"I know the real thing", says Bono's girl

Eve Hewson goes glam inside the November/December issue of Flauntmagazine.

THE youngest daughter of U2 frontman Bono has told how her father's fame can bring out the worst in people when they find out her connection to the global superstar.

The 21-year-old actress Eve Hewson, who is studying acting at New York City University, said she is rarely recognised.

But the student told 'Flaunt' magazine she can instantly recognise the people who want to be friends with her in college because of her rock star father.

"It's made it, in some ways, easier to find friends because it brings out certain bad things in people," she said. "Then you can see easier. Well, you can smell the desperation in people."

For most of her life she has been kept out of the limelight by her parents but her roles in a string of high-profile films are turning the dark-haired beauty into a budding film star.

But she said her father's status as the frontman of the world's biggest band rarely encroached on her happy, sheltered childhood in southside Dublin.

"Obviously, every now and then someone would start singing a U2 song at a party but, aside from that, it's not really about who you are, what you have.

"It's just like, how you can hang out, if you can tell a good story, if you can make a good laugh."

Her performance alongside Hollywood star Sean Penn in the film 'This Must Be The Place' has already caused a buzz around the young actress.

She plays the surrogate daughter to Penn's depressed rock star. She said she wasn't recognised much while making the film. "Nobody really cares about me. There are other famous actors on set that are more fascinating."

The actress, who has an older sister Jordan (23) and two younger brothers Elijah (14) and John Abraham (11), has recently finished the movie 'Blood Ties'.

It stars a string of Hollywood heavy-hitters including Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, legend James Caan and Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard.

The young actress lists edgy star Juliette Lewis and Evan Rachel Woods as big influences.

"I think you have to be very forward about what you want. You have to be confident that you have a vision and that you want to play different sides of yourself. I think the crazier and weirder you are you will be able to get there."

She also said she really admires actress Frances McDormand for picking kooky roles.

"I love Frances for that. It's so cool. And Catherine Keener, who I am working with right now – she is the kind of cool chick that doesn't play into any of the bull***t."

- Lynne Kelleher

Irish Independent

http://www.independent.ie

pictures: http://www.justjared.com (from Flaunt magazine)

All About Eve

Rock princess Eve Hewson, daughter of Bono, will make her first major acting debut in the Sean Penn film This Must Be the Place, set for commercial release in January. The recent N.Y.U. grad posed in a variety of holiday outfits at her November-issue Vanities shoot. 

PROVENANCE: Dublin, Ireland.
AGE: 21.

ROCK STARLET: Despite growing up as music royalty—Bono is her father—Hewson, who graduates from N.Y.U. this December, had a grounded childhood. “My parents work really hard to make sure that we don’t feel entitled. They just don’t spoil us. They want us to work for things.”

PARENTAL SUPPORT: When Hewson decided as a teenager to become an actress, her parents at first had misgivings. “I think because they’ve been around that world and they know what Hollywood is, especially for a woman—it can be really difficult.” They’ve since become enthusiastic supporters. “They’re excited about it now, almost too much. They’re like obsessed parents, but it’s cute.”

BIG START: Hewson landed her first major movie role in the Sean Penn film This Must Be the Place,which debuted at Sundance this year and is set for commercial release in January. She says of her co-star, “He was actually really fun. He wasn’t as Method as you’d think. It was a fun set.”

IRISH-AMERICAN GIRL: In addition to an untitled project with indie darling Nicole Holofcener in the works, Hewson is planning to move from New York to L.A. following her graduation. And she speaks without an Irish lilt these days. “When I go home, all of my friends are like, ‘Shut up with that American accent. You’re Irish. You better talk like an Irish person.’ ”

http://www.vanityfair.com

Profile: Larry Mullen

Eamon Carr, journalist for the Irish Times set his mind and writing on the drummer of U2; many times forgotten behind his drum kit, never when you hear his distinctive beating in any of the band´s songs (least of all for millions of women who die for a glimpse of his lopsided smile)...

In the way that scientists monitor, say, plankton to assess the health of our oceans, long-term fans claim that Larry Mullen's demeanour is a reliable gauge to U2's musical form. Last night, to help confirm that the band is on a roll, I set up LarryCam. It was Larry Mullen's initiative that kickstarted U2 and it's said that in the lines on his face one can read the history of the band.

21.00 A lone figure in white T-shirt and dark trousers strides purposefully from Hill 16 towards a drum kit. This is Larry Mullen Jr going to work. He's lean. He's mean, in a positive way. And he's focused on the task at hand, providing the engine-room dynamics that will power this juggernaut on its important homecoming concert.

21.15 Larry is working up a sweat energetically driving a series of songs from the new album. Songs the fans are familiar with. Although he appears to grimace, Larry is in fact singing along to Get On Your Boots.

21.50 Larry disappears from stage. No panic. It's just to allow Bono and The Edge deliver an intimate version of Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of.

21.55 A wry, bemused look crosses Larry's face as Bono makes a pig's mickey of the Auld Triangle. It's a party after all!

22.15 Larry straps on an African djembe drum and takes it to the bridge. The one that leads to the audience. This is a good sign. He's in the groove. And going walkabout!

