More than 700 pages has the memory book of Linkhead of u2which this Monday November 28 he presented at the Teatro Coliseum in Madrid, in one of the stages that the singer has made around the world, where, among other things, the definition that his father gave him appeared: the “baritone that he wanted to be a tenor.”
The presentation took place on a rather bare stage, occupied only by a table and several chairs waiting for three musicians and Paul Hewson, known worldwide as Bono, 62 years old.
In front of the Irishman, from a screen with a “prompter” flowed, sentence by sentence, each of the themes that have marked his existence, with particular impact on the search for a home and the influence of his wife Ali.
Emotion prevailed in the meeting, especially in the story in which the most important events in the musician’s life took place, such as the premature death of his mother, victim of an aneurysm at his grandfather’s funeral. And how her name, Iris, has completely disappeared from his home to silence the pain, even though her presence has begun to appear subconsciously in many songs.
With dad
Then followed the intricate relationship that from that moment he established with his father, an opera singer. “The best way to make someone a stadium rock star is the Irish way: Make your dad ignore you and fight ever since to sing louder and louder for him to hear,” Bono said.
The memory of the meetings that the two had was punctuated by dialogues devoid of real content beyond a sort of cold war full of sarcasm (“the baritone who wanted to be a tenor”, his father called him) but which evolved into something closer to sincerity and pride, largely due to a hilarious encounter with Luciano Pavarotti and Ladi Di.
Because in the midst of tragedy, humor also appears. There the artist presents a perhaps little-known facet of himself in which there is room for self-parody between a huge ego and his supposedly assumed mediocrity: “I was smart enough to realize that I wasn’t smart.”
And, of course, there was no shortage of music. “And they worried about not being understood (in Madrid) by not speaking the same language?” he said satisfied, immediately after interpreting City of blinding lights Y Vertigo.
The event that Bono called started half an hour late due to the complex logistics of sealing the cell phones of all attendees (including Penelope Cruz) in sealed envelopes, the only incident to be reckoned with along with the screams of one of them for allegedly bad “show” acoustics from their seat.
Otherwise, and backed by a band that includes cellist Kate Ellis, singer/keyboardist/vocalist Gemma Doherty, and veteran U2 producer Jacknife Lee on keyboards and percussion, some of the 40 songs Bono adapted to over the his book are reproposed in those two hours of presentation with new arrangements.
“I feel a little bad for doing it, but my colleagues The Edge, Adam and Larry have given me their permission,” he said at the beginning, before performing songs like Where the streets have no name, wish or nice daylinked to their vicissitudes and the career of the band.
In this sense, the moment in which he tells how he was born was particularly highlighted. bloody sunday sunday and because for him this issue, which portrayed the harshness of the deaths of 13 protesters in Derry at the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland, will always have “a special flavour”.
Finally comes the moral. Bono says he was born with clenched fists, as if he were on guard duty. “That’s why giving up, letting go, it’s not easy for me,” he commented, explaining the title of his memoirs: Give up. 40 songs. One Story (Surrender, 40 songs. One Story)a shockwave that made and will make many U2 fans submit once again to the power of their legend and their immortal anthems.
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Source: Clarin
