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Ed Barrett on the blood, toil, sweat and tears of U2’s lead singer and enemy of the world’s bankers

by Ed Barrett

When Bono attended Tuesday night’s Brit Awards, it was not on behalf of his band of global gypsies U2, whose forthcoming album will doubtless be honoured at next year’s ceremony, but as a representative of the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel Third World debt. We, the public, he demanded, should tell them, the politicians, to sort out the bankers. Then he walked into the select section of the public gathered in the London Arena and presented Mohammed Ali (also there to promote the cause) with something called the “Freddie Mercury Award”.

We have become used to such things. Stand-up comedians pontificate on Question Time panels. The Prime Minister announces his views from the daytime TV sofa rather than the parliamentary front bench. Every showbiz ceremony worth its salt has a keynote speech or a launch of another worthy initiative. And when it comes to this kind of public speaking, Bono has been centre stage a full decade longer than Tony Blair. Read the rest of this story »

Bono is on the campaign trail again. This time it is Third World debt. But is it a crusade too far, asks Michael Rose in the Sunday Times.

How do you upstage Robbie Williams, England’s greatest show-off? Answer: you go on stage with Muhammad Ali. At the Brit awards in London on Tuesday night, Bono was one of the few stars with neither a new single nor an album to promote. He came to speak on behalf of the latest pop humanitarian cause, Jubilee 2000, which is campaigning to get Third World debt written off.

At a cost rumoured to be in excess of £20,000, and at Bono’s request, U2’s record label Polygram jetted in Ali. Who needs idols when you can have The Greatest? Once again Bono had proved that pop may be pop but - hey, the grand gesture rocks. Especially when the record company is footing the bill. Read the rest of this story »

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.
Read the rest of this story »

by Michael Sharkey

Rock star Bono has told how John Hume and David Trimble left him with treasured memories of 1998.

The U2 frontman identified the historic moment he held hands with both politicians as one of the highlights of his year.

It happened after they joined him on stage in Belfast during a concert for a Yes vote on the Good Friday peace deal.

In a personal review of 1998 Bono admits: “To be the filling in the John Hume -David Trimble sandwich is a very great honour.”

But he modestly insists that U2’s role in the event - organised by Northern Ireland band Ash - was a proud but small one.

And the singer tells how he was moved later when the SDLP and Ulster Unionist leaders scooped the Nobel peace prize.

“It was as if the rest of the world had put its arms around us.”

It was a year that also saw U2 perform in some of the world’s other political hotspots.

Bono boasts that in Chile they got a chance to “harass” General Pinochet, now under arrest in Britain.

“On a live TV broadcast of Pop Mart, 50 or so Mothers of the Disappeared walked on stage with photo placards of their lost loved ones, some of which had been tortured to death in the same stadium.”

Writing in Q magazine, Bono also recalls his sadness at the deaths of his hero Frank Sinatra and his pal Michael Hutchence.

© 1999 Daily Mirror. All rights reserved.

U2 are The Biggest Rock & Roll Band In The World. They are probably the main reason why there’s an Irish pop scene in the first place. But what do they know about club culture and dance music? Bono and The Edge go dancing with Jim Carroll.

What do U2 mean to you? If Fatboy Slim is ‘the band of the Nineties, man’, U2 were the Band Of The Eighties, the ones who sounded out that decade to such a degree that one listen to “The Best Of U2, 1980-1990″ is certain to throw you back to more earnest times. Forget the likes of Culture Club and the Human League for a moment and remember the decade in the sound of U2’s bites.

“Sunday Bloody Sunday”. That Red Rocks outdoor show. Playing the Phoenix Park in ‘83. The “New Gold Dream” rush of “Pride”. Going moodily epic with “The Unforgettable Fire”. Live-Aid. Conquering America. Playing Croke Park. Standing around in a desert looking moody for Anton Corbijn’s Instamatic. Cowboy hats. Lots of cowboy hats. Discovering the blues. Hanging with BB King. “Rattle & Hum”. More cowboy hats. The Love-Town tour. Bringing in the Nineties in the Point in Dublin after an almighty kerfuffle about ticket prices. And cowboy hats. Read the rest of this story »