22.25 Dedicated to Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Walk On is marked by audience members wearing masks. Larry looks taut and serious, like Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.

22.50 As Larry powers the band into the home stretch he begins to smile.

23.00 Now he's singing along on the marvellous Moment of Surrender. It's been another spectacular evening's work by one of the world's finest rock drummers.

23.02 He can afford to smile as he throws his arm around Bono's shoulder. Despite sometimes having a lot to put up with, Larry remains the beating heart of a band at the peak of its powers. Happy as...

Eamon Carr for The Herald


source:www.herald.ie

Wim Wenders in Berlin´s Concert

The acoustic version of 'Stay (Far Away So Close)' was dedicated to the band's longtime friend, German film director Wim Wenders at Berlin´s concert.

The director has collaborated with the band for many years. As well as directing the 'Stay' video when it was released as single in 1993, he also directed Million Dollar Hotel, the film Bono co-wrote, which was released in 2000.

Ernst Wilhelm ("Wim") Wenders (born 14 August 1945, Düsseldorf) is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.
He has recieved several awards including the Golden Lion for The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival (1982), the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (1984) for his movie Paris, Texas, and Best Direction for Wings of Desire in the 1987 Bavarian Film Awards and the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. Wenders was awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989 and at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 2005. In 1993 he again won the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Director.He was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2005.


source:www.u2.com//winwendersofficialsite

Profile: The Edge, guitarist

"I suppose ultimately I'm interested in music. I'm a musician. I'm not a gunslinger. That's the difference between what I do and what a lot of guitar heroes do." David Howell Evans, The Edge.

David Howell Evans was born on August 8, 1961

in Barking, Essex, in East London, to Welsh parents , Gwenda and Garvin Evans. When he was a year old, the family - which included younger sister Gillian (Gill) and older brother Richard (Dick) - moved to Dublin, where he has lived ever since. There, he grew up as a quiet yet very intelligent kid. He did well in school – first at St. Andrew's Primary School and then at Mount Temple - and until he met the boys who would be his future bandmates, he wanted to go to university and become a doctor or an engineer.
In the fall of 1976 he spotted Larry's note on the Mount Temple Comprehensive High School bulletin board asking for anyone interested in forming a band. He was the first to respond, and he went to the first meeting in Larry's house with his brother Dick. The Edge showed guitar skills well beyond his age, and the chemistry among the group was obvious from the beginning.
Early in the band's career, Dave Evans was re-baptized by Bono - then Bono Vox - as 'The Edge'. The nickname was inspired in the beginning by the sharp features of his face, but it also applied to his sharp mind and the way he always observed things from the edge.
Despite his previous academic ambitions, Edge's commitment to the band grew to such an extent that when he finished high school, he told his parents he'd take a year off to see where the band and their music would take him.
Along with Bono and Larry, The Edge began attending prayer group meetings in the late 1970s. The young men were in search of spirituality and the answer to the big questions, and consequently were torn between their Christian ideals and their rock and roll lifestyle. Larry and Bono quickly chose the band, but The Edge was uncertain to the point where he nearly left U2 during the October tour. But he took Bono's advice to follow his heart, and after a reasonable period of soul searching, he chose the band as well. The Edge soon realized he didn't have any trouble reconciling his beliefs with his music and lifestyle; it was other people who did. In his words: "there was no problem. It was other people's problems".

In 1983, Edge married Aislinn O'Sullivan, with whom he remained for seven years and had three daughters: Hollie (born 4th July 1984), Arran (born 15th October 1985), and Blue Angel (born 26th June 1989). They separated in 1990 and divorced in 1996. He now has a daughter, Sian (born 7th October 1997), and a son, Levi (born 1st October 1999), with Morleigh Steinberg, the belly dancer and choreographer from the Zoo TV Tour, whom he started dating in 1993. The two were married on 18th June, 2002 in Eze, France.

The Edge's unmistakable guitar sound ,clean, sharp, incisive, is part of U2's trademark. The characteristic and mesmerizing sounds and the emotions he expresses through them make him one of the most respected guitarists in rock and roll. He has often been called an "anti-guitar hero" because of his aversion to the indulgent, showy style based on intense soloing of many contemporaries, preferring instead to play in often a technically undemanding and low-key, yet original, way. He is renowned for being a guitarist who is more concerned with sounds, texture and innovation rather than flashy technique.

He's also lent his vocal talents to several U2 songs, first singing lead on "Seconds" from the War album. He later took the lead on songs such as "Van Diemen's Land" and "Numb", and sang a solo version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" during 1997-98's PopMart Tour. He also released a solo album, Captive, the soundtrack to the film of the same name, in 1986.
On the band's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, Edge left behind the experimental electro and dance rhythms that he had explored on the previous three albums and returned to the more mainstream rock guitar sound similar to that of the band's earliest recordings. He continued this trend on 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, in keeping with U2's post-1990s ethos of stripping away all artifice from their music.

