Inside The Weird, Weird World Of Zooropa

[oliveu2cm]

(I never know where to post things like this. I've transcribed this article from Q Magazine September 1993 and wanted to share it with you all. It's very funny and insightful, and celebrates a super era in the band's history. I will post it in parts.)



I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night

"The hotel is broken." It could be a new blipvert buzz-slogan for U2 to flash up on their Zoo TV screens. "Everything you know is wrong", "I'd like to teach the world to sing", "Celery is rhubarb's ugly sister". "The hotel is broken".

The 40 strong u2 executive have descended upon a beautiful rural hotel 20 minutes outside of Verona in Northern Italy and the well-oiled Irish machine has had a large Italian spanner hurled deeped into the works. Vital faxes vanish, outside telephone lines are a rare luxury, rooms lack crucial items of furniture and you daren't plug in the trouser press for fear you'll kill your television. Mention to Bono that you experienced an unnerving power cut whilst in the bath and he apologizes. "That was probably my fault. I blew up my shower."

By the 2nd afternoon of a 5 day stay, Bono has re-christened the sprawling country retreat the Hotel Fellini. "It's so busy discovering teh secrets of the universe in the folds of a woman's skirt," he explains poetically, "that it's forgotten to buy any toilet paper." But such is the potency of U2's celebrity, they couldn't stay in the city for fear of being mobbed. "You know that the Italians are like," shrugs Adam Clayton. "Very loyal, very passionate." He motions towards the hotel's electronically operated gate where a group of fans keep vigil in the 90 degree heat, hoping to catch a blurred snap as the objects of their Mediterranean ardour motor by.

Tonight, U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, has arranged a dinner for what Adam smirkingly calls "the grown-ups": a gaggle of guests, business associates and the Italian grande formaggios who'll ensure that the abnd's two shows at the Verona stadium - where they will play to 90,00 people - run smoothly. During the 7 course gourmet extravaganza, McGuinness is every inch mine host: telling stories, cracking jokes, talking highly informed shop, asking the waiters which vineyard a particular wine grape came from. Educated at Dublin's Trinity college (although he quit his Philosophy and Psychology courses a year early to managea folk group called, and you may laugh, Spud), the upper-middle class Anglo-Irishman quotes regularly from the classics- this being Verona, Rome & Juliet receives a regular plundering. McGuinness is revered throughout the music business as an intellectual heavyweight, a ruthless negotiator, a twinkle-eyed charmer and a card-carrying bon viveur of considerable enthusiasm.

Back at the al fresco bar, Bono and the ne'er untitfered guitarist who answers only to the name of Edge - no need for definitive articles among friends - have returned from a day's gallery - crawling in Venice, where the sun has comically beetrooted both their noses, and are now studying the latest reviews of the Zooropa album (the follow-up LP to Achtung baby which was recorded in snatched moments during four fractured, and sometimes fractious, months in Dublin earlier this year). After 30 minutes spent silently squinting at the NY Times' critical assessment, Edge reaches a conclusion of sorts - "That's fucking great," he beams and passes the photocopy across to Bono. "You know," he says, "I'm glad people haven't thought we're just doing this as a stopgag thing. We wouldn't do that - just waste an album. It had to work." When the show's belly dancer, Morleigh Steinerg, is introduced, she points to her stomach just in case there is any confusion as to her job description.

Inside, Larry Mullen - the band's only true sex symbol, clad in cool motorcycle chic - is chalking his cue and addressing a tricky cannon shot at the pool table. Thoughtfully sipping a vodka and orange ("although i've already enough to drink on my tonight"), he circles the table, examining the angles. He makes an earnest hustler. The three-quarter size table, he decides, "is a bitch". THere ar e no jaws on the tiny pockets, so every pot has to be millimetre perfect. Hitting and hoping is out of the question. At first it seems like a retriction but soon a highly tactical game, bearing closer relation to chess than pool, evolves. Larry curses quietly when he misses and taps his cue appreciatievely on the ground when his opponent - your correspondent - plays an especially magnificent shot. Twenty minutes of unfaltering concentration later, the black is doubled into its nominated pocket. "Flukey fucker," mutters Larry sportingly and pauses before shaking the victor's proffered hand. "Best of three?"

