So U2 have released their new single, but they didn't just release it, like any normal band.
No. They had a world premiere.
A world premiere!
How's that for inflated egos? A world premiere of a bad Alice Cooper pastiche.
You know something? Bono makes me want to heave what I didn't eat. What a self-important little twat. Did you hear his slithery blather at the Obama gig?
Four Irish boys from the North side of Dublin.
What resonances that phrase carries. The north side of Dublin. Poverty. Disadvantage. Unemployment. Crime. Struggle. Success. World fame for four tough working-class kids against the odds.
In Adam Clayton's case, that would be Oxfordshire, the well known Dublin suburb. And in Dave Evans's case, it would be London, followed by the comfortable middle-class village of Malahide, another notorious North Dublin blackspot. Bono grew up in Glasnevin, not noted for rioting in the streets.
Larry is the only one of the four who hasn't got his head up his arse, and it will come as no surprise that Larry is also the only one who actually came from a working-class neighbourhood.
Bono, would you kindly fuck off.
______________
Could I just mention one other thing to President Obama?
Garth Brooks? Beyoncé? Shakira?
Please.
If Mr Obama would like advice about lineups for future concerts, he knows where to find me.
I'll second that motion.
I so very much agree. That pissed me off something awful too.
Me as well, the bumptious little gobshite should be ashamed of himself after spending the last eight years cosying up to George Bush.
The Ego has landed. Miracle on the Potomac!.
Not even a Charlie Bird strike will stop him from becoming Presidential Advisor-in-Chief now.
To think poor Obama will have to put up with this self-important gnat pouring forth with popstar wisdom on how to cure the worlds ills for the next eight years.
Rose-tinted shades, Glasnevins Ghetto child wears his cross well.
I can't stand the pretentious, ostentatious, superficial, vulgar person called Bono as well :) What a an idiot… '
Who is he trying to re-create… John Lennon perhaps?
Might I offer a voice against the grain here?
No arguments re : his ego, but I don't think they bullied their way onto that stage. They were invited. And yes, they are four boys from North Dublin (maybe Adam wasn't born there, but remember there are some in Ireland who are laying claim to Barack Obama as a Paddy).
I for one am proud of that, even if I am a plastic Paddy myself.
Not sure about the new tune, though, have to give it time.
Well,i would say that someone with his ego loves it that he gets people so riled up..
I just ignore it myself..
Larry Mullen is the man as far as i'm concerned.As fir the new single.cant really say on one listen but its better than any of the shite on the last 3 albums anyway..
I fucking hate Bono. He is the bane of every Irishman who has ever set foot outside the country. I prefered being known for Guinness. At least it shuts up.
Check out Bill Bailey's opinion on U2;
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=8EDuK46ZqFM
spot on
Met him once (Bono, not Obama) years ago in Shannon Airport. He was flying out to Russia to cure communism or something. I was catching an Aeroflot flight to Barbados, an irony that he didn't quite appreciate.
Oh how my heart warms to this thread. There I was thinking that I was the only irascible curmudgeon who thought Bono was a pretentious twerp whose been musically irrelevant since Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Unfortunately I think he's going to continue his posturing until he wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oh, and while we're slagging him off, does anybody else think that those ostentatiously ugly sunglasses he wears looks like chemistry lab safety glasses?
here here!
U2 are still releasing singles?
On a related note, surely the word "singles" is an oxymoron. Bono (the other great moron in my vocabulary), take note.
Yes. In an achievement of spectacular wonderfulness, Bono is the only human being still able to release singles.
We agree.
Bono is an obnoxious little twat.
We suggest that you download the album from the net, just to annoy him.
Then, delete it immediately.
Sweary, you can't have a one-word oxymoron.
I have /no/ idea why U2 is so popular.
It occurs to me that the best songs are those that are written by people who have been destitute, hurt, etc – all the negative experiences.
However, when your account is so full the bank had to order bigger computers to handle the numbers, what the hell do you sing about?
As is so common, they may have had some good songs in the beginning, but once they became popular and rich, the songs lacked something – emotion and reality, possibly.
