Bono and Edge busk for the homeless at festive charity gig in Dublin

Bono and The Edge joined by host of other Irish musicians for fundraising show

Mattha Busby

 @matthabusby

Mon 24 Dec 2018 21.11 GMTLast modified on Mon 24 Dec 2018 21.41 GMT

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 The Edge and Bono of U2 take part in the annual Christmas Eve busk in Dublin. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/PA

Bono has joined The Edge at the annual Christmas Eve charity busking session outside the Gaiety theatre in Dublin, performing along with a host of other famous Irish musicians in aid of the city’s homeless.

The event took place in support of the Simon Community, a homelessness charity that helps people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so. It was Bono’s first appearance at the charity gig in three years, and his seventh overall.

30,000 empty homes and nowhere to live: inside Dublin’s housing crisis

 

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The U2 members serenaded onlookers with a song from their latest album, as well as two Christmas carols – O Holy Night and O Night Divine – before they were joined by an ensemble to sing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), a rock song originally sung by Darlene Love in 1963. Bono told the crowd: “As the buckets go around, fill them with silver, fill them with hope – [it’s] the season of hope.”

Darragh Doyle@darraghdoyle

Definite highlight of the Dublin Charity Busk for homeless services - Philip, currently in a Dublin hostel, sings with @glen_hansard #Dublin

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Crowds had gathered around a makeshift stage on Grafton Street from 4pm on Monday. Other performers included organiser Glen Hansard, Damien Rice, Danny O’Reilly, Imelda May, Luke Clerkin, Mundy and Róisín O.

Rice played a slowed-down cover of Creep, the Radiohead song from their first album, while Hansard played guitar for a rousing rendition of George Michael’s Faith, sung by a man named Philip who is currently in a Dublin hostel and is assisted by the Simon Community.

There are almost 10,000 homeless people across Ireland, including nearly 4,000 children. Inner City Helping Homeless, a Dublin charity, said more than 100 people were found sleeping rough on Dublin’s streets on Sunday night. Affordable new houses are not being built quickly enough and rent rates have risen significantly, campaigners have claimed.

www.theguardian.com

Bono Wants ONE to Be ‘the NRA For the World’s Poor’

Bono discusses combating poverty and AIDS/HIV crisis with his ONE charity at Economic Club of Chicago dinner

“Whatever you feel about the NRA – and I don’t like them very much – they’re a very well-organized group and we want ONE to be the NRA for the world’s poor,” Bono said at the Economic Club of Chicago’s private black tie dinner event Thursday night during a lively discussion with ECC Chair and Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson. “So the ONE campaign – if you’re getting in the way of legislation that will make lives easier for the world’s most vulnerable populations, we’re gonna find out where you live [and] we’re gonna camp outside your office.” While the NRA may seem an odd organization for the U2 frontman to want to emulate, Bono’s pragmatic, business-styled approach has brought much success to the nonprofit he cofounded with Bobby Shriver. “We have 10 million members, 3 million of them in Africa now, it will eventually be more; we’ll have more members south of the equator than north of the equator,” he said. Over the course of 14 years, Bono has lobbied global legislators, which has informed the passage and funding of government policies. On Thursday, he credited receiving great advice and support from leaders, ranging from Warren Buffet to his bandmates, approaching art and non-profits as businesses and stressed bipartisanship as positive influences for his success and achieving results. “The single biggest intervention in the history of medicine to fight disease was America’s leadership fighting HIV/AIDS, and it was started by President Bush, but it was continued – and this is really critical – by President Obama, and in fact he spent more money on it because he was longer in office,” Bono said. “And the reason that bipartisan support has – and this is a big thing to say, but I know the math – there’s 22 million people in the poor world, in the developing world in Africa, largely, on antiviral drugs because of a bipartisan push, and Americans need to be remembered that what they can do when they work together, reminded.” Recently, ONE, founded to combat extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa, launched its Poverty is Sexist campaign, which the singer cited has “no time for complacency.” “Extreme poverty hits women first and worst,” Bono said. “And it just does, whether it’s education – 130 million girls don’t go to school largely because they’re girls. There’s health. HIV/AIDS is still the number one killer of women in the world, and in sub-Saharan Africa, young women are twice as likely to get infected than young men. And in fact, if you can accept this, it’s 7,000 young women a week.” “Women can farm the land, but they can’t own the land in some places,” he added. “They can earn money, but they can’t bank and so poverty is … not just sexist, it’s racist, it’s discriminatory and it looks for where it can marginalize.” He also stressed the importance of America’s developmental support, crediting Congress for fighting proposed cuts, and warned of what’s at stake if funding is pulled. “With HIV/AIDS with a virus like that, you’re either outrunning it, or it’s outrunning you, it’s just the way these pandemics work,” he said. “It gathers momentum and force. You can undo all the work that, this is a heroic effort, like American intervention in the Second World War, it’s that scale.” Problem-solving has played as much a part in Bono’s creative life as it has with ONE, whose sister organization, (RED), raises awareness about the AIDS crisis and generates corporate contributions through partnering with brands. “Songs to me are like organizations, you know, they have coherence,” he said. “The song – the topline melody, there’s a clear thought. I see (RED) and ONE just like that, as songs. I see businesses as songs. “Does anyone know the genius singer from Iceland called Björk? She’s really one of my absolute favorite singers,” he continued. “She used to say, ‘In Iceland, you know, we see musicians, artists, like carpenter or plumber’ and I was like, that’s exactly how I see it. I see songs as kind of solutions to problems. I can’t explain that, but it means I cannot – as a lot of artists do – look down on business.”