By the dint of the fact that it is now half three in the morning and no-one has shown the remotest interest in exchanging their alcoholic beverages for something warm, malted and milky, it begins to dawn that U2's collective body clock is set at a different time to the rest of the world.

The hotel staff- to much Manuel like exasperation- were told prior to the entourage's arrival that they should expect a group who like their evening meal at around 1am, generally turn in no earlier than four and stumble down for breakfast between one and two in the afternoon. There will, of course, be occasions, the incredulous chamber-maids were informed, when the band have a really late night.

 

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Adam, casually togged in jogging bottoms and Jesus boots, is complaining in his curious Dublin suburbs/home counties accent: "I'd promised myself I wouldn't drink tonight and here I am half pissed again." From beneath his yellow mohican meringue, he burbles happily about the splendid meal he and Larry enjoyed in Verona this evening and marvels at their "extremely beautiful waiter", confident in the knowledge that his supermodel fianc?e, Naomi Campbell, is arriving tomorrow thus ensuring that his heterosexual credentials remain fully intact.

By now, the spirit of the Goddess Valpolicella is speaking through everyone. The Stereo MC's are pounding out of a ghetto blaster on the floor. Larry, who describes himself as "a man who hits things for a living", drums along on his legs. Paul McGuinness tells a joke about a Mexican ("although I'm loath to subscribe to such crass racial stereotyping") who meets an Irish philogist and asks him whether the Irish have an expression parallel to "manyana" in their vocabulary. The philologist thinks for a moment and says, No, I don't think we have anything that conveys such desperate sense of urgency. Boom, and if you must, boom.

The band's wardrobemeister, Fintan Fitzgerald, scampers around drunkenly, taking Polaroids (a popular hobby in the U2 camp). When it is suggested that Fintan has his own picture taken, he opts for a close up of himself licking the Italian promoter's face. The rotund local impresario laughs mirthlessly and dabs his damp cheeks with a handkerchief. At 4am Bono and Edge grin sleepily and sidle off to their beds. Adam makes his excuses and stays.

Early the following afternoon, the first image that greets you is Adam and Larry motoring past in a low, red Maserati, both waving and smiling. Larry, having obviously adjusted well to last night's humiliation on the pool table, shouts, "Morning, Bastard!"

In the breakfast room, Bono wanders across for a chat. Dressed in a black t-shirt and trousers and wearing his impenetrable Fly shades, he cuts an impressive, if compact, figure. He has cropped Cuban-heeled cowboy boots on his feet and his hair is dyed jet black. Bono doesn't want to conduct an official interview, preferring instead to let the others go on record while he enjoys a series of informal conversations. Conversation is an area in which he excels: humorous, crazily tangential and always flatteringly attentive. Being a busy, post-modern rock star, he has little time for small talk and is more likely to open up by asking if both your parents are still alive, than by mentioning how very humid it is. Today, he introduces himself by speculating whether the Italians are more fascinated by sex or shoes. "Probably a dead heat, unless they combine the interests," is the saucy verdict.

Removing his wraparound Armani sunglasses, training his bright blue eyes on yours and leaning close, he tends to speak in a slight hoarse whisper (his hand pecking at your knee and arm, like a snug bar auld fellah, to stress particular points), he says he doesn't feel fully qualified to talk about Zooropa as "to be honest, I'm not completely sure what a lot of the songs are about, they just.. arrived." We discuss the underlying atmosphere of cloying perviness, "that Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet vibe" that envelopes the album. "there?s certainly an evil feel to things like Daddy's Gonna Pay..," he says, cupping his hand over his nose and mouth in an approximation of Hooper's unsavory, oxygen-slurping character, Frank. "That song could be about dependence or something more sinister. It's an electronic blues, my Robert Johnson thing. Flogging the soul to Satan." He laughs loudly when it is suggest that Babyface, is a masturbation anthem, then frowns. "You see, to me, that song could be seen as being totally innocent." Lemon, he continues, nibbling a piece of dry Italian cake, looks at "the power of imagination, the mind taking off in two different directions- in a Studio 54, Disco Duck setting. The falsetto was completely natural. I've always felt there was a fat woman trying to burst out of me. Don't know what Freud would make of that!"