Also, if Bono is so into saving the world, why doesn't he give all his money to those that need it? What does he need it for?
see? this is why i watched (american) football yesterday! i loved the old u2 songs, i guess they lost me when bono started wearing the shop glasses! xoxo
Oul Bono's faux proletarianism is galling. More than that – it's embarasing! Hide behind the couch time.
He's from a suburb of the 50's/60's; an area known locally by some as Willow Park (near the Autobahn pub).
He claims he's from Ballymun, which was built after the area where his family (the Hewsons) lived.
At the time Bono's real home was built it was the edge of North Dublin, and was quite a desirable place for aspiring types.
When Ballymun was bulit there was an exodus of a load of the greasy pole climbers.
The area was no longer de rigeur.
Bono's dad worked for the Post Office, a type of auditor; and apparently was liked.
I never like U2. The odd little ditty they penned can have a catchey few bars. Sum total.
But the inverted snobbery is nauseous.
It's interesting this desire to wear the donkey jacket and be 'authentic'. Some political groups do the same thing.
Militant (now the Socilaist party) have always tended to assert their true working class credentials. A bit of political rough, you might say.
It's a substitute for serious politics and actually a celebration of backwardness.
Ther used to be a Belfast playwright, Martin Lynch, (brother of Seamus Lynch of the Workers Party) who specialised in doing comic plays about working class people/issues.
He and his work were lauded by all the right sorts, when iin fact it was patronising backwardness-celebrating rubbish. Brendan Carroll's stuff is similar.
The fight is to end backwardness not promote it!
Bonehead Bono is really rather shallow. Money being his main objective, along with self massage of his ego.
f*ck him,he thinks he is too big for dolans lol,gimme christy and aslan anyday,least they have walked the walk.
Please let me offer my apologies to the people of Willow Park and area. My antipathy for Paul Hewson may have led me to over-egg the pudding with regard to your community.
There was a major travesty on the Obama roadshow.
Springsteen was doing support for Our Friends From The North(side)!
Barack wants to get a new tour manager. Whoever he's using, his taste's in his mouth.
Maybe Dubya is proffering the CDs he brings up to DC from the ranch?
Will there be line dancers at the inauguration?
RTE, in their usual professional attention to detail, did not inform us of who any of the acts were, apart from of course the IRISH.
Who was the bearded person on stage with Sprinsteen. The shots were from afar. Was it Pete Seeger, Willie Nelson,….?
Nebraska is a fine Sprinsteen album.
Imbatman, Aslan I've never seen, or heard.
Christy Moore is a cynic in my view. Strong influences of Stalinism there I venture.
I might be mistaken here, but I'm sure that my long ago latin classes back in the day may be of use after all.
Bono.. from the latin roughly translated means, " ..an annoying little prick, much like a boil on the arse of life."
No wait.. its just that last glass of single malt kicking in.
I hope nobody jumps me, but I like Bono's music.
I missed watching the gig. But if you were a musician and were given an opportunity to release a debut single with maximum audience, I think you would take it.
Can't blame Irish boys for taking advantage of opportunity … it does not come around that often.
:)
Hey all you people who think Bono and U2 are still Irish: dontchas all know they are now based in the Netherlands to avoid the revised Irish taxation laws which require them to pay their fair share of taxes now that they have more money than brains. They are Dutch now. So Bono is not just an odious, pretentious twat, he is also an odious, pretentious, tax-dodging twat. Any new material U2 release, DOWNLOAD IT, DON'T BUY IT!!!
Kae Verens, fair enough. Can you have a sense of humour instead?
Poor bongo – and him with the saving of the world on his shoulders and all.
He's a little pain in the neck. Who cosied up to Bush. BUT, I have to confess a sneaky little twinge of pride to see them there. Not as "Northsiders", but as Irish.
I've always thought that for such a tiny country we punch well above our weight on the world stage. And I don't mean only musically (*real music*.) I mean in all sorts of ways. After all, Ireland would fit into Texas alone 10 times. Or into New South Wales 11 times. And our population is 1/6th that of Texas.
