This may not be to everyone’s taste, but this kind of pretension brings a smile to my face (via):
“Creating art that has never been done before is the reason I get out of bed in the morning,” said Bono, leaning forward in Row A on the aisle, as Reeve Carney, playing Spidey, rehearsed onstage. “This feels like it.”
[….]“We’re wrestling with the same stuff as Rilke, Blake, ‘Wings of Desire,’ Roy Lichtenstein, the Ramones — the cost of feeling feelings, the desire for connections when you’re separate from others,” Bono continued. “If the only wows you get from ‘Spider-Man’ are visual, special-effect, spectacular-type wows, and not wows from the soul or the heart, we will all think that we’ve failed.”
[….]Bono observed: “The scope of this thing is just hard to grasp sometimes. It just doesn’t fit into the normal —— “
“Broadway mishegoss,” Ms. Taymor said.
“Right,” Bono said. “And trying to blend comic books — which is a very American contribution to the world of mythology — and rock music and Broadway into this thing of art that we don’t even have a word for.”
Paula
Well, I’ve been thinking for quite some time that U2’s music was overrated — and it may be down to Bono being a bit of a douchenozzle.
meh
that guy is such a flaming douche. I would trade all my worldly possessions for 15 mins, a baseball bat, and a locked room with that asshole.
Xecky Gilchrist
I think “thing of art” covers it pretty well.
Punchy
But what does Sullivan think of this arrogance? Wait….nevermind.
Can we get a tag that says “Sullivan breathes, just thought you should know”?
DougJ
@Punchy:
I like the tag idea.
Cat Lady
Fee fees! Hathos! Bathos!
Who’s the first pundit who compares Spiderman to Obama? MoDo? Bobo?
DougJ
@Cat Lady:
The show may be too big a flop for any of that.
dr. bloor
What is “Xanadu,” Alex?
Dave Trowbridge
I have a word for it, and it’s onomatopoeic with vomiting.
Linda Featheringill
In competition with Rilke? Wow.
I read a little [very little] German. And the wonderful thing about Rilke’s work is that it is beautiful in German and in English. And thought provoking. And liberating.
Bono is meh in English. And perhaps also in German.
gbear
How will you feel if the entire concept leaves us lukewarm?
Just Some Fuckhead
No, they have a word for that: crap.
Batocchio
Taymor’s done some seriously badass work, and I like U2’s music. That said, with some artists it’s much better to check out their work and ignore what they say. Also, reading about this project sets my WTF Sense a-tingling. We’ll see how it actually turns out…
Waingro
I like U2 – they’re the epitome of “whole greater than sum of parts” thing. That said, Bono has said ridiculously pretentious shit like this his entire career – he pulled it off because the music was better and they were absolutely gigantic, so some ego was forgivable.
I remember Peter Buck (I think) remarking that often the description or review of an album would often be way better than the album.
Bono can be a huge wanker, but I still think he’d be fun to get drunk with and talk endlessly about music. He’s a fan at heart, which I think is cool.
Cat Lady
@DougJ:
“I’m just gonna drink my martini, man.”
New tag.
Hawes
Don’t bonobo monkeys masturbate all the time?
BONO-bo monkeys mentally wank non-stop.
I like U2. But increasingly, I appreciate the Edge more than Mr. Selfsatisfied.
DougJ
@Cat Lady:
I thought the same thing.
Ailuridae
Strong indication that you read too many leftist blogs:
It took me two read-throughs of the article before I stopped trying to figure out what David Brooks’ was doing scoring a musical about Spiderman.
JGabriel
So it’s just like Jesus Christ Superstar, but with webs ‘n’ shit? I can’t wait to miss it.
.
JGabriel
@Cat Lady:
Only if it flops on B’way. If it’s a success, they’ll compare Spidey to Sarah Palin.
.
DougJ
@Ailuridae:
Bono, Bobo, it’s an easy mistake to make.
Ash Can
Back in grad school, in 1981, a couple of friends and I saw U-2 and Bow-Wow-Wow at an old theater in Adams Morgan (in Wash. D.C.) for 5 bucks. Bow-Wow-Wow was the opening act, and they were better than U-2. U-2 wasn’t bad, but the band’s, and Bono’s, pretension was evident 2 minutes into the performance.
