Walk On, Hallelujah !

On its 2001 Elevation Tour, U2 sold out arenas and stadiums around the world, using in the process a surprising amount of religious imagery. The band usually closed with “Walk On,” a song from, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Toward the end of the song, Bono would shout “Unto the Almighty, thank you!” and lead the crowd in a chorus of hallelujahs.

“And kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall”

— October

U2 does not seem to care whether churches accept the band. Over the years, U2 has grown uncomfortable with organized religion, calling church life “claustrophobic” and blaming Christianity, at least in part, for dividing Ireland. “I have this hunger in me…. Everywhere I look, I see evidence of a Creator,” Bono has said. “But I don’t see it as religion, which has cut my people in two.”

The question of U2’s religious beliefs, and the ways band members have expressed them, is the subject of a 2001 book, Walk On—The Spiritual Journey of U2 (Relevant Books), by Steve Stockman, a Presbyterian minister in Ireland. Stockman mines U2 interviews and books about the band and its music to write a spiritual companion to the band’s career.

Stockman wrote that in U2’s early days in Dublin, Bono, The Edge and Mullen embraced a charismatic evangelical form of Christianity unusual then for Ireland. They found like-minded believers in a small group called the Shalom Fellowship. In the early 1980s, one of Shalom’s leaders declared that U2 would have to give up rock `n’ roll to please God.

It was a crossroads for the band, and after deciding that God would rather have them play rock music than stay in the fellowship, Bono, The Edge and Mullen left. Never again would any members of U2 be formally aligned with a religious group.

“For Bono, The Edge and Larry, the God that they met and have pilgrimaged with down the amazing road is a God who is bigger than church or religious boundaries,”(STOCKMAN)

Chirstmas as Rita's

​You know its a very slow U2 news day when all we have to report is that  U2 have just booked their yuletide bash for Cafe H, the Mediterranean restaurant, in Dublin's Grand Canal Plaza, owned by Rita Crosbie, Harry's wife.

Rushdie and Bono Friendship Lasts

Rushdie the writer of “Santanic Verses” has many friends, including Bono. Joseph Anton writes in his new memoir that Bono and Salman go back many years. The story goes that Bono even offered shelter and support while he was under fatwa issued by conservative Muslims in 1989.  Bono at one time managed to smuggle Salman out of Ali’s mansion in Killney, Dublin to head to the bar for a few pints, all this while his body guards unaware of his departure.  Rushdie enjoyed the freedom and was all too happy to drink a few pints of Guinness while enjoying the conversation with Bono.

During Zooropa tour Bono and the boys wanted to show support for Rushdie and extended an invite to him during their London stop. The two became friends from that point. Bono extending a hand out to Rushdie a few more times during which they talked about Bono wanting to grow as a writer.

Rushdie and Bono did collaborate on music. “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” was based on an earlier novel by Rushdie.  Just this past month Bono presented Rushie with GQ magazine’s Inspiration of the Year award.

Music provides the platform for the strangest of bedfellows.

¡Ni Un Paso Atras!

I have started this journey backwards and I have been thinking about different U2 songs and the feelings they evoke within myself as well as others around me.  U2’s music has always had a powerful message. I scrolled thru my selections and came across “Mothers of the Disappeared”. The music started to play and away my journey began.

Bono met René Castro, a Chilean mural artist. Castro had been tortured and held in a concentration camp for two years by the dictatorial Chilean government because his artwork criticized the Pinochet-led regime that seized power in 1973 during a coup d'état.  Castro showed Bono a wall painting in the Mission District that depicted the ongoing plight in Chile and Argentina. He also learned of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a group of women whose children were forcibly disappeared by the Argentinian government. The Madres' children were students who had opposed the government during the Dirty War, and the coup d'état that brought Jorge Rafael Videla into power. The Madres joined to campaign for information regarding the locations of their children's bodies and the circumstances of their deaths, believing them to have been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.

“I remember [Daniel Lanois], when we were finishing ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’, losing his mind and performing at the mixing desk like he was Mozart at the piano, head blown back in an imaginary breeze, and it was pouring down with rain outside the studio and I was singing about how ‘in the rain we see their tears,’ the tears of those who have been disappeared. And when you listen to that mix you can actually hear the rain outside. It was magical really...”

— Bono

Inspired by the mural, Bono took an extended break from recording into July, travelling to Nicaragua and El Salvador with his wife, Alison Hewson, to see firsthand the distress of peasants bullied by political conflicts and US military intervention. While there, they worked with the Central American Mission Partners (CAMP), a human rights and economic development organization.

