange for you to ‘disappear.’ Oh, and Larry Mullen knows where Shergar is.”

May 21st Bono and Larry appear on the last ever edition of The Late Late Show and present host Gay Byrne with a Harley Davidson 1200cc Sportster. November 15th The MTV European Music Awards comes to Dublin. Mick Jagger presents Bono with the Free Your Mind Award. Bono remarks, “This will only make me worse you know!” After the ceremony, Bono joins Iggy Pop and Marilyn Manson onstage at the Irish Music Hall of Fame to cover Johnny B. Goode and TV Eye.

December 13th Bono’s stolen laptop, containing lyrics to his next album, is returned by a young Dubliner named Paul who had bought it for £300 from what he had believed to be a reputable source. Bono offers to buy Paul a brand new laptop on top of the two thousand dollar reward.

2000

March 18th The band and Paul McGuinness are awarded the Freedom of the City of Dublin at a ceremony in Smithfield. The Edge and Adam Clayton follow in the footsteps of Jack Charlton as English-born recipients of the honour. Bono and the Edge show up in Stephen's Green with a lamb under each arm, citing an archaic city bye-law that gives them the right to graze sheep on the Green.

February 18th After a fashion show in aid of the Chernobyl Children's Project, the Kitchen is the venue for a somewhat debauched after-show party. “The staff were kicked out, and the band took over the bar,” recalls Keith Barry. “I remember going back to pour myself a pint, and on my left was Ron Wood, on my right was Mick Jagger, and in the corner were Naomi Campbell and Elle McPherson. I thought, ‘If this is heaven, why on earth am I in such a drunken mess?’”

October 31st All You Can't Leave Behind is released. In a notable departure from recent sonic experiments, the back to basics album features straightforward anthems such as Beautiful Day and Elevation. “We realised that there’s only a certain amount of Joshua Trees you can chop down,” says Larry.

November 13th Bono surprises his father, Bob, by throwing a lavish 75th birthday bash at The Clarence Hotel. He had been led to believe they were going for a quiet family meal. But the karaoke themed party was more pop than rock when the singing began. The hotel was adorned with giant posters proclaiming “Bob Lives... just about. Still above ground, 75, Dublin, 13 November, 2000.”

2001

January 4th Bono reveals that new single Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of is inspired by the death of close friend Michael Hutchence: “The song is an argument between mates. You’re kind of trying to slap somebody around the face, trying to wake them up out of an idea. If he (Hutchence) had lasted half an hour longer, he would be alive now. But he couldn’t see past that half an hour. In the song I’m there, in that half hour.”

January 22nd Paul McGuinness gets philosophical: “They’re all aged 40 now – I’m about to turn 50 – and we’ve all been doing it for over 20 years, so it’s a bit like those Olympic athletes who defy everyone and keep coming back and winning. And if there’s a title, we’re hanging on to it. We’re certainly not going to hand it over to some young whippersnapper who thinks they’re entitled.”

August 24th Bono’s father Bob dies after a lengthy battle with cancer. At that night's gig in London, the singer pays tribute: “I want to thank my old man, my father, for giving me this voice. He was a fine tenor and he always said if I had his voice who knows what might have happened. Our house was filled with music. It was the kids who had to ask the father to turn it down.” The following day, U2 play Slane for the first time in 20 years.

September 11th Two planes hit the World Trade Centre. The band, who had announced the final leg of their North American tour the day before, set up a direct link from their website to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. The shows go ahead as planned. At a televised charity special ten days later, Bono brings tears to the audience with a rousing rendition of Peace on Earth: “I'm sick of sorrow/ sick of pain/ sick of hearing again and again/ there is never going to be peace on Earth.” At a press conference to announce an international design competition for a 60-metre tower on Britain Quay to replace their Hanover Quay base he says, “The extraordinary city of Dublin has been defaced and vandalised through corruption and cronyism. No one so far has paid a fine or gone to prison, but we’re hopeful.”

2002

May 4th The Kitchen nightclub closes after eight years. No one is quite sure why, although complaints from VIP guests and a tumultuous relationship with the Garda Siochana are cited as possible reasons. It is expected to reopen as an extension of The Clarence's Therapy Room in late 2005.

May 28th Bono, actor Chris Tucker and US treasury secretary Paul O’Neill visit several African nations to see how the continent is dealing with the AIDS epidemic. “Mr Bono” is feted by Africa's leaders. Paul O’Neill is sacked a few months later.

