Thursday, June 3, 2010

More Unknown Early U2 Pictures




The British Auction House, Bonhams, holds a sale of several old photos, among which is  a whole set of U2 ones.

"An historic set of photographs of U2 at the Stella Ballroom, Limerick, Ireland during the Limerick Civic Week Pop '78 Competition, 17th March 1978, comprising thirteen strip negatives and a corresponding set of prints, 20.5 x 30.5cm (8 x 12in), to be sold with copyright"

The sale is on 23rd June and most of the pictures belong to the  event  in 1978 which marked the first time the band appeared under the name of U2. There was a prize of £500 and the promise of a record deal. They had entered the competition under the name they were using at the time, The Hype. However, they felt that if they did well in the competition, they would be stuck with this name and so changed to U2 at the last minute, a choice they had been considering adopting for a while.

On the evening of the event the band found themselves up against a number of other, seemingly more experienced entrants and felt there was little hope of success. As Bono recalled in the book 'U2 On U2', ''There were bands there that could play in time and in tune and with great confidence, all of which we couldn't pull off. But, you know, some bands have everything but 'it'. We had nothing but 'it'.'' They played three tracks, 'Sweet Missions', 'Life On A Distant Planet' and 'The TV Song' and, much to everyone's astonishment, they were awarded first place. It was a pivotal moment for the band and Larry has commented that ''...We had no real idea how winning in Limerick would change our lives.''

One of the images has been used in the photographer's own publicity material in the past but the remainder are unpublished.





source:www.bonhams.com

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