“A life-changing experience”: the concert that made U2 want to start a band
Every band tends to have that one ‘eureka’ moment where they realise that music is their calling. They may have started out as one thing when they woke up that morning, but once they heard that song or picked up that album, nothing would ever be the same once they got back home. Whereas most fans get to feel that energy every time they put their favourite records on, U2 knew they wanted to make the Earth move when they heard The Clash perform for the first time.
Considering how The Clash are one of the greatest punk acts in history, how the hell do U2 fit in the picture? They may have had times when they stood up for what they believed in, but their reputation as every middle-aged dad’s favourite band doesn’t endear them to the crowd that put safety pins through their cheeks.
According to Bono, they weren’t even all that interested in punk rock when it came out. In fact, The Edge was even in dangerous territory by having the gall to actually enjoy listening to progressive rock like Yes when the group first formed. Prog was on the way out, though, and Joe Strummer was ready to crush any other prog act underneath his boots.
While The Edge certainly had respect for the outfit when he first started, he had no idea what he was in for when he saw them for the first time, telling Rolling Stone, “The Clash, more than any other group, kick-started a thousand garage bands across Ireland and the UK. For U2 and other people of our generation, seeing them perform was a life-changing experience. There’s really no other way to describe it.”
No band comes into being with a manual on how to be a rock star, though. As opposed to prog rock acts that taught legions of guitar players to practice scales every day in the hopes that they would find something that worked, The Clash were interested in leading by example, pointing the way forward for millions of artists born to go against authority and sing about what was in their heart rather than tell a story.
While it’s hard to draw comparisons between ‘White Riot’ and ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, for instance, The Edge saw The Clash as a musical lifestyle, explaining, “U2 were a young band at the time, and it was a complete throw-down to us. It was like: Why are you in music? What the hell is music all about, anyway? The members of the Clash were not world-class musicians by any means, but the racket they made was undeniable — the pure, visceral energy and the anger and the commitment.”
Coming home from the show as a changed man, The Edge would start looking at his instrument in a completely different way as well. He still may have loved the sounds coming out of groups like Yes or Genesis, but this marked the moment when he started listening to bands who relied on emotion rather than technical finesse.
Even in their lyrical content, Bono embraced the freedom of being able to sing about the greater problems with the world, from the perils of religion to the atrocities going on in other parts of the world. Like it or not, The Clash were the ones responsible for making Bono believe that his voice could mean something to millions of people. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse really comes down to personal preference.