Peter J
Do as I say, not as I do?. Fuck Bono. Fuck U2.
danimal
Not a hater, a huge U2 fan in fact, but this looks like an absolute train wreck.
PurpleGirl
Gak! It’s Spiderman all over the place. Note this from a NYC press release:
How about they just mail the damn thing to everyone who’s been on unemployment the last year or two.
Fstop
@Waingro: Your comment is an entirely valid point. But Bono’s still a wanker. The music – great. And the Edge is always on a completely different time. Heh.
srv
Southpark did this 3 years ago. Bono is so yesterday.
Fstop
@Cat Lady: MoDo, of course. That would seem so, edgy, to her.
Andre
If Bono doesn’t manage to use the line “How do I shot web?” in at least one song, I’ll be thoroughly disappointed.
JGabriel
@PurpleGirl:
Yeah, I’m kind of curious as to how many of the long-term unemployed they think have an iPhone. Sheesh.
.
chrismealy
@meh: Come on, Andrew Sullivan is bad but he’s not that bad.
Mark S.
I haven’t a clue about the economics of Broadway, but how long of a run do you have to have to recoup $65 million?
Joseph Nobles
Carrie II.
chrismealy
Seriously, how the fuck does Andrew Sullivan get off calling anybody else a poseur?
As for Bono, complaining about a rock star preening is like complaining about professional wrestling’s lack of authenticity.
DougJ
@chrismealy:
Let me know when Keith Richards compares himself to Rilke.
The Dangerman
@Hawes:
Big U2 fan and I think Edge was the main reason for their long-term success; early on, Bono’s energy was off-scale and he was probably lucky to survive all his rig climbing antics without much harm, but U2 is all about the sound that the Edge gets out of his guitars (and out of all the racks and racks of effects).
Now, I’ll say one thing negative about them; I learned they have a keyboard player (he’s a local Dude to my home of San Luis Obispo) that is always kept … offstage … under the stage … wherever, he’s hidden away. I don’t see the reason for not having everyone on stage….
Mark S.
Ya got trouble
Right here in Gotham City
With a capital “T”
That rhymes with “G”
And that stands for Goblin
(Someone’s got to do better than this lame effort)
lol
Want a job? Want to become a costumed crimefighter? Batman Incorporated is now hiring!
The Dangerman
@The Dangerman:
Decided to look him up to give him his deserved Props:
http://www.unfinished-business.org/id5_files/id5.html
Comrade Mary
You want ART? I’ll give you art. Werner Herzog goes speed dating, baby. With Bjork.
Hippie Killer
For being such a “douchenozzle,” Bono sure does a hell of a lot of work to help combat aids in Africa. Just sayin.
fraught
This is why It’s not always so great to be Irish. Every punk thinks he has poetry in his blood.
Julie Taymor must be having acid flashbacks, “man.”
Tying a little tag that says ART around the toe of a gigantic corpse filled with money is just the definition of the word “sellout” that these guys used hurl around everyday as the most egregious insult. It will be a goldmine and a joke and will blight some Broadway theater for decades to come.
mofo
Until one fully appreciates Heidegger’s “Sein und Zeit” (the 1927 ed.), one cannot meaningfully comment on Bono’s mise-en-scene.
Bono, like his nearest antecedent (Antonin Artaud) is signalling us through the flames, trying to show us the way to a truth more transcendent than Spidey, or even Bono qua Bono.
The reaction of many here to Bono’s brave efforts is disheartening, to say the least.
Oh, and I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Oh shit, Gotham City is Batman, not Spiderman. That’s why I could never score a Broadway comic book musical.
Andre
@Hippie Killer:
My doctor does a great job curing illness and disease in my community. Doesn’t mean I want to hear about his opinions on tax policy or trade.
(The irony here is that I trust my doctor to talk about the things he is paid to do, rather than the stuff he does pro bono.)
Andre
Oh, hey, “pro bono”. Didn’t even occur to me until after I pressed post.
Cat Lady
@Andre:
You saw what you did there.
S. cerevisiae
Wait a minute – he raised 65 million for this? A sure fire flop? Holy crap, life imitates Mel Brooks!
