U2... Baby Jesus Under the Trash

SURMISING U2's UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY - 40TH ANNIVERSARY

Bono Blood Red

40 Years since U2’s Live At Red Rocks; Under A Blood Red Sky video and album. 

U2 releases at the time are so seismic that I have a memory of stopping up Castle Lane, bringing it out of the Caroline Music bag and showing it someone. I have no idea who. 

Never mind my stop in central Belfast, let me try to locate U2 in November 1983. So many younger fans ask when the band made it. For sure it was a slow burn and Joshua Tree was when they went mega BUT they were doing okay in 1983. 

To have a live video and record release, done at the iconic Red Rocks. Live Aid was over 20 months away but U2 already had the following before Bono jumped into the crowd at Wembley. Maybe it was our pre Joshua Tree zeal for the band and the great gift of hindsight but March 1987 was only a confirmation of what we all already recognised would be.

Back to me in Castle Lane. I think the energy of the Red Rocks’ performances, whether listened to or even more watched over and over again on video, gave us the catalogued evidence of U2’s energetic and charismatic sound. Watching Bono with his big black boots and that huge flag marching across the stage with such conviction made more impression on my University student self than just a musical one.

I have often spoken of how The Beatles led me to Jesus, asking the questions that only Jesus could ultimately answer. U2 arrived to carry me along as I worked through those answers.

The Christian spirituality had not yet been veiled by their unease with American fundamentalism. Here were boys of my age expressing the early raw vitality of discovering Jesus and starting out to work through those answers. 

Many years later I would be asked on live radio what my walk on song was. You know like boxers going into the ring have their anthem, what would I like playing as I entered the Church to preach. There was no dead air after the question. My immediate response was Gloria by U2. The Gloria I was thinking about was this live one for sure. Like the one I had actually experienced at my first U2 concert in Belfast’s Maysfield Hall just seven months before Red Rocks.

The other thing for Stockman in 1983 is that my faith is beginning to look out. U2 too were more objective on War than the subjectivity of October. The inner soul was beginning to meet the outer world.

As U2 looked out and unrolled their musical canvas that would take on Japan and America on their next record, Unforgettable Fire, this was a moment when their music was firing my Kingdom come imagination. The fuel for personal and social transformation was flooding through my system by the urgency of these performances. 


U2'S SPHERE - UTTERLY AMAZING & A LITTLE BIT SAD

Sphere 2

photo: Jeremy Skillen

 

So The Sphere is open and U2 have had their first weekend within it. Anything that can be seen looks as mind blowing as we imagined it would be. U2 ahead of the game. There is nothing new there.

Indeed if they are celebrating Achtung Baby, that the entire first third of the gig concentrates on, then it had to take us somewhere new. The difference between U2 at the end of 1989 when they finished the decade with a residency at the Point Theatre in Dublin and what happened on the Zoo TV tour in 1992 was seismic. 

I remember being privileged, because Janice stood for hours to get surprise tickets, to be in Earl’s Court when Zoo Station stuttered to a start and the TV screens flickered and lit up all over the stage. It was a visual bombardment. Where to look? It was full of surprise. The future!

So, to celebrate 30 years of that there was only one way - go even bigger. Do Zoo TV as it could be done 2023. Surprise again. Open yet another door to the future.

So, as I wrote in an earlier blog I can understand U2 wanting to explore the potential of this new Sphere, once they had discovered it. With the visual member of U2, Willie Williams, these guys have always been about pioneering all the possibilities of the live concert. “We would be mad not to”, was Bono’s response to the discovery.

And so this weekend I have watched as friends have been and seen it. I myself have watched whatever videos I could find. It has to be said that small short phone video footage has not be very successful at sharing the magnitude of the Sphere’s artistic impact but they give hints and clues.

And it all looks mind blowing, stretching what can be achieved. If The Beatles made the studio an instrument in 1966 then U2 have made the theatre an instrument too. As I have been saying for years, U2 live is theatrical and cinematic as well as musical.