And what of The First Time/ No one in the band seems to know what it's about. "That's about something so dark and deep," he hesitates, theatrically looking right and left, as if someone might be eavesdropping, "That I don?t think we want to know what it's about. I'll tell you a funny thing," he says, changing the mood, "that song started out an Al Green soul thing." Then, at the top of his voice, in the empty restaurant, he starts singing. "I've got a lover / a l over like no other / she got soul, soul, soul sweet soul..." and on he goes, utterly unselfconscious, inserting the relevant soul instrumentation in between vocal lines, indicating potential brass parts and drumming loudly on the table with his hands. It's a wonderful performance, interrupted by the arrival of a large American gentleman in a small vest who stations himself in front of Bono. "I wan to apologize," he says. "That note you gave me, I didn't pass it on until this morning, but he's scheduled to read it this afternoon." Bono shrugs. No Problem. Who, you wonder, is this mighty power who has to allot windows in which to read mini-missives from the rich and famous. "Oh, that's Axl," laughs Bono easing himself out of his seat, reinstating his shades and heading out into the hotel courtyard. "My mate, Axl."

Axl Rose, Guns N'Roses very own Captain Moodswing is, it transpires, staying in the hotel because he has developed a profound passion for U2 since the release of AB and tries to see them live whenever their pan-global itineraries intersect. The song One, he says rather sweetly, makes him cry.

 

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By midafternoon, the entire entourage has been shoehorned into cars and buses and is on its way to Verona stadium.

The sheer scale of the Zooropa 93 Zoo TV stage is astonishing. Technicians swarm over it like soldier ants, connecting cables, adjusting scaffolding, shouldering large pieces of wood. Such is the size of the site, some of them pedal between tasks on bikes. The structure takes between 12 and 13 hours to erect and travels a day ahead of the band. Watching this 180-strong army of experts go about its synapse=scrambling business is a humbling experience. Had they lived 4,000 years ago, these people would have had no problem with the pyramids. In fact, they'd have probably built them, then taken them out on tour.

During soundcheck, Edge airs a rough live sketch of his freshly-minted disconnection rap, Numb. Bono strolls down his catwalk in the blazing sunshine nodding appreciatively, singing the backing vocal to himself.

"Remember," says Larry, wielding an imaginary pool cue, shirtless sin the backstage catacombs, "revenge is sweet." En route to the band's dressing room to rest his voice before the show, Bono is reminded of his itinerary for tomorrow, which includes a lengthy American radio interview and a brief film that a small crew from Sarajevo are making. He takes hold of the written schedule, his eyebrows hiking up above the glasses. "Sarajevo," he whistles through his teeth. "Jesus."

As the band relax in a changing room customised with curtains and cushions of Indian aspect, the adjacent production slips into overdrive. Faxes chatter, Macintosh Powerbooks are snapped open, the three ringing phones barely audible above the crackle of walke-talkies. It's organised chaos; no-one flaps. Even at their most harassed, the U2 team have time to stop for a quick pleasantry. As they pass each other in the concrete corridors, they smile and often stroke each other. Many of them, the Moonie recruitment department may be keen to learn, are absently humming U2 tunes.

"If we panic, then everyone else does and it's immediate bedlam," explains Zoo TV's video coordinator. "And remember, this is Italy. these people have won international championships for panicking."

Outside, 45,000 Italians are swaying to the Zooropa disco manned by Colin Hudd (who alternates duties whit Paul Oakenfold). Some fans are visiting the Video Confessional wherein they are filmed, saying anything they like ("Obscene, strange, religious but nothing about the band and nothing boring, implores the camera-carrying video "priest"). Before the band's encores tonight, the best confessions will be screened. In the queue for this curious celluloid sin-absolving arrangement, a hairy man grips my arm and in a heavy Tuscan accent hisses, "I have much sexual laarve for Larry." God bless you, my son.

In the backstage catering area, band and crew alike are laying waste to hillocks of truly excellent food. "A good meal helps morale," says the cook, wisely. "They used to have a caterer who didn't provide the variety we do and apparently everyone was quite miserable. Food is very important."

