The one band Bono said U2 hated touring with: “We decided he’s an arsehole”
It’s impossible to judge any U2 show without looking at the massive stage designs half the time.
The band weren’t going to skimp out whenever they hit the road, and even though they have made some fantastic music throughout their career, Bono has belonged onstage from the minute that people saw footage of him performing on Under a Blood Red Sky. They have turned almost every venue they played into a rock and roll church, but not everyone felt the same way whenever they performed.
Then again, there weren’t that many people who understood what the Irish legends were going for when they made some of their greatest records. Bono may have been one of the highlights of Live Aid when they performed ‘Bad’, but even if The Joshua Tree was one of the greatest albums of the 1980s, seeing them start to swallow their own tail on Rattle and Hum was more than a little bit offputting, especially on the record where Bono chastises his own audience for not paying attention to his speech.
But if we were to give him a little bit of grace, it’s not like he wasn’t doing everything for the right reasons. He wanted the chance to become the biggest frontman of all time, and you don’t get that way by politely asking the audience to follow him. It’s about waking people up to the problems with the world, but while Bono has done all he can for those in need, there’s no way that he can possibly be a star without coming off like a jackass.
Because, really, since when has rock and roll been about the larger problems with the world? There have been many people who like to get on their soapbox, but coming from the era that was all about rebellion, Bono seemed like the exact opposite of a punk by the time he started talking with presidents about the general state of the world. But it’s not like the punk crowd was exactly giving back by the time he started making music.
Sex Pistols showed everyone the fashionable side of punk, but Bono was following the lead of bands like The Clash. Joe Strummer was approaching every single note as if it were life-or-death, and while he had that same piss and vinegar, seeing The Stranglers marked the moment that everything clicked for him. He had an idea for what rock was supposed to be, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the piss-take that he saw from JJ Burnel.
For U2, it was all about sharing music, but when Burnel gave them the cold shoulder, they were ready to cut him off in a second, saying, “We decided he’s an arsehole and that he doesn’t understand what punk rock is. Not only are they not punk rock, they’re the enemy of punk rock. So we refused to watch them on stage. Instead we broke into the dressing room during the gig and stole their wine. I was full of righteous indignation and fearlessness. It was a kind of anger that was in me, always picking fights with people much bigger.”
That mentality was a bit cheeky for a band that was barely gaining traction off their first album, but Bono would have rather gone down swinging doing what he thought was the right thing. The Stranglers had been more competitive every time they took the stage, but the idea of destroying everything in your path wasn’t the kind of punk that U2 subscribed to when they first started making music.
Their heroes had shown them that that kind of destruction was supposed to pave the way for something beautiful, and he wasn’t about to cower to what some dangerous punk singer wanted while he watched from the sidelines. He had been put on this Earth to make music, and every other show is an excuse for him to show everyone the beauty that can come from a simple love of music.
