“Overwhelmed”: The singer Bono thought had everything a frontman needed
Most singers have to take years before they are at a level where they are comfortable putting their ideas out into the world. Many people can spend their entire lives sitting on a bunch of demos and not do anything with them, but it takes a special degree of courage to start singing in front of an audience and not care what anyone thinks of you once the notes start coming out. Although Bono is a lot more proud of the chances that he took throughout U2’s career, he admitted that he didn’t have anything on Christy Dingnam from the Irish group Aslan.
Then again, it’s hard to really quantify what makes a great singer in the first place. No one would say that Bob Dylan isn’t the best in the world from a technical person, but when looking at the characters that he portrays in his songs, there’s virtually no one else who could ever do his songs justice without having to completely restructure them from the ground up.
The same thing applies to U2. Bono might get more than a little bit intolerable behind the scenes from time to time, but the minute that he opens his mouth to start singing ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, it’s not just the sound of U2. It’s the voice of a kid from the streets of Ireland just trying his best to quote what’s in his heart, but Aslan may have worn their hearts on their sleeve just a little bit more.
Embracing Celtic-rock traditions, many of the greatest tunes on their debut, Feel No Shame, felt like traditional folk songs that just happened to get recorded until the 1980s. But when Dingnam sang them, no one was hearing his vocal cords. He was pouring his heart out onto a slab of vinyl, and you can bet Bono was paying attention.
On further listening, there’s a certain power behind Dingnam’s voice that can be heard in how Bono sings. Although Aslan never got a fair shake in other parts of the world, hearing what Bono did in U2’s later period felt like he had a kindred spirit in Dingnam, each of them wanting to sing to reach somewhere closer to the bone than just the average rock and roll song.
When Dingnam passed away in 2023, Bono recalled the moment that he realised that the frontman was a far better singer than he would ever be, saying, “It’s just been dawning on me the depth of their talent and the extraordinariness of this singer; you know he had everything… which is really annoying. A singer always knows when you’re in the room with someone who can out-sing you. This ability to move so comfortably through the octaves, so just as a singer, I have just been overwhelmed by his voice.”
While Bono has had no problems in the past with discussing the issues in his country, Aslan’s form of Irish pride was a bit different. They were still just as willing to push the envelope in a few respects, but by pairing their lyrics with traditional instrumentation, it felt like being transported back in time to hear these long-forgotten songs every time they came on the stereo.
Then again, all good rock music should be able to move someone, even if it’s just on an acoustic guitar. Bob Dylan had already proved what could be done if the right voice was singing a song, and while Bono has found his niche as one of the biggest frontmen in the world, Dingnam found his congregation by taking that U2 mentality and making just a little bit more down to Earth.