At 9:2, the head of lighting leans casually across the sound desk and, just as you would flick off a bedside lamp, throws a small switch and every light in the stadium goes down. On the vas "vidi-walls", a film loop of a Nazi boy beating a drum in the Berlin Olympic Stadium rhythmically mesmerises the crowd, the disembodied buzz of Zoo Station cranks up and U2 kick start the finest outdoor show in the history of rock'n'roll.

Stadium concerts were never meant to be like this: the sound is as clear as Waterford crystal; you are bombarded with so much visual stimulus that your attention couldn't wander if it wanted to and human warmth floods from the stage. By the end of the first number, your cockles have been charbroiled and your flabber scrupulously ghasted. The AB songs- all dark, guilty, scared and confused- shimmy by: The Fly, EBBTRT, MW (cue Bellydancer, last seen tinkering with Bono's laptop backstage, now cavorting hypnotically in all her Turkish finery); UTEOTW, Arms Around World. Sandwiched between, you get NYD, Larry Mullen's pub singer rendition of Dirty Old Town and One. During this last song, a tangible wave of emotion washes over the crowd.

Axl Rose, standing so close you can see the tiny picture of Charles Manson on his reverse-mode baseball cap, reaches for a cigarette (and, surprisingly, screw it into a white holder before lighting it). He stares at his big trainers, looking around at the lighter-lit stadium, makes an attempt at his skirt-swirling, round-shouldered Axl dance and bites his lip. His minder looks on anxiously. As the song finishes, Axl stares into the middle distance and murmurs, "Oh, man, that's beautiful."

Meanwhile, the band have cantered down the runway to a small stage in the middle of the crowd and are thrashing out an inspired acoustic set including AOH, When Love Comes To Town, and Satellite of Love (with guest video contribution from Lou Reed). Then, without pausing for breath, they reel into the powerful issue songs Bad and Bullet then ricochet on to the U2 anthems Streets, Pride and Found. And on that bombshell, they say goodbye.

 

[oliveu2cm]

Weird stuff flashes up on the screens: singing teapots, snatches of soap opera, mad random access Italian words, the video confessionals (one bloke screams, one says nothing at all, a woman exposes her chests). Then the band reappear with Bono in the guise of his new alter-ego Macphisto. He's a sad creation- a showbusiness causality who you imagine spends his time in a seaside boarding house, reliving his days in repertory theatre, fingering yellowed local press notices. He wears a lame suit, multistory platforms and a little pair of red horns to sing Desire. You know the type. The Italians aren't sure what to make of this pitiful pansticked creature who speaks like Quentin Crisp on recreational drugs.

Macphisto places the now traditional Zoo TV phone call to his friends Clannad (which Mac pronounces "Cler-nard") who are celebrating their 20th anniversary in Dublin and we all sing Happy Birthday.

Musicallly, Zooropa 93 ends on a quiet note, with LIB and a sentimental Can't Help Falling. As Bono croons, a full moon rises above the stadium surrounded by a cluster of stars. You can't help but wonder whether it's another clever Zoo TV projection or just the celestial elements trying to muscle in on the act.

Tonight there is to be a party. This called the Rigger's Arms, an occasional occurrence on U2 tours, where, for a tenner a head, the lighting riggers organise a major celidh and if they have to build a room to hold it in, so be it: it's what they do for a living. The hot news hits evening is that many barrels of Guinness have been flown in from Dublin. Your first pint is pulled by the bellydancer, the second by Larry Mullen, the third by Edge's guitar tech. Then it all gets a bit hazy. Bono turns up with Axl. Edge wears an outsided beret. Everyone dances to Bob Marley's Is This Love? Adam canoodles prenuptially with Naomi. Larry smooches with his girlfriend Anne to Forever And Ever by Demis Roussos. A performance art troupe called Machnas suddenly appear wearing huge plastic U2 heads. There are isolated outbreaks of raggamuffin frugging. For some reason, there are three one-man igloo tents outside. As Colin Hudd gets a house groove going, the dancing gets more determined. The spirit measures become decidedly non-metric. Conversations start to take on an avant-garde twist. Someone requests Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. The Guinness is showing no signs of running out. The sun came up hours ago. Oh, crikey!

