Oh no, not another rock star with a conscience? But the good - bad? - thing about Bono is that he actually means what he says.

by Stewart Hennessy

You could hear Britain groan last week as Bono stepped up to the microphone at the Brit Awards. The show that in previous years had delivered classic moments, most notably John Prescott being covered in water and Jarvis Cocker wiggling his bony derriere, was now serving up a decent family man to fret about Third World debt.

He told the organisers in advance he was going to be dull. He was using pop’s Oscars to speak on behalf of the three-year-old Jubilee 2000 coalition, which wants wealthy countries ‘to make a millennium gift to the poorer nations’ by writing off their debts next year. It’s an interesting idea, a challenging proposition and a fine sentiment, but it ain’t rock’ n’roll. It seems unlikely that Robbie Williams fans, even in their wildest hormonal frenzy, will work up a passion about Eritrea’s finances. It seems likely that Africa will continue to repay a Live Aid-sized sum, every week, even after Bono’s speech.

However, Bono knows this. He knows also that he will be accused of trying to emulate Saint Geldof and he knows the Sunday papers will want to discuss the PR faux pas which he chose to commit. This may ring out like front-page news, but Bono is rather bright.

He didn’t get where he is today by being as media-clueless as he often seems. What Bono instinctively knows is that once you are in fashion the only way is out. He has never been fashionable, so he can make that speech. He is in no danger. He believes there is little point in Third World countries forking out sums that merely service debts as opposed to paying them back. If the debt didn’t exist, it wouldn’t need servicing, and - let’s face it - since it’s not going to be repaid anyway, is there much point in billing the Third World? This is a thoughtful political position, not a glamorous Band Aid concert.

For Bono, the speech was an act of simple faith, just a chance to mouth off about something he believes is important. He knows it won’t do much for U2’s record sales, but he is rich enough not to worry. It is such conviction, or more specifically faith, that defines Bono. Alas, it also makes him a po-faced, pious prat in an age - or, perhaps, a medium? - where ironic cool is all and faith is naff.

That said, he didn’t help his credibility with a decade of atrocious records. Ultimately though, Bono, unquestionably the driving force behind U2, has beaten his critics. He has entered the tiny pantheon of truly global icons and he got there against all trends and received wisdom. His mother died when he was 14, and rock music and God were his saviours. At 15, he performed at school, atop rickety tables, with a few friends. They did a song by Peter Frampton. Bono traces U2’s origins to that gig. There were two brothers in the group and the older one left two years later. The other four members went on to become U2.

Within two more years, they were doing Top Of The Pops. They sailed in on the post-punk wave, but they looked like a bad Irish joke. Celtic emotionalism, hymnal, epic and fronted by a singer who seemed as earnest about his bad dancing as he was about his visionary lyricism - they couldn’t have been less 1979 if they had tried.

They became a pet hate of pop-taste arbiter John Peel and were deemed the darlings of goody-two-shoes students. Bono was had up for being a sanctimonious joykiller and a stadium egotist throughout the Eighties, but the band just got bigger and bigger. Bono believed in the redemptive power of rock’n'roll, in communing. And it was working on some level.

There is a tender moment early in his career, captured by Eamon Dunphy in his U2 biography, Unforgettable Fire, which speaks volumes. The band were playing in Dublin and Bono was bounding about, trying to fire up the audience. He made a friendly remark to two girls at the front of the stage and one replied: ‘Fuck off, dickhead, and get on with the bleeding music. Who do you think you are anyway - David Bowie?’ Dunphy notes: ‘Those around the stage smirked. Bono shrank back into the shadows, wounded.’

This vulnerability could still be sensed just two years ago, during U2’s last tour. As soon as a few stadiums didn’t sell out, the press accused them of lending new meaning to pomp-rock. In fact, the tour grossed £81 million and U2 proved they are one of only three bands that can do full stadium tours on both sides of the Atlantic (the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd are the others). But still, one suspected the bad press got to Bono. To him, U2 is still a spiritual matter.

Born Paul Hewson in Dublin on 10 May 1960, to a Catholic father and Church of Ireland Protestant mother, he always stood apart. He attended Ireland’s first non-denominational secondary school, but even there, he later said, he wasn’t sure which camp he was meant to be in. With U2, he has created his own camp, his own spiritual institution that exists somewhere to the side of mainstream pop.

When the band appeared on the cover of Time in 1987, the magazine had its biggest ever sale. Via various business interests, they are key players in Ireland’s vibrant music scene. Politicians from all over the world are keen to be seen with him. Bono exemplifies faith even if it means naffness. He has never tried to be that ridiculous cartoon creature - the rock’n'roll animal who just doesn’t give a toss.

He has eschewed the escapist fantasy part of the star-fan contract. This is a man who married his childhood sweetheart, Alison Stuart, who, like U2, went to Mount Temple High. He likes to talk about his two daughters: ‘Liking a drink and being able to take care of yourself doesn’t make you a hard man. To be a father, now that’s hard.’ Hey, rock’n'roll.

He showed how image-conscious but astute he was in 1992. U2 took part in a protest against the pollution of the Irish Sea, which consisted of sailing on to the beach at Sellafield in a rubber dinghy. Afterwards, he observed with curious pride: ‘One thing that was significant about the beach at Sellafield - and a clue as to how to proceed in the future - is that we looked rather silly!’

He has proceeded splendidly for many years now. This is a man whose idea of dangerous seems to be wearing black wraparound sunglasses that make him look like an insect. Yet this is where Bono gets tricky. Throughout the late Seventies and Eighties, depending on taste, critics and musos could have him up for the piety, the Godliness of the music. It was a soaring Celtic trip that perhaps worked live, but in your bedsit it sounded as sexy as thrush.

Then he kicked off the Nineties with the album Achtung Baby. It was like Bob Dylan picking up an electric guitar. It was full of dark, broody Europeanism, humour, irony and, gulp, sexiness. And Bono has sustained this mood throughout the decade, despite the dubious attire. Dylan, Van Morrison, most pop stars and most people discover humour and sex in their teens and twenties, then get religion later on. Bono did it the other way round.

His maverick progression is borne out by friends, who you would expect to be loyal and defensive, but their line of judgment is surprisingly far removed from his sober public persona: ‘The wittiest guy you could meet’; ‘Incredibly energising’; ‘Not inflicted with the fear of embarrassment that English rock stars have.’

It goes back to his passionate Celtic predisposition and his profound faith. He once remarked: ‘The first responsibility of a rock’n'roll star is not to be dull.’ Some would say rock’n'roll stars are dull if they think about responsibilities, but we, like Bono, know that’s fantasy. He may have set himself up for ridicule - and he gets it weekly on TFI Friday as a giant, camp, dancing puppet - but when Chris Evans is picking on you, then you must have got something right.

© 1999 Guardian Media Group. All rights reserved.

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