I wrote this for the Irish Independent to mark U2’s 50th birthday last Friday (September 25th)…
“Bono is a pox” – so runs the notorious Dublin graffiti which encapsulates how many feel about the U2 frontman. Not hateful, exactly, but a pain, a nuisance, annoying in some way you just can’t get past.
Is Bono a pox? I wouldn’t think so – he seems decent on a personal level – but it’s undeniable that Ireland has had a complicated, ambiguous relationship with him, and U2, since teenage Larry Mullen founded the band with that seminal meeting in his kitchen, 50 years ago this Friday.
On one hand, we were always proud of their achievements, and those were spectacular. When Ireland was a poor-ish, uncertain post-colonial backwater, U2 were bestriding the globe like musical colossi. You watched them “stop the traffic” making the video for Where the Streets Have No Name, saw them blazoned across Time magazine as “Rock’s Hottest Ticket”, and thought, hey: we’re right up there with the best.
On the other hand U2, particularly Bono, would have the mickey taken, relentlessly and mercilessly. Their image and music, people felt, were too serious and sanctimonious, too ambitious and worthy. They weren’t – gravest sin in rock ‘n’ roll – cool. Later, things like Bono’s political campaigning, and the controversial transfer of tax affairs to the Netherlands, added fuel to the fire.
Now they’re a legacy band (albeit, unusually, still releasing new music), continuing to draw huge crowds on tour. Bono’s image has settled into a kind of strange median space, a limbo halfway between fondly-regarded national treasure and, well, an annoying nuisance. Some habits die hard.
Was this antipathy justified? I don’t mean the piss-taking: that’s an important part of life. Rather, the outright hostility, resentment, ill-will – worst of all, the revisionism stupidly arguing that “such-and-such other band you’ve long-forgotten” were actually better than U2, but Bono’s boys wanted the fame and money more.
Please: this nonsense is embarrassing. U2 were, by any reasonable, objective measure, truly great, live and on record. Forget all the outside stuff; there’s no naysaying the quality of their music.
From the late Seventies to the early Eighties U2 were good-to-excellent; from there to the mid-Nineties, they were exceptional; The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Passengers are still among my most-played albums.
People forget just how good they were, and for how long. Almost two decades of great record after great record. To pick your Top 20, or even 50, U2 songs would be nigh-on impossible.
Not to mention the incredible live shows: I still get an electric buzz remembering Páirc Uí Chaoimh in ’93, finding myself within ten feet of Bono and the belly-dancer on the ramp during Mysterious Ways and almost pinching myself.
They also, in their prime, showed an unexpected amount of creative bravery, from artful Unforgettable Fire to rootsy Rattle and Hum, and the early-Nineties metamorphosis into “ironic U2” to the experimental Passengers, which prefigured Radiohead’s radical career-change by half-a-decade.
You’ll notice I said “in their prime”: sadly, since the interesting-but-patchy Pop in ’97, U2 haven’t really done anything great. Or even good. A 2014 duet with Lykke Li is about their only post-millennium song I won’t automatically skip. The last quarter-century has been dull, uninspired, play-safe – though with the caveat that live shows still rock like all get-out.
Anyway, none of that undoes the breadth, depth and sheer brilliance of a dozen albums and EPs, and hundreds of songs, which preceded this decline. But it’s more than just music: U2 have been an intrinsic part of the fabric of Irish life for half a century.
My generation grew up seeing the culture through a U2-shaped prism. Like them or loathe them, it’s had a profound effect, collectively and individually. Random example: I’m working on an alternate-history novel which is hugely influenced by U2’s music and, especially, lifelong memories of them.
TV appearances in particular: for people my age, many of our most enduring telly memories involve U2. Early performances on Anything Goes, that showstopping Live Aid set, a spinetingling Springhill Mining Disaster on the Late Late Dubliners tribute, presenting Gaybo with a Harley during his last show.
All this overrides the irritations: the politicking, money, endless books and movies, celeb friends, property development, Broadway musicals, clothing chain. Besides, is Bono really a pox?
I think it’s more that he’s always known who he is, on the deepest level, and been comfortable with that – and never apologised for it or pretended to be someone else. He didn’t care if people slagged him off or disliked him: “you do you and I’ll do me”, in the modern parlance.
In a country defined by “keep the head down” conformity, where most of us will do literally anything ridiculous or self-harming so long as “everyone else is doing it”, that is perhaps Bono’s most admirable quality.
He did, and does, hold fast to his own truth. Personally, I respect that. But what I really love is U2’s music from 1979 to 1995. That’s my (three chords and the) truth.
Leave a comment