 

[oliveu2cm]

"I fell asleep in one of those tents!" groans Bono, looking like death microwaved, at the crack of 3pm. "Then I woke up in my room with a raging thirst and I came out here looking for water. I was asking a guy for water for 15 minutes but he couldn't understand." He lifts his Fly shades, revealing eyes that would make any snake proud, before delivering the punchline. "Turn out he was the swimming pool attendant. Water is his life."

The croaked word at poolside is of a 9am party finish. Dreadful stories of projectile vomiting and disgraced crew members and folk sleeping in the unlikeliest of positions abound. Edge lies on a sun lounger moaning softly. He is wearing star-spangled shorts, sunglasses and his Tibetan goathered hat. There's an interview to undergo in a moment and he is conversing what little energy he has.

"A very good night was had by all," giggles Adam, weaving unsteadily across the lawn in an open shirt and a red shin-length sarong (regrettable fashion item of this season formerly called "a wraparound skirt"). Adam has just got up. Well, it is only four in the afternoon. He takes a seat, complaining of that uncomfortable
post-drinking sensation where there's Mahler in your head and mutiny in your stomach. Edge, having risen, is frowning to maintain his regular gentle intensity. Earlier in the day, someone in the organisation had pointed out that "Edge is slowly turning into Eno." He certainly shares a propensity to dryly analyse what most minds discard. Ask him if he's been listening to much dance music recently and he replies, " I think you have to become very careful when you talk about dance music now. It's become a series of clich?s. Of course, music should have rhythm, and on that level, I think an education in rhythm has definitely occurred in the last 10 years, but I don't think we'd ever imagine that our records would make a lot of sense when placed next to specifically constructed dance records."

In contrast, having got "exquisitely wasted", Adam is pinballing - in that manner unique to the prize-winningly hungover - between abstract profundity and drooling delirium. As Edge does his furrowed-browed best to make sense of the questions, Adam busies himself with a kill-or-cure toasted egg-and-asparagus sandwich, making amusingly crumby interjections.

 

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Q: What?s the relationship between Zooropa and Achtung Baby?

Edge: I think we were still surfing on the wave of creative energy from Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV tour when we were making Zooropa. It was the same burst of inspiration. When we were working on achtung Baby, we were looking to discover new sonic terrain and on this record that was already established, so we were more confident of what we were doing.

Q: Eno came in for a month and, if this is true, spend one visit hanging up different fabrics on the walls.

Adam: (laughs) Brian?s very atmosphere-conscious. It has to be inspiring. He gets bored easily and if he doesn?t feel that the room,the sounds, or what he had for lunch is inspiring, he freaks out. He hates onions. Onions really fuck his head up.

Q: On initial listenings to Zooropa, it sounds as though Eno?s musical contribution was greater this time around.

Edge: Brian came in for two two-week periods and during that time we were running 2 studios. We?d have the second studio set up and just give Brian a songa nd say, Seee if you can give this a different spin. He would readjust the balance or put on some keyboards. So there are a couple of songs where Brian?s personality is very definitely there.

Q: There have been several comparisons to David Bowe?s Low.

Edge: It?s funny, because a few times we bumped into Bowie, musically speaking, and we very consciously had to pull back. He?s a big influence, along with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

Adam: They claimed so many sounds and atmospheres in those periods that it?s hard not to bump into them occasionally.

Edge: I hear a lot of Kraftwerk on this album.

Adam: I suppose we?re talking about quintessential European music and those were the people who defined that sound.

Edge: We?ve never had a problem with influences, although we have this very strong rule that if we like a song we?ve written because it reminds us of someone else, then we?ll get rid of it. If we like I t anyway and it always happens to remind us of someone, then we?ll keep it. I thinkthat?s quite a fundamental difference. I remember on the original version of Real Thing on AB, we realized that it didn?t sound like us, it sounded like Marc Bolan. It?s hard to hear that now because we pared it down to its essence and rebuilt it. But we?ve never been shy about influences ? everybody borrows from everyone else.

Q: have the themes from AB crystallized yet?

Edge: Yeah (laughs sadly.) I?m not sure I want to talk about it though. Talk to Bono.

