Returning to
Ireland : An interview with the band
BONO-
It's just gonna be, it's gonna be a great night in a great city with, you know, 40,000 of
our closest friends. It's hard, actually, to put it into words. It's actually the easiest
gig of the whole tour put together, do you know what I mean?
Right now we're the biggest, baddest, boldest band on Earth -
it's gonna be a big night.
We are having the time of our lives.
We've always had an amazing reaction when we've played here.
Spain was a great crowd, and we'll have a clap-o-meter on with
Dublin and Belfast and we'll see who comes out on top.
ADAM-
It's nice to play your hometown, you know it's good to be
accepted at home. But at this stage the Irish audiences and the
hometown audiences are the same as anywhere else.
Not really apprehensive about bringing this show home, to be
honest the Irish public are perfectly fine, they're no kinder or
un-kinder than any other public. And it's just great to give them
the opportunity to see PopMart.
THE EDGE-
Dublin is always both exciting and kind of nerve racking for us
because not only is it where we came from - the first place that
we ever played and, you know, where all our families are from -
but it's also where we still live, all our mates, all our relatives,
people we see every day live in Dublin - and they're all going to
be at the show. So it really is a case of us playing in front of the
people who know us the best and they know if there's any bullshit
involved, they're pretty hard critics and so it's difficult. But it's
always a thrill as well, you know, and as regards to whether
there's any difference between this particular homecoming show
and the last time we played in Dublin - I don't really think there's
much of a difference. It's the same. Dublin is one of those towns
that doesn't change much, you know, no matter what it goes
through as a city in terms of the economy and whatever. The
spirit of Dublin City is so particular, I don't think it's going to be
any different this time than it was the last time.
A world tour for us would not be complete without playing Dublin
City, so we just were determined to find some way of playing
Dublin, and thankfully we were able to get over any legal
problems, and we're playing the best stadium in the city.
Q: What was it like to play Belfast?
ADAM-
Playing Belfast during the cease-fire was an amazing thing to be
able to do, but it's a pity that you can't play Belfast on every tour.
THE EDGE-
The Belfast show was a rare privilege, I think, for us to happen to
be on the road and able to bring a show to Belfast, just at the
moment where another cease-fire had been announced.
Belfast as a city was just beginning to wake up to the new
opportunity and it was - I thought it was just an incredible piece of
timing from everyone involved. The sort of thing that you can't
plan, it just happened, and we were just delighted to have an
opportunity to play in this city that we've loved for many years but
unfortunately only been able to play small indoor shows before. It
was just one of those great things that happened along the way
and I'll never forget it, it was a great night.