Music Rising in November 2005 along with Bob Ezrin and Henry Juszkiewicz, with the aim of restoring the Gulf Coast's musical culture by replacing instruments that had been lost to the disaster. The organisation's aim was initially to provide replacement instruments solely to those professional musicians who had been affected by the storms. However, they now seek to provide instruments to affected churches and schools as well. This is all part of the charity's aim of "Rebuilding the Gulf Region note by note." Since then, The Edge has also publicly supported the organisations the New York Food Bank and Mencap Northern Ireland.

As a guitarist of astonishing versatility, The Edge continues, at all levels of his playing, to resist the rock n' roll clichés. His unconventional attitude to his craft is perhaps best summed up by his words at the beginning of the post.

For all U2 fans, Edge is unmistakably the sound that makes the band so special. He´s our "guitar hero", the master that has impinged his chords to the soundtrack of our lives.

Profile: Adam Clayton, bass player

"I always wanted to be a rock star.When I got my first bass guitar at the age of 15, that was it for me. I didn´t have a whole lot else going on in my life." Adam Clayton

Born to Brian and Jo in Oxfordshire, England on 13th March 1960. At the age of 5 the family moved to Yellow Walls Road in Malahide near Dublin, where sister Sarah and brother Sebastian were born. Adam was sent to St. Columba's boarding school due to the nature of his father's job (RAF pilot) which meant that the family could be called away at very short notice. Adam hated it, and left at age 16 having probably been expelled, at which time he began attending Mount Temple Comprehensive which was located nearby in Malahide (Ireland's first non-denominational, co-educational comprehensive school).
Always a rebellious character, Adam had no interest in schoolwork, much to his parents' dismay. He was known for frequently wearing outrageous clothes or sometimes no clothes at all , and knew from an early age that he wanted to be on stage. Before U2 met Paul McGuinness, he took up the role of temporary manager as well as bassist, booking shows and representing the band in early negotiations with CBS Ireland. Bono credited Adam with being the driving force that got the band off the ground in the early days, as his dedication and determination to succeed spurred them all on to make a success of it.

He has had several brushes with the law, most notably for drink-driving and drug offences, and once missed a concert in Sydney in 1993 because of extreme drunkenness. Fortunately this served as a wake-up call and made him realise that he had to take control of himself. He has been back on track ever since then, thanks in part to the steadying influence of Larry, who spent a year in New York with him working on 'Mission Impossible' among other things.

"I am one of those characters that has an addictive personality. And it's an emotional problem as much as it is a physical problem and I had to start dealing with that. And that's the hard road, figuring out the psychology of it. The avoiding substances of any kind is hard but, okay, it's not that hard. It's facing the devil inside you, that's the tricky bit."

Bono describes Adam as the "jazz man" of the band in an interview with 60 minutes (Nov 2005). Bono proceeds to cite the band's hit song, "Bullet the Blue Sky", as a song with a weird sounding bassline. The reason? Adam is playing in a different key from the rest of the band!

Often refered by Bono (I agree!!)as the poshest member of the band, Clayton is well known for his bass playing on songs like "Where the Streets Have No Name", "New Year's Day", and "With or Without You".

Clayton’s role within the band is to provide a grounding on which the rest of the band can expand on – in many ways this could be considered restrictive and U2’s bass maestro doesn’t tend to elaborate in the same way as Flea does with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What they do achieve however – is an incredible emotional resonance with their songs.
Clayton’s technique varies according to the song that is being performed - On some he’ll goes for simple support of Edge’s arpeggio approach – for example “With or Without You” the song structure is relatively simple and the bass part opts for a repeating root note progression supporting the songs chord structure. The repeating nature of this style is often found with U2 tracks, outwardly simple yet – the way they build in emotional intensity before the fade is difficult to master.

Clayton's stage style was a major, positive surprise during the Vertigo tour (2004-2006). The bassist would walk along the catwalk during at least one song per concert, generally "Where The Streets Have No Name," and his excursions away from the stage would be warmly cheered by the crowd. Female fans also have reported receiving smiles and winks and even talking to the bassist during the show. As noted by many a U2 concert-goer, this is a 180 degree turnabout from the Adam Clayton of the Elevation tour era (2000-2001). Fellow band member and guitar genius The Edge observes: Adam's coming into his own as a performer on this tour," he notes. "It's great to see him out there on the ramps!"

With an audience like U2’s Clayton cannot fail to have influenced a huge number of bassists and while it’s true that there are more innovative or “flashy” players out there – Adam Clayton has shown that bass players succeed where they understand the song well enough to create a mood which can evoke passion and emotion whether the fan is listening to a CD on their own or are part of a 40,000 rock stadium crowd!!!!!!

For some, Adam isn't one of the greatest bassists of our times. However, he is THE greatest bassist for U2!!!!

Always a gentleman, kind with fans and offering an alluring smile, I only know Mr Clayton´s bass gets under your skin!He certainly knows how to get to the audience and makes U2´s sound unique! Thanks , Adam, for years of pleasure listening to your distinctive sound and making the band´s songs memorable to our hearts and souls!

source: http://u2-atomic-adam.tripod.com/ ;http://bass-soup.com; www.atu2.com