Q: I already have. He suggested, in a roundabout way, that I speak to you.

Adam: Nicely deflected, Bono!

Q: The longer you lived with AB, the bleaker it got.

Edge: It?s a very, very dark piece of work. There?s a sense of desperation and resignation and all sorts of worrying tones in between. I think Zooropa is a little less freaked out, a little happier.

Q: How do you cope with translating personal problems into songs, which seemed, in essence, what you were doing on AB?

Edge: I?m not sure anyone ever says, I?d like to do a song about this problem I?m having. You don?t necessarily write every song about yourself. You write songs because you?re interested in the form and you end up in there somewhere laong the road. But if people imagined that all our songs were autobiographical, they would have a very strange impression of what we were like.

Q: Do Bono?s lyrics sill affect you emotionally?

Edge: Sometimes they?re just so right. There?s a line in Redhill Mining Town that starts ?The night comes like a hunter?? That gives me chills every time I hear it. And I still don?t know what it means.

Q: Has the adoptation of One as an anthem for all causes surprised you? Were you always aware of the song?s potential power?

Edge: At this instant we were recording it, I got a strong sense of its power. In fact, it was a very important moment for me in Berlin because it was only then that I thought, OK, this is going to work. We?d had a difficult time up until then.

Adam: I still don?t think it?s as good as Stairway To Heaven. (Laughs) No, it was an amazing moment.

Q: What happens when one of those moments arrive?

Adam: We all burst into tears, hug each other?

Edge: It?s the reason you?re in a band when whatever it is descends on you and you end up with something truly affecting. One is an incredibly moving piece and I still get very moved each time I play it. It just hits straight into the heart.

Adam: Those moments happen from time to time. It happened on the first gig we ever did in the school hall in Mount Temple and it was like, Yes, we can be a band! And people talk about that moment at live Aid. It certainly passed me by at the time but I?ve seen it back and I?ve understood why it suddenly connected with a lot of people.

Q: What?s your take on Macphisto?

Edge: It?s an extension of the Mirrorball Man, telly evangelist, second-hand car salesman character that Bono developed on the indoor tour. It?s like that but?weirder.

Q: It?s a less comedic creation than people seem to think at first, isn?t it?

Edge: We didn?t like it being comedic. We wanted it to be threatening and a bit frightening. Sad even.

Q: Has the psychology between the four members of U2 changed in recent years?

Edge: I think we?re less uptight these days.

Adam: Definitely

Q: You spend more time in each other?s company than most families do. How does that affect you?

Adam: We?re just very hard to get to know. (Laughs) The original thing that drew us together in the Dublin suburbs in the mid-70?s was the fact that there was nowhere you could go for the sort of information you watned. There was no scene, or club, no magazine to read. So what brought the band together was asking questions. As the band has become more successful and achieved more, you find that the people who still know the most about what you do are the other three guys in the band. Now you could say, That?s terribly sad, they?re cut off in their own world, but it really is the most exciting combination of people for any member of the band. Because we?re all out there together trying to figure out what?s going on.

Edge: It?s a very unusual thing to be in a band like this. It?s like being in a street gang. And it?s all very well being in a street gang when you?re 16, but it?s bloody weird when you?re 32.

 

[oliveu2cm]

The End.

Another nape-tickling, rule-breaking, hangover-dismissing gig is successfully negotiated to the vociferous delight of the sun-dried Italians. Highlights include a superb acoustic I Will Follow, Bono?s touching solo rendition of Bob Marley?s Redemption Song, an American proposing to his girl via the Video Confessional (she later accepts) and Macphisto failing to get through to the Pope. And now, Lord forgive us, another party.

Larry foolishly slaps down the pool gauntlet once again; Edge gets cornered by someone big in US radio and has to get quietly sizzled in order to cope; and Adam has instigated a splinter group party outside his room. Bono is nowhere to be seen. After an hour or so, he shows up looking quite distraught.

What?s wrong?

?Oh, nothing.?