Bono on Dec. 6, 2018 at The Economic Club of Chicago. Photo: Adam Blaszkiewicz/The Economic Club of Chicago

When it comes to the business of music, Bono said it’s much more difficult for artists now, particularly when trying to earn a living in the streaming realm. “It’s very difficult to monetize that, the way things are set up, unless it is frequency of play that you are rewarding,” he said, addressing how teens may play songs numerous times. “I’m a still a bit like this, I play the song 100 times. That gets kind of noticed in the streaming world,” but not everyone does that, he added. “If you’re part of a subscription service, it shouldn’t matter the frequency of play; we don’t reward people on Netflix by the amount of times that people play the movie. So things will change and it will get fairer, the music business going forward.” In the wide-ranging conversation, Bono also addressed the early days of U2 when they first formed (“U2 were pretty crap”) and how anger and friction fueled him, but he said Edge put him in check pretty quickly (“I learned that you shouldn’t really pick a fight with a man who earns his living with hand to eye coordination,” he joked). That youthful rage continues to energize Bono now, but in ways that encourages positive impact. “I think the thing that offends me and makes me angrier than anything in the world is the squandering of human potential, and including my own. I think that love, if we had to define it is the realizing of potential in others and indeed in yourself. And that’s it for me,” he said. “So whether it’s in your band, wanting everyone to achieve their absolute best, or your marriage or your kids… You never see human potential more squandered than in the dire despair of poverty and extreme poverty and to realize – and I’ve said this before and I hope it’s still not a cliché – that where you live can never decide whether you live. That fucks me up.” By ALTHEA LEGASPI www.rollingstone.com

Concern celebrates 50 years!

Concern Worldwide U.S.  holds its 22nd Annual Seeds of Hope Award Dinner at Cipriani Wall Street on 4th December.

The dinner is the global international humanitarian organization’s single-largest fundraising event, with added significance provided this year by the 50th anniversary of its founding in Dublin, in 1968.

Special guest for the gathering is Bono and the emcee will be Samantha Barry, Editor-in-Chief of Glamour Magazine.

Concern Board Chairperson, Joanna Geraghty, President and COO of JetBlue Airways will present the 2018 Seeds of Hope Award to Craig Vosburg, President of North America for Mastercard, in recognition of his commitment to innovation, inclusion, and equality.

“U2 lead singer Bono, a longtime friend of the organization, will join emcee Samantha Barry onstage for a conversation, and entertainment will be provided by the P.S. 154 choir,” said a release.

More than 700 guests are expected, including corporate and political leaders, and members of the diplomatic community, the release stated.

Concern Worldwide (www.concernusa.org) is a non-governmental, international humanitarian organization dedicated to reducing suffering and working toward the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty.

With nearly 4,000 highly skilled and committed staff, Concern is active in 25 of the world’s poorest countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

Working together with communities, Concern strives to save and transform lives every day through emergency response programs and longer-term development initiatives, including health and nutrition, climate resilience and disaster risk reduction, primary education, water and sanitation, and livelihoods support.

Concern Worldwide was founded 50 years ago, in 1968, by a small group of people in Ireland who simply wanted to do something to help the people of Biafra struggling to survive a massive famine.  They sparked a grassroots movement that raised millions of dollars, and delivered thousands of tons of essential food and relief supplies, circumventing a military blockade, and saving countless lives.

That movement grew into one of the world’s most respected humanitarian organizations, which over the last half-century has responded to disaster and worked hand-in-hand with communities to rebuild, recover, and create lasting change for tens of millions of people in more than 40 countries.

"Red Flag Day" for #24HoursofReality

'The one word that the sea can’t say is no, no, no, no….’ World exclusive video of @U2’s 'Red Flag Day in collaboration with  World Surf League as Al Gore & Climate Reality host #24HoursofReality for the largest global conversation on the climate crisis. http://bit.ly/2yXUGW2

“Red Flag Day” is a video put together by U2 in conjunction with the World Surf League. The video made its debut at the end of the first hour of the #24HoursofReality *Click link to view streaming information), a social media broadcast aimed at raising awareness of climate change. The 24 hours of programming features information about climate change, and special guests such as 5 Seconds of Summer, Foo Fighters, Harrison Ford, The Lumineers, Moby, Hans Zimmer and more. 

Each of the 24 hours of programming was broken up into segments, and the U2 video debuted at the end of hour 1, “United States: Momentum in the face of challenge” and ran into the start of hour 2, “Canada: Rallying against a Changing Climate”. The video will also appear at 3:30 Eastern, during Hour 19, “Brazil: On the Front Lines” and will likely appear at other points duirng the broadcasts.

The video was produced in collaboration with the World Surf League, and features images of people surfing, set to “Red Flag Day”. The video features footage from around the world including footage from Jeffreys Bay, South Africa, Praia Do Norte, Nazare, Portugal, and footage from Māʻili Beach Park, Hawaii. Also included is footage of surfer Stephanie Gilmore after her win at Oi Rio Pro which is held at Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

www.u2songs.com