Neil McCormick is one of the UK’s best known music critics, author of Killing Bono and collaborator in U2 by U2. McCormick went to school with Bono and has lived with U2 as a background to his life, loves them like a family (but like any family, not without reservations).
A few thoughts from Neil McCormick:
- Lived with the band and watched them grow
- Went to Mount Temple Comprehensive School with the boys and was at their very first gig in the Mount Temple gym in 1976 (played Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way,” a Beach Boys medley and a Bay City Rollers medley)
- Bono is the psyche of the band. He drives and moves the band. He thinks constantly and wants to see his ideas come to fruition.
- Edge holds Bono back and brings a sense of realism; he’s a brilliant man who drives the sound of the band.
- Larry is in the band because he likes hitting things; he’s the “brake man” often saying, “No,” moving slowly, a complicated man who plays the simpleton
- Adam is a wandering point, the wild card; he’s very polite and gentlemanly and provides conflict resolution in the band; he wanted the “rock star” role
- The circumstances of the 70s provided the background for
- 1970s
- Poorest country in the western hemisphere
- 90+% white Catholic
- Repressed: no divorce, no homosexuality, no sex, no separation of church and state, primary education was left to priests and nuns, unemployment was high, population of Ireland fell/left, a void in the country, looked down on by Britain, media was censored, The Troubles
- Mount Temple Comprehensive was the only non-denominational school in Dublin, very progressive
Tim - -thanks for these!
FYI, I actually thought I heard Neil say that the "born-again movement" at Mt Temple was seen as a fresh third way *between* the 2 choices of knuckling under to staid establishment Catholicism or rebelling against it -- that its sense of being authentically expressive made it *more* credible (tho not to him.)
Posted by: Beth | October 05, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Thanks Beth. I was actually trying to decipher what he was saying about it. I hope Scott and co. make some audio recordings available; that would be helpful. One of the "take aways" for me from Neil's presentation was that the boys were already attempting to be counter-cultural by not doing what everybody else was doing (i.e. rebelling against the establishment or blindly succumbing to it. Is that a fair assessment? It seems that the band was birthed in hope (as opposed to the anger/angst or apathy of their peers). While I realize there was still plenty of rage related to homes and culture, they were unique in that they were optomists. It's part of their DNA.
Posted by: Tim | October 05, 2009 at 12:09 PM