?You look upset.?
?Yes. I am upset. I?m very upset.? The turquoise eyes are wild and wet and the small sickle-shaped scar on his chin is livid. He wears the same expression of anguish that flashed across his face when he told me, ?When I was growing up, I was constantly told I was shit. I was forbidden to dream.? He?s been talking to the Sarajevo film crew about the conditions there and it has affected him very deeply. For an hour he recounts stories of a subterranean disco where they play U2 records to drown out the sound of the shelling, of an art exhibition that continued despite a full-scale attack, of neighbours machine gunning each other, of mothers being raped, of murder passing into the realm of the justifiable. It?s desperate.

?What can I do?? asks Bono. ?I?ve got to do something.? And for that moment you can see Zooropa, Zoo TV and all its attendant smartarse irony and arch humour receding as his conscience ? that worthy old thing he?s been trying to deny just recently ? bursts into flame once again. His jaw muscles bunch and he focuses on the floor like a kid trying to stop from crying, like Axl Rose listening to One. He repeats it quietly like a mantra. ?I?ve got to do something.?


~Olive

 

[oliveu2cm]

Pictures that go with the article

 

[flaming june]

That's a very interesting article Olive, thanks for posting it!

?I?ve got to do something.?

Awww, I have Bono fuzzies!!!

 

[U2Kitten]

Very cool! Thanks!

 

[oliveu2cm]

You're welcome. I'm glad everyone's enjoying it.

I love the indepth articles like this (amazing how many I'm sure we/I haven't read!) that show us a glimpse of their touring lives, lives with the albums that are now part of our lives!

and to be that interviewer!!

 

[EPandAmerica]

Thank you Olive! I love interviews that last several days like that. What a job to have! If you didn't have a recorder to make notes,,,, well you'd never have the brain cells to get it all down.

drinking, drinking, and more drinking

 

[*BOOMCHAA!*]

THANKS OLIVE!!!!!!!!!
I'd never seen that before!!!
VERYY VERRRY INTERESTING............


HEHEHEH........adam and lardence are funny
Bono is very sensitive

 

[spanisheyes]

We all burst into tears, hug each other?

Q: Do Bono?s lyrics sill affect you emotionally?

Edge: Sometimes they?re just so right. There?s a line in Redhill Mining Town that starts ?The night comes like a hunter?? That gives me chills every time I hear it. And I still don?t know what it means.

Q: Has the adoptation of One as an anthem for all causes surprised you? Were you always aware of the song?s potential power?

Edge: At this instant we were recording it, I got a strong sense of its power. In fact, it was a very important moment for me in Berlin because it was only then that I thought, OK, this is going to work. We?d had a difficult time up until then.

Adam: I still don?t think it?s as good as Stairway To Heaven. (Laughs) No, it was an amazing moment.

Q: What happens when one of those moments arrive?

Adam: We all burst into tears, hug each other?

Edge: It?s the reason you?re in a band when whatever it is descends on you and you end up with something truly affecting. One is an incredibly moving piece and I still get very moved each time I play it. It just hits straight into the heart.

Adam: Those moments happen from time to time. It happened on the first gig we ever did in the school hall in Mount Temple and it was like, Yes, we can be a band! And people talk about that moment at live Aid. It certainly passed me by at the time but I?ve seen it back and I?ve understood why it suddenly connected with a lot of people.

Thank you Carrie for posting this insightful article, also for the personal invitation to visit it.

I must say that I love the above mentioned interview part with The Edge and Adam, where you get a glimpse of how the band views Bono's lyrics and also how they feel about being friends within the band and how the music affects them. I loved reading it, and thanks again.

Chris

 

[Scarletwine]

Thanks so much for posting that article. I've read snipits from it but not the whole thing. You rock woman!

 

[Bonofire]

Originally posted by Oliveu2cm:

Removing his wraparound Armani sunglasses, training his bright blue eyes on yours and leaning close

*hyperventilates at the thought*

*COMBUSTS*

 

[AM]

Olive

thank you so much for posting this. Now I have to go away and read it again

 

[Gina Marie]

Wow, that's GREAT! I agree w/ AM-I will read it again when I have more time. Thanks so much for typing that all out!

Very interesting article-I especially like the part about Paul reciting poetry.. 'twinkle eyed charmer' indeed..

 

[oliveu2cm]

Oh I almost forgot about this!

:waves: You're all welcome, I'm really glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. Interviews make me &