“Springtime for Spidey…”
Viva BrisVegas
Since we are into the Yiddish, how did Bono manage to miss the word “schlock”.
mofo
Or “dreck,” for that matter.
Anne Laurie
Yeah, but mostly it’s “Sullivan hyperventilates“, innit?
PurpleGirl
@lol: LOL.
Viva BrisVegas: Very good.
Mofo: Yeah that also works.
BruceFromOhio
Gaia, such angst over a single Irishman. I’ll take pretentious-tries-to-make-world-better over all the other pretentious-not-worth-the-oxygen-consumed that crosses these pages, combined.
U2 fuckin rocks.
PurpleGirl
@JGabriel: I read the whole press release at nyc.gov and wanted to scream. Yes, how many long-term unemployeds have an iPhone? Who buys the Daily News? (I don’t. If they had released this BEFORE they published the comic, I might have considered buying the paper — note: might — but do I want to give my money to that rag these days? Feeling like “I have no mouth but I must scream.”
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
Marvel is now owned by Disney. Steve Jobs is on Disney’s board of directors. Pretty much anything that Disney touches has to have an accompanying app or other Apple product.
Not that it makes it any better, but at least corporate synergy is a rational explanation.
BGinCHI
Anyone here who doesn’t know Julie Taymor’s work and how smart and creative she is should shut the fuck up.
Bono is great but he’s been told that for so long he ain’t got no perspective. So you should expect to hear that kind of tripe.
Hate is cheap.
DougJ
@BGinCHI:
Taymor comes off well here anyway.
Ross Hershberger
Ahem. Bono may be a little over the top* in the ego department but he’s not stupid. I doubt he’d be involved with this if it wasn’t very close to a sure success. Commercially.
*like in orbit.
suzanne
U2 are great, Bono does wonderful work around the world…
…and he still totally reminds me of every trust-fund baby I met in art and architecture school, both the students and the professors.
Levels of navel-gazing, ego-stroking, and self-involvement that I had heretofore never imagined could truly exist.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: She’s a smart lady.
I assume you’ve seen “Titus.” “Across the Universe” and the upcoming “Tempest” plus the B’way “Lion King.”
Solid body of work.
Also maybe Bono was high.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Yes. I was going to point it out if you didn’t figure it out yourself.
I hate Bono. I hate U2. There I said it. (Though, I like the Edge). Shit like this just makes me hate him more.
By the way, this thread is damn funny. I think we should make a Broadway musical out of Balloon Juice. I can guarantee nothing like that has been done before.
Balloon Juice: The Musical. With Cole and his band of front-pagers. And, the animals, of course. Each scene could be one of the threads being acted out. Margaret Cho to play me, please!
P.S. DougJ did say haters only.
jbb
Pushing back the bile in my throat w.r.t. U2/Bono, if Carney (Reeve Carney’s band) ever plays a show near you, GO. Absolutely fantastic live.
BGinCHI
@asiangrrlMN: How old were you when U2’s “War” came out?
Most people I knew who were in their late teens around that time were sure Rush was the best band ever.
U2 was, along with REM and other bands (Replacements, Husker Du, and so on), a very big breath of fresh air. We needed them. Just because they got fat and famous later doesn’t mean they didn’t tear the shit out of it for quite a while.
DFS
Thanks to my occasional job as a transcribing typist for some magazine editors, I once had the opportunity to type up an interview with Bono. About half an hour’s worth. This was a couple years ago.
The man was clearly stoned to the gills. After fifteen seconds of listening to him speak, you could tell for a certainty that he had enough of whatever in him — my guess was prescription downers, maybe weed as well — to tranquilize a Bengal tiger.
Anyway, I suspect that’s the source of some of his more florid pronouncements.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: I never liked them. But then again, I didn’t know much about music until I was out of college (1993). I dig the ‘Mats and Husker Du, though. I’ve just never liked U2’s music, and I’ve always loathed Bono.
Paul
Judging from the article & photos The Thing of Art looks beautifully absurd. I like it already.
Ross Hershberger
Well, if there have to be gigantic arena rock bands it might as well be U2. I’m 51 and a lifelong music fan but they never turned me on. They do project certainty and belief – possibly delusion as well – in what they’re doing.