(And if my Maths is wrong this time, I'll take my 'Leaving Cert Hons Maths' and shove it. Somewhere.)
Mervyn,
It was Pete Seeger. And I gather they did the last two verses, which are normally/often left out in the US:
Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me
And a great big sign that said private property
On the other side, it didn't say nothing
That side was made for you and me
In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office, I saw my people
As they stood there hungry, I kept asking,
"Was this land made for you and me?"
BTW, I'd say the line-up had litte to do with Obama's taste in music. The message of his campaign, apart from "hope", was "inclusiveness". I didn't see the whole thing, but I'm guessing the line-up was carefully crafted to try and represent that. Hence Garth Brooks, Beyoncé, et al.
Thank you very much Nora.
Poor Pete and Bruce are going to be sadly disappointed when they learn that Obama is the type Woody was writing against.
Barack's version:
"This land is CERTAINLY NOT your land.
This land is MY BOSSES' land"
Doesn't sing like Woody's; but thats how Barack sees it.
Mervyn,
I'm under no illusions about him.
Right-wing US blogs may see him as a 'socialist', but many of them actually think Hitler was a socialist too, so … what can I say …
Excuse me while I watch the grand opening. Quite a spectacle!
Nora,
Hitler was a socialiast.
The NAZI party were National Socialists
QEII….. please educate yourself about the radical right (no more right wing than fascism).
I strongly recommend you read Trotsky's writings on German Fascism. Easily availlable on the net.
(marxists.org, for instance).
There is no clearer analysis.
Oh for fucksake. Can I write about nothing without some ideological row springing up?
Guys will you please have a bit of fucking sense?
Or else fuck off.
Whichever. I don't mind.
Do you know what? I'll set up a separate website for all these humourless fuckers and you can all fuck off there and look up each other's arses.
And then the rest of us can get back to enjoying life as we used to before you arrived here with your humourless po-faced fucking misery.
How about that?
Stop this shit. I'm sick of it.
I have to turn of the tv when this little shithead comes on, give some of your money to the poor in the slums of your own native city bono, he bought a motorbike for gay byrne who is hardly in need of a few bob, a complete ego trippimg ass hole, I detest the man. I believe he is also a tax exile.
For fucks sake everyone.You're talking about Irelands most famous grafitti artist.Surely that deserves some respect?No?Alright then,he is just a short arsed cunt and he really should fuck off.
Bono is a tax-dodging, hypocritical, pretentious, megalomaniacal arsehole. But worse are the Irish people and media who buy buy his crappy songs and give him such an easy, compliant press.
As an ordingary Dubliner, I've been aware for years of the hypocrisy of the little shit making himself out to be some kind of working-class hero.
Good to see I'm not the only one who is wise to him.
See also:
http://gombeennation.blogspot.com/2007/11/is-bono-hypocrite.html
Do yis not remember how Bono put $300 million into the CIA-connected Pandemic/Bioware Studios' video game "Mercenaries 2: World in Flames", which had US forces invading the Venezuelan capital Caracas and slaughtering the locals (it's called realism in gamer circles), back in June 2006?
The wee shit is founder and still a 'managing director' of Elevation Capital, a private equity fund (=asset stripper).
He did not respond to calls from, among others, the Maryknoll nuns (remember the 4 nuns murdered by rightist, US-sponsored militias in El Salvador? Maryknoll) to have the game withdrawn from sale, but he did sell Pandemic/Bioware in October 2007 for $775 million.
I wonder now, did the dwarf bollix make a donation to the Venezuela Solidarity campaign from his $475m profit? No? Thought not… didn't pay taxes on it either.
See http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1823 and http://www.elevation.com/EP_news.asp
Just too good not to pass around **.
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, is famous throughout the entertainment industry for being more than just a little self-righteous.
At a recent U2 concert in Glasgow, Scotland, he asked the audience for total quiet. Then, in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands once every few seconds.
Holding the audience in total silence, he said into the microphone, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."
A voice with a broad Scottish accent, from the front of the crowd, pierces the quiet …………
Well, foockin stop doin it then!"