This is art on the cutting edge of now. U2 win again in pushing their imaginations forward. The adventurers have taken us somewhere new. A band in their 60s on the cusp of now.

“Are you going?” I have been asked a good few times this past week. I had never even thought about it. As soon as it was announced I felt that The Sphere was too far away from me. I mean Las Vegas is an £1000 flight. For one gig? I didn’t even consider it.

Then this past week I have heard off so many friends going from all corners of America and even here in Ireland. I am so excited for them. I actually thought about it. Then I checked a ticket price. $400 for the cheap seats! After the £1000 flight? Come on. Rock concerts have been pushing prices too high. For quite a while but this is extortionate.

It was then that I realised that U2 have every right to push the envelope of what their music can achieve. It is great that they have hit the baseball out of the park. However, the Sphere has caused a crucial movement in the rock music fault lines. This artistic earthquake has broken the fan base in two, maybe three. Maybe £100 was already to much for many fans.

Now there are those who can afford to see U2 and those who could never financially dream of it. The Sphere is for the rich and those willing to delve into savings or have their trip of a lifetime. 

A band who go back to the miracle of Joey Ramone and The Clash are so far removed from the values of punk rock that I can no longer be the fan who can see them live. I am among a huge percentage of the fan base who cannot afford to go to a live show.

This is not an opinion. This is just a fact. When The Beatles pushed the musical envelope in 1967, Strawberry Fields and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band could still be bought by the ordinary fan. With The Sphere the ordinary U2 fan are left looking at phone videos and wishing. 

My opinion or surmise in conclusion is written with some sadness. I would like to see U2. They have locked me out by my lack of wealth. U2 have always been wrapped up with commerce and never hidden the fact that their work is a business but there has also been a spiritual communal aspect. With the Sphere that seems well and truly lost.

So, well done. You guys reinvented it yet again. I’ll have to come to terms with never getting to see it, feeling a little un-needed, left behind because I am not wealthy.


25 YEARS SINCE WE VOTED YES - I AM STILL COMMITTED!

22.5.23 - Hume

There was a lot of talk about the Good Friday Agreement a few weeks ago. Maybe too much talk. For me the more important day was May 22nd 1998. This was the day that the people of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would vote on the agreement. A Referendum on whether we agreed or disagreed with our politicians.

Leading up to the vote, some of the anti-agreement parties had been trying to convince the people that this was a sell-out to terrorism and to vote no. Some of the strongest arguments came from evangelical Christians who supposedly followed a Bible that teaches them “to make every effort to live at peace with all men” (Heb. 12:14) and to “love their enemies and do good to those who persecute you” (Luke 6:27, 28).

Things were touch and go as to how the Referendum might go when something significant happened. Two young men Conal McDevitt and David Kerr worked for the two major political leaders John Hume and David Trimble. They came up with a cunning imaginative and ambitious idea, a last minute grab for the media headlines. 

What if U2 and Northern Irish band Ash did a concert for peace in Belfast. It was quickly brought together and one of the most iconic photographs of that peace process is Bono holding up the hands of Hume and Trimble, much like Bob Marley did with Jamaican politicians Michael Manley and opponent Edward Seaga in 1978.  

I remember sitting at home watching the news and and suddenly the tears were tripping me. On my TV screen being beamed across the world was Bono, Hume and Trimble. It this tangible hope. 

On May 22nd 94% in the Republic of Ireland and 71% in Northern Ireland voted for that Agreement. In her balanced and informative book Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Susan McKay describes the two men holding Bono’s hands: “They looked awkward, but it was a winning gesture which had revived a floundering campaign.” 

I think back on that night today. It is hard to not conclude that the 29% who voted against it then is still the 29% holding us back now. Yet, how we have moved forward. Northern Ireland in most places is different than it was 25 years ago today. We need to build on that peace. It needs to be more than political it needs to become societal. 

We also need to invest in education and jobs in the difficult working class areas that will feel left behind in what other might call a peace dividend. We need to build on the prosperity of the entire country. 

So let us stay committed to that decision we made