But why couldn’t it have been Sonic Youth instead?
BGinCHI
@asiangrrlMN: Don’t waste your time on Bono. At least he does charity work.
Now, Pat Boone? Send your loathin’ his way. He’s so completely loathable.
BGinCHI
@Ross Hershberger: I fucking love Kim Gordon.
Sister. What a great record. I’m glad they aren’t famous, but that’s because I’m selfish.
Ross Hershberger
@BGinCHI:
I still have a scar on my eyebrow from a Washing Machine tour show where I was a little too close to the stage & took a Doc to the head from a flailing crowd surfer.
Staff meeting was interesting the next morning with a shiner and ringing ears.
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: True. Though for some reason, Bono bugs me more than Pat Boone does (personally. Not politically). Just completely rubs me the wrong way.
Ross Hershberger
I recall a Klosterman story where he interviews Bono. Bono’s driving a Maserati, and stops to pick up some half-vagrant fans & drives them around for the hell of it. Gives them a lift and autographs. Plays a demo of the new CD and basically makes their year. I believe the man is sincere. Half mad, perhaps, but entirely genuine.
BGinCHI
@Ross Hershberger: There was always a running joke/brag after SY shows that “Kim was checking me out.”
Of course total shite, but a boy could dream.
BGinCHI
@Ross Hershberger: Similar thing with Jonathan Richman. A bit nuts but so goddamn nice and genuine you almost don’t think it’s possible.
Lovely guy.
OK, everyone stop and listen to “Road Runner” and then just marvel. What a great song.
Ross Hershberger
@BGinCHI:
Always that way with female rockers. Joan Wasser, Juliana Hatfield, Angie Hart all turned out to be more interesting from a distance. Tanya Donnelly, on the other hand is an actual goddess.
BGinCHI
@Ross Hershberger: Spot on.
I had an acquaintance with Hatfield for a while when Blake Babies were in Athens, GA for a bunch of shows (the other folks were originally from IN, so there was bonding). She was cute.
Also Exene Cervenka. I was too intimidated to talk to her after a show. What a great fucking band X was.
You ever heard of or seen Salem 66? I was in love with the base player.
baileybaby
A man dies and goes to heaven. Shortly after he arrives an angel gives him a tour. He first sees Janice Joplin, then soon after Jimi Hendrix, then he spies Brian Jones. The man is in awe, but suddenly becomes anxious when he spies on a distant cloud Bono pacing back and forth. “Oh no!” The man exclaims. “I didn’t know Bono was dead.”
“No.” Replies the angel. “That’s God, he thinks he’s Bono!”
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN: Can I have Tina Fey play me? I bear more than a passing resemblance.
BGinCHI
@suzanne: Who’s playing DougJ?
Cole?
I’m thinking Jack Black, but I can’t imagine him being loving to animals (throws dog off bridge in Anchorman).
Thinking Doug is a Timothy Spall kind of role.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Seriously? That means you look a bit like Palin? I find that both hot (Tina Fey) and disturbing (Palin) at the same time.
John Cole played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (Cole himself says there’s a resemblance).
@Yutsano: True. A pale, lesser imitation.
@BGinCHI: DougJ never talks about having any animals…But he’s Irish (I think) American, so, I think of him more like…um…give me a minute.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I am of the opinion Sarah Palin looks like Tina Fey. And not the other way around.
Ross Hershberger
FYWP.
Lost a post. 6 hours of driving tomorrow. Gotta sleep.
Happy Thanksgiving.
RinaX
@chrismealy:
Pretty much. And yes, Bono can be really pretentious, but U2, IMO, has made a lot of great music. I don’t know, I just like him, and it makes me laugh when he says this stuff and go “whatevs, Bono”. Though I enjoy how other people tend to react to it.
asiangrrlMN
@Ross Hershberger: Night! Have a good drive.
BGinCHI
@RinaX: Exactly. It’s only Rock n Roll but we like it.
Now shut up everyone and turn up the music.
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
They came to UCLA before they became well known (early 80’s); of course, I fucked up and did something like study. Another collegiate opportunity missed…
BGinCHI
@The Dangerman: Dude, you could have got out of Westwood and seen them plenty.