October 3rd Two months after the cover of Time asks “Can Bono Save the World?” Bono is named the most powerful man in rock by the (notoriously sycophantic) Q magazine, for his work with AIDS and third world debt relief. “If there’s one thing worse than a rock star,” he quips, “it’s a rock star with a conscience.”

2003

March Asked about Louis Walsh’s new band, Six, Bono admits that he hasn’t heard them, before adding: “Some of the best pop music is assembled, so I’m not against it – it’s all about the tunes they come out with. I mean, those Britney Spears records, they just blow my mind they’re so good.”

July 27th Writing in the Sunday Times, Liam Fay summarises objections to Bono’s debt-relief campaign: “There is something undeniably grotesque about a campaigner against world poverty, with an estimated personal fortune of more than e100m, who contributes so little to the welfare state of the country in which he lives, much less anywhere else. With typical self-aggrandising bluster, Bono characterises himself as a stone in the shoe of the developed West, the squeaky wheel that won't be silenced. What he has yet to realise is that, beyond the confines of his new-found establishment fan club, he's increasingly seen, rather more prosaically, as a pain in the neck.”

September 16th Bono appeals for $1 billion from America for the global fight against AIDS. Pointing to the $87 billion dollars (e48.1 billion) President Bush is seeking for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he asks: “How about $1 billion dollars extra for an entire continent?”

2004

June 12th Bono violates the smoking ban by lighting up in the Clarence while hanging out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Later he explains to reporters, “It was the wee small hours. I was in the company of people from out of town who didn't know about the ban and for a moment nor did I. I was quickly reminded by the staff and a few friends. I apologised then and I apologise now.”

October 26th U2 team up with Apple to release a special limited edition black iPod; the machine also comes with a $50 voucher to enable users to download the band's entire back catalogue. Screams of “sellout!” ring out across the world. Bono says, “We want our audience to have a more intimate online relationship with the band, and Apple can help us do that. With iPod and iTunes, Apple has created a crossroads of art, commerce and technology which feels good for both musicians and fans.”

November 22nd How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is released. “A bomb went off when my old man died,” admits Bono, “and I had no idea how to deal with it. If I’m honest, I’ve been running away from it for the past two years. I’ve always enjoyed drinking and going out, but I found I was drinking far more. I went to Bali for a drink. Got on a plane, went for two days, came back…I was sitting in a beach bar when I got there thinking, what am I doing here?”

2005

February 1st A high court action by the Edge and his wife to prevent the Sunday World from publishing details relating to a family illness is adjourned for two weeks. Tickets for two Croke Park shows sell out in 50 minutes. “I'm sick of Bono,” announces Bono, “and I am Bono!” There is speculation that he is about to be offered the Presidency of the World Bank.

March 28th The Vertigo tour begins. At a cost of $1 million a night, with three thousand lights, five video screens, numerous stage effects and 120 road crew, it is one of the most expensive rock shows ever staged. “This is our moment right now,” exclaims Bono, dismissing press reports that the band are past it. “So what are we going to do with this moment? We don't want to choke. We don't want to blow it. Let's see what a rock band can do when they are right at their prime.”

April 2nd Bono tells NME that the Vertigo concerts are part political rally, part gospel tent and part Las Vegas show. The short rehearsal time was, he says, less than satisfactory, due to “personal problems” and a fear that they simply weren't ready to hit the road. Tonight in Anaheim, California, he pays tribute to the late Pope John Paul – “the best front man the Church ever had” – and notes, “I think I have a little bit of a Pope complex...and he certainly had a bit of a rock star complex.”

May 7th Following the announcement of a third Croke Park gig, tickets sell out within hours and go on sale on E-Bay for over €500.

May 22nd The Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot claims “this once-vital band is turning into the Rolling Stones, more of a corporation focused on perpetuating itself than a creative force.” Bono is not amused. “Some of what is going around as a result of your article is not just unhelpful to our group and our relationship to our audience,” the singer tells him, “but just really problematic for what in the broad sense you might call rock music. The things you think are wrong with it, and the things that I think are wrong with rock music, are polar opposite. Your vision of rock and mine are 180 degrees apart.”

Published in the June 2005 edition of The Dubliner magazine

Comments

[joe blow]

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impressive