It’s U2’s birthday…Cool

U2 turn 36 today…that’s older than Jesus!

By Brian Moss

Mention the word Bono to any Irish person and it usually elicits one of the following responses:

1. Met him in a pub once, he was sound.

2. He is a complete wa**er.

3. Wish he just stuck to the singing and less of the ‘saving the world’ stuff.

4. He shifted my sister once.

5. He is tiny.

The majority of these answers are based on fictitious meetings that never actually took place but either way Bono and the boys are one of our greatest successes. From watching Reeling in the Years it's clear there wasn’t a whole lot happening here in the 80’s until the Dublin foursome took the world by storm. Some attribute the bands success as making Ireland cool! Yes we're cool.

It was on this day (Sept 25th) in 1976 that a spotty Larry Mullen Jnr posted a notice on the notice board in Mount Temple High School looking for people to join a band and just six people responded. Setting up in his kitchen, Mullen was on drums, with Paul Hewson on lead vocals; David Evans and his older brother Dick Evans on guitar and Adam Clayton, a friend of the Evans brothers, on bass guitar.

The boys were initially pretty basic and the Edge actually made his own guitar. Larry has since said that it was his band for about 10 minutes until Bono walked into the room. Feedback was the band’s first name before changing to The Hype in 1977, before finally becoming a foursom settling on U2 in ’78. Later that year on St Patrick’s Day the boys won a talent competition in Limerick and that was the springboard to success.

What’s that you want to know some facts about the band? Here are some of the best:

• Bono’s is named after a Dublin hearing aid shop Bono Vox which means good voice
• "Beautiful Day" was used as Germany's Official Olympics theme for the Sydney 2000 games.
• U2 were only the fourth music group to appear on the front cover of Time magazine, after the Beatles, the Band and The Who
• Bono was awarded an honorary knighthood from the Queen in 2007.
• Bono and the Edge are co-owners of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin
• They almost broke up in early '80s when the born-again Christian group that Bono, Edge, and Mullen belonged to tried to convince them to break up the band as a sacrifice to God.
• The child on the cover of Boy is Peter Rowan, a nephew of a friend of the band. Two albums later he was used for the cover of War
• Bono is the only person in the history of the world to be nominated for an Academy Award, a Nobel Prize, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

For anyone who has experienced U2 live in full flow you will know it can be a religious experience- quite literally with Bono quoting from the bible, but all other bands are still playing catch up to the lads when it comes to live concert performance.

Very difficult to choose a video to really show the lads at their best, but Slane 01 takes some beating. Happy birthday from everyone at JOE.