Maybe watch Penelope Spheeris’s documentary the Decline of Western Civilization to see what you missed.
(the wife is a UCLA PhD, so no hard feelings)
Joseph Nobles
Hey, this is going to be original music, right? This isn’t, like, U2 songs rewritten with lyrics for Peter Parker and the Green Goblin, right?
You’ve got to get yourself together
You got stuck in your web string
And you can’t get out of it
Or how about:
One man come, he get great pow’r
And great responsibility
It’s not going to be as lame as that, right?
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN: I try to downplay any Palin resemblance. Last time I bought glasses, I asked for hers, which they had in stock. I then selected the most opposite-looking pair I could find. And I’m a curlyhead. And I know that we’re not allies with North Korea. And I know how to say both “refute” and “repudiate”.
The Dangerman
@BGinCHI:
True, but I had to work my ass off to get through UCLA (B.S. Engineering, 84)…
…so a tip of my virtual cap to the Bruin PhD in your Family.
Yutsano
@The Dangerman: Allez le Pac-10! (Wazzu, 2003)
@suzanne: Psst. That includes you two Miss Wildcat. :)
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Well, apparently refudiate is now in the dictionary (somewhere). Ugh. And, I prefer to think of you as Tina Fey who is MUCH hotter, anyway.
Lancelot Link
I wonder if this will be like the Spiderman and Superman rock musicals they did in the mid-70s (ie, sucky)?
“never been done before”, my ass.
The Dangerman
@Yutsano:
Nephew just finished Wazzu, luckily during a down stretch for their Football team (Family bets on Basketball were less successful, as I recall).
Yutsano
@The Dangerman: When I went there, we had a really decent football team and our basketball program couldn’t find its ass with both hands. Right after I finished that suddenly inverted. It was rather bizarre. But kinda cool.
suzanne
@Yutsano: UA, ’02, BFA. ASU, ’10, MArch.
Yutsano
@suzanne: Friend of mine is a grad from Wazzu, is doing her MBA as a Sun Devil. She’s the one I went to Phoenix for cause no way in hell would I miss her getting married. Plus I HAD to get her mom’s reaction. As priceless as I had hoped for.
Allan
This is kind of a basic question, but: singing with a mask on?
MikeJ
@Ross Hershberger:
I’m with you. He may sound insufferable sometimes, but I still find him likable, at least fro a distance. I like the story of when he was granted Freedom of the City of Dublin. These days it’s an honorary thing, like getting the key to the city, but in ye olden days one privilege was grazing your sheep on common greens. Bono brought in a sheep the next day.
James E. Powell
@asiangrrlMN:
I think we should make a Broadway musical out of Balloon Juice.
“Right,” asiangrrlMN said. “And trying to blend the political blog — which is a very American contribution to the world of pompous blather — and animals and excessive alcohol consumption and Broadway into this thing of art that we don’t even have a word for.”
Lysana
@James E. Powell:
With those ingredients, if Sondheim doesn’t write it, we’re screwed.
hhex65
Meh. I’ll hold out for the dramatization of the Bono v Squier fireplace controversy.
Jon H
@DougJ: “The show may be too big a flop for any of that.”
That would virtually guarantee media comparisons to Obama.
Jon H
@JGabriel: “Yeah, I’m kind of curious as to how many of the long-term unemployed they think have an iPhone. Sheesh.”
Presumably they can scrounge someone’s discarded Daily News.
Maody
I stopped reading at Bono’s Blake and Rilke comment, maybe the Ramones… Nah.
I like Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs version of Beautiful Day better than U2’s.
Happy Thanksgiving.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: That may be true, but, give me a break — they are going to put out information about job hunting resources via a comic book downloadable on an iPhone. I wouldn’t have even known about this thing if I hadn’t gone to nyc.gov for some Health Department information. Put up posters on the street where people who don’t have an iPhone will see the information. This looks nice for Marvel/Disney but it doesn’t connect to the people who need it most. Send the press release to all news outlets to announce. Something that will be broad based. My argument is with the City and how they are doing outreach to the unemployed.
