They have said that they won’t do anything to disrupt the set for either the band or crowd. They surely would know that to actually disrupt either would very much work against them. They just want to make a highly visual public statement, which will hopefully (for them) become a wider talking point afterwards. It will probably mostly just affect the BBC's use of crowd-wide shots, and that's it.
I do get the basic argument “Here’s a guy telling us how our taxes should be spent, but he’s personally using loopholes to limit how much he pays” and I do think that U2 have not been very good in their reaction to it. It’s been rattling around for years, and only gathering steam in that time.
Their problem is obviously that there’s not really much they can do to change this opinion. Whenever the super wealthy come out complaining about taxation, even if they are subject to some pretty silly rules, they always come off looking like complete twats. And Bono could come out and say, Look, I give *this* much time, put in *this* much effort, I have over time personally given $X amount, and bankrolled my own campaigns to $X, with *these* very real results, and as a band we’ve given *this* much support to *this* many groups in *these* ways and have achieved *these* things as a result, and have you ever even listened to a U2 song or been to a U2 concert? And what would the reaction be? What a fucking WANKER! Who publicises that kind of thing?
So they’re left with simply being mega wealthy individuals who DO play the global tax game to their advantage as best they can, with the added conundrum of having a frontman who DOES lecture others on how they should spend the tax they earn. There’s no escaping that or turning opinion on it around. And if they didn’t see it coming, they’re stupid.
I think the only thing they can do to move this one on is get out there very publicly and at least try and make some sort of argument better than the “We already pay a lot of tax and besides its private” line they use now, and just take the very public pie in the face they no doubt will get in return. Just put themselves right in the firing line, take the shots, and hopefully a bit of respect for at least getting up there and doing that will help it all move on.