In El Salvador they met members of the Comité de Madres Monsignor Romero (COMADRES: Committee of the Mothers Monsignor Romero), an organization of women whose children were forcibly disappeared by the El Salvadoran government during the Salvadoran Civil War because they opposed the military regime that was in power.  At one point during the trip, Bono, Alison, and a member of CAMP were shot at by government troops while on their way to deliver aid to a group of farmers. The shots were a warning and, according to author John Luerssen, the incident made Bono realize that "they didn't care for their intrusion and they could kill them if they felt compelled."

“There was a love/hate relationship with America. A lot of that album reflected Bono’s feelings coming back from El Salvador and the Conspiracy of Hope tour and seeing the brutal face of US foreign policy.”

— Larry Mullen Jr

In 2006, Bono recounted another experience he had in El Salvador, where he had seen a body thrown from a van into the road. He remarked, "People would just disappear. If you were part of the opposition, you might find an SUV with the windows blacked out parked outside your house.... If that didn't stop you, occasionally they would come in and take you and murder you; there would be no trial  Bono understood the cause of the Madres and COMADRES and wanted to pay tribute to it. His experiences in Central America inspired the lyrics of "Mothers of the Disappeared" and another track from The Joshua Tree, "Bullet the Blue Sky".

In 1998, Bono re-recorded the song a cappella in English and Spanish for the album ¡Ni Un Paso Atras! (English: Not One Step Back!), along with a recitation of the William Butler Yeats poem "Mother of God". The album was created by the Madres in commemoration of the disappearance of their children.

Happy Birthday U2

September 25^th 1976 Larry Mullen Jr. posted a notice on the board at Mount Temple High School looking for band members and in the end only six people responded. Larry on drums, Paul (Bono) on lead vocals; David (The Edge) and his brother Dick on guitar and rounding out the band Adam on bass guitar.  Larry was the leader of the band for about 10 minutes until Bono walked in the room. The band first name was “Feedback” before changing to “The Hype” in 1977 before the foursome settled on U2 around 1978. The boys won a talent competition in Limerick and that is the start of something ever lasting. Behind the music series can give you a better insight to the band and the boys.

U2 have released 12 studio albums and are among the all-time best-selling music artists, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and in 2005, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 in its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and philanthropic causes, including Amnesty International, the ONE/DATA campaigns, Product Red, and The Edge's Music Rising.

Bono receives the Order of the Aztec Eagle

Order of the Aztec Eagle

President Felipe Calderon may deliver the medal to the Irish star during his visit to New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly, Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told reporters on Friday. But she noted that the singer has not yet confirmed the exact date for the medal ceremony, due to prior commitments. Espinosa said she spoke to Bono, who founded the global anti-poverty group ONE to help fight poverty and disease in Africa, to inform him of the decision. “He said that he feels very honored and very pleased with this decision, and that Mexico is a country that he loves and admires,” she said. Calderon, who leaves office on Dec. 1, met with Bono at the presidential residence of Los Pinos last year to thank the singer for expressing solidarity with Mexico over the country's drug violence during a concert in the capital. “Mexico needs to know you are not alone and we are with you ... you are not alone in the darkness,” Bono told 93,000 fans at the Azteca stadium.

Rare U2 items for new exhibit

A Dublin museum is looking for U2 memorabilia; everything from the band’s history for a permanent exhibition.  If you have rare photographs, posters, set-lists and T-shirts the Little Museum of Dublin wants to hear from you. The non-profit museum decided to set up a permanent U2 exhibition after this summers record number of visitors that came out to see the U2 photographs, which opened in May 2012.

"We've had people coming from as far away as Greece and Italy. The response has been incredible," museum director Trevor White told the Irish Independent.

The former publisher believes it's high time Dublin had a museum to celebrate U2.

"We envisage a place where fans can see memorabilia from throughout U2's career. But we need help from the public" added Mr White.

Members of the public with rare U2 memorabilia should contact Simon O'Connor at simon@littlemuseum.ie.

Why is U2 The Greatest Band Ever

Despite being routinely described as one of the world’s most popular bands on and off for close to twenty years, U2’s reception is difficult to assess. Many sources indulge in hyperbolic discussions regarding the “greatest” bands in the world, but what exactly constitutes “greatness” in music, and, in particular, popular music? Album sales? Longevity? Membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Critical reception? Influence? Originality? How would you define greatness ?