PurpleGirl
@Ross Hershberger: Last time I looked prime seats at a Broadway show were north of $120 per.
bjacques
“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” was first. It was based of course on the short story Young Goodman Charlie Brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Brown is grown up and has just married the Little Red-Haired Girl. While walking through the woods one night to the next village, he encounters…the Devil. The Devil leads Brown to a midnight black mass and leads the unholy ritual, speaking, as do all grown up characters, in trumpet sounds: Mwah-wah wah-wah-wah-wah. Everyone he knows is there. For Young Goodman Charlie Brown, this is like a thousand footballs snatched away, all at once.
When the subject of U2 comes up, I like to defer to the great (but not late) Casey Kasem:
“That’s the letter U and the numeral 2. The band includes singer Bono, guitarist Dave Evans, nicknamed “The Edge” and…who cares? These guys are English and who gives a shit? All these names mean diddly-shit!”
Xanthippas
You know, if U2 weren’t so busy writing critically acclaimed music I could almost understand the hate. But there are so many pretentious bad musicians I don’t know why anybody wants to pick on the good ones.
blahblahgurgleblegblah
The letter “U” and the numeral “2”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6gPSSYxex0
Joel Sanoff
And if recent Broadway prices are a clue, you will be able to see and hear the Bono/Taymor brilliance for only $400 for an orchestra ticket.
Maybe its brilliance and insight will reach the level of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or Jersey Boys.
When I was a little boy growing up in NYC, my parents decided it was time to have my mind expanded with my first Broadway visit. We saw Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady. And when I looked at my ticket, I was shocked to see that sitting in the orchestra cost my dad $9.40 a ticket! To think, going to the movies was only thirty-five cents….
DougJ
@BGinCHI:
John Slattery or Michael Rappoport.
BGinCHI
@DougJ: Yeah, both are better dental choices.
I’ll have a word with casting.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: Michael Rapaport is EXACTLY how I picture you!
@James E. Powell: Holy shit you almost made me spew my coffee.
@Lysana: I’m writing it! After many sleepless hours. It’ll be a smash.
P.S. I started this as a joke, but then I started envisioning scenes. ScriptFrenzy month (sister to NaNoWriMo) is April. Hm….Jazz hands, everyone!
Bill Murray
The Sunday Bloody Sunday video of U2 at Red Rocks pretty much changed my musical tastes. Well, i had started listening to The Clash because of my friend Tom’s love for that band, but U2 helped me get rid of the Quiet Riot and Def Leppard LPs, so i thank them for that. But yeah Paul Hewson was pretentious when he started calling himself Bono Vox (good voice?) and success hasn’t really ameliorated that.
SectarianSofa
I’ve always thought u2 was just a reasonably competent, silly band that people took seriously only if they got drunk listening to them at an impressionable age. And while Bono looks stupid as fuck meeting world leaders wearing his asinine sunglasses, I pretty much have given him a pass on the aesthetics for his attempts to get some good stuff done. Pure pragmatism on my part. But this shit is just unforgivable. What an unbelievable wanker. And I had reservations about Taymor before, but goddamn if I ever see any of this stuff without taking up a pretty incredible psychotropic drug habit.
SectarianSofa
@asiangrrlMN:
@James E. Powell:
Brilliant. Thanks.
SectarianSofa
@The Dangerman:
And who the fuck calls themselves The Edge, for more than say, Halloween night? Jesus. Talk about drinking yourself into a corner. Oh, wait, according nearly everyone, calling yourself The Edge is not weird at all. But Pee Wee herman wacking off to a porno movie is.
Also, has anyone else noticed what a stupid fucking holiday Thanksgiving is? It feels like all the suffocating religiosity that was drained out of Christmas by the materialistic heathens got force-fed via tube into Thanksgiving. Shh. Let’s please say a prayer together. The Edge, will you do the honors?
SectarianSofa
@Ross Hershberger:
Hmm. Somewhat tangent-wise, Kristin Hersh was pretty damn awesome when I saw her in a small acoustic venue.
@BGinCHI:
SY isn’t famous? I thought they were kind of famous, though only in college towns.
Nethead Jay
Fuck all the haters here and thanks to those who stood up. Been a U2 fan for close on thirty years, since War, and Bono is an integral part of that. I like @MikeJ’s take on this :)