Having Lunch with U2

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen burst out in laughter. Paul McGuinness, U2´s historical manager and the fifth band member, who at 60  is the most serious of the this gang of Irish rockers, laughed too. The band has been having lunch with a small group of  Argentinian reporters for an hour; it`s a kind of official and informal meeting with the local press in their third visit to the country and the anecdotes go from unconditional love  to football legend George Best to Pelé´s  most sensationalist phrases to Frank Sinatra’s class to the unequalled power of the XXI`s century comedians, from the need of making a show as big as 360º tour in these times and the responsibilities that a rock star has with his audience.

The sight is unsual.Then they become a bit more solemn and try to explain what they are doing still touring round the world for 35 years almost non-stop, they try to convince their interlocutors that their real commitment is with  human beings freedom here, there ,and everywhere and they anticipate that the Madres de Plaza de Mayo will be on stage with them again in the three concerts they will start tomorrow at Estadio Unico in La Plata.

 "We want you to see them as human beings," Frances, U2 New Zealander publicist joked. In that way she tried to explain the informal meeting, the first one of this kind the band has in South America and the third one in their world tour. "This is not a press conference, the idea is that you can chat with them about anything you want, with the four of them together_which is not very common_ and can understand the chemistry among them when they talk about an album or show in particular."

So there they are, the four members of U2, sitting at the table, ready to have lunch with us.

-Why did you choose to make such a megalomaniac show these days ? 

Bono: - Well, it was a long time ago, we were having lunch like today, chatting, and we took some forks and we started to build a structure in the air (he makes a claw with the fork). Being a rock star is dangerous because if you ask somebody to do  something for you,  even if it looks impossible, he does it...

Edge: - I think the answer to your question is that we’ve been planning it for a long time. When we think about a show like this, it’s not just a few days and then in six months you’re on the road.  When we started to plan it, the world was different. We are often asked about the ecological impact of building such a stage and we do have it into account. However people never ask the same question for other kind of events, like the Olympic Games or the World Cup. There are no talks of neutral carbon footprint in that kind of event. We feel that rock and roll is very responsible in that sense.

 -What does it feel like to play inside such a huge structure? 

Edge: It was a challenge at the beginning, but little by little we realised that it has another dynamic and it’s very comfortable to play in. It was a great moment for us.

Bono: -Every stadium show I’ve seen in my life has the same structure (now he tries to make a conventional stage with pieces of brown bread).And it’s really a pity. It’s good to blow that structure up and start all over again. In fact, if you see the first Beatles shows, in the Shea Stadium, for example, they didn’t have anything around them and it creates certain psychological feeling when you see the four of them standing on stage. In this tour, after some time the show started, the scale disappears and the only thing you see  is a small stage in the middle of a stadium like the Beatles or Stones original rock and roll shows 

McGuinness: - The only difference is that nobody here has seen the Beatles,(he laughs).

-Did you see The Beatles?

-Yes, in the south of England, in  Portsmouth, in 1964. I didn’t hear anything, just screaming. The truth is that I didn’t recognise any song because of the shouting.

From The  Beatles to La Plata, with just a bite from the kebabs they were eating, the band was appalled to know the lines of fans already camping around the Estadio Unico to see their concert. "we should send them some pizzas, "Bono suggests and Edge believes that "all those things are the ones that makes us step on the stage every night feeling a huge responsibility."

-Do you like people talking about how incredible and impressive your show is even much more  than what they say about the music?

Bono: -I don’t know how this will sound but people talk more about the value of money and art at the same time as a contradiction and it’s not. People pay their tickets, which are expensive, after working or studying a lot and there’s a responsibility in this that we take. When we got into punk rock in the 70´s, we saw  The Clash  and everything changed. At that time, that movement that was just starting, was against progressive rock , where the musicians were on top and they  gave the audience a shit. Rock stars shouldn’t be ordinary people and their mood was the most important thing. If they were in a good mood , they made a good show, if they were in a bad day, they didn’t care. There was no real connection. It was never like that for us.

- How do you feel now  as regards your mental and physical energy after all those years on the road?

Edge: -It`s surely different, but we try to use it in our benefit. When you are into all this, and I love the place I am, but it is true that there’s something of the rock and roll energy that squeezes you. 

Bono: -I saw  The Who  recently and it was very interesting because I could see the physical event   Pete Townshend  produces when he plays the guitar, which of course, is very violent, it`s as if he made sounds of a very violent nature and at the same time he had an extraordinarily powerful weapon in his hands. But I was so close that i could see how he moved in more fluid way. Something I would have never thought before. It was dancing. And it was incredible to realise that the level of energy does not come from his body but form the music and the kind of music you make and how  it sounds.  When you leave the stage, you may think in another thing, as when we were 20 but there is nothing like it. You go home or to a hotel and there it is. We call it people’s ghost, it’s what leaves you empty after the show., but the following night you are full of energy again. It`s amazing.

  Bono closed his concept, took another gulp of beer and for the first time he took off his shades and we can see his blue eyes. He said that this concert is more beautiful if you see it from far, "it’s really a psychedelic trip, I think people should take mushrooms before the show." The guy is a 24-hour comedian and everybody enjoys his show, here in the informal lunch n a Palermo restaurant too.

What’s more, Bono admits that he envies professional comedians “They are very moving for me because their humour can be serious and fun at the same time. Sometimes I watch certain comedians and I envy them, because we feel ourselves comedians that took  rock and roll road. In fact, rock and roll  in the past, was about saying things nobody said. Now comedians do that. Power, in any place, is in the hands of the guy who says what nobody can say, in your house or with your friends. And comedians enjoy that power. I envy thier freedom."

When rock and roll tries not to be the centre of the world

"As a singer, the idea is not to be so self-centred or at least try it. The image of the rock star enclosed in a room, judging the world according to the quality of room service is horrible. “What do you think about Russia?"  Well, I don’t know, the eggs were a bit cold. People do not come out of their rooms. It was a lot of fun for us to be in the streets, go to art galleries," Bono said to explain why the like this kind of gatherings. They like going out, listen and of course, talk about their faith.

“What is revolutionary and avant-garde now is not the same as when we started" the singer said." I think our band started with a first album that was like an ode to innocence. At that moment rock and roll was about destroying that innocence. And we wrote a different album for the time. And the second one was about religious experience and it looked as if we were committing a crime. We could write an album about how you beat your mother but it was not allowed to write about your faith. Bob Dylan was the exception and so was Patti Smith. But mainly, in our world, writing an album like ours was illegal. The recording company we signed at that moment when we made our second album supported us much; they thought artists had the right to ask questions about their faith. For rock and roll made by white musicians there are some very strict non-written rules that consider that you have to blow up in the air. And I think there is where it gets interesting. Arcade Fire, for example, makes me feel things that I also felt in our band. There is nothing in common between the two bands but there is an interest for exploration, for the human sprit, trying to understand what it is to be awake, alive, the fear of death, a sense of community. When I listen to them I realise that all those ideas are still alive."

The Edge: -  I wish those ideas had a more political sense in USA and in Europe. Because for me that is the part of rock and roll that has more porwer. And if you look at what is happening in Egypt, in the Arab world, with Internet and cell phones, music accompanies and helps those changes. I think that’s where rock and roll lives. It’s the idea that a change can happen... In USA, rock and roll started as enterntmeint, but as it is happening in Africa, changing is being fostered by young people that start to think that their situation can be better. For us, Ireland at the end of the 70s is the equivalent of what happens now; it was thinking that violence was not the legitimate way of changing things. The Clash was an inspiration for us because they had an inner interest in politics.

Bono: _ We have chemistry with Argentina and as we are curious we try to understand why. We fell in love with the country’s beauty. There’s a lot of thought in the planning of Buenos Aires, even in the change of colour of the trees in the  different seasons. Maybe there are more serious things to worry about, but maybe not...”

 Translation: Mysterious Ways 

 www.lanacion.com.ar/www.clarin.com