So...it was a very nice evening in Grand Rapids.
Much bigger crowd than I expected, over 2,000 people, the biggest crowd the Econ Club has ever had. Absolutely gorgeous day, blue skies, cool brreze. People dressed up -- it was black tie optional but lots of men in tuxes, many women in cocktail dresses and suits, even some ballgowns.
Bono arrived at my hotel (the Amway Grand) about 6 p.m. I saw the SUV drive up but there was absolutely no way to get near him. He mentioned during the speech that he came from D.C. They took him right upstairs to a private reception.
He looked very conservative, for Bono. He had on a gray suit that almost seemed like sharkskin, at least that's how he photographed, with a black t-shirt. His hair is very short and he had red sunglasses, and very little stubble. Marked contrast to the last time he went to see Bush when he looked like he had slept in his clothes.
The speech was the standard Bono stump speech -- AIDs, Africa, the One campaign, how much he loves America, etc. He has added Darfur into the mix which seemed new (correct me if he's talked about that in the past.) He is a very good speaker in person. It was a big room, and he was speaking from notes at times, but he was conversational and never boring. It looked great on the big TV screens, and the technies did an excellent job with different shots of him and of the room.
He did not curse (he said "blinking" once) and seemed very serious for long parts of the talk. I can just imagine that if you are in a meeting with him, he is very pursuasive. He referred once to a lyric in "Crumbs from Your Table" -- "where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die."
And when he mentioned Bob Geldof, he said that he had probably reminded everyone of "We are the World" and he sang two notes of it. But it was not a musical evening, much more a political one.
Now you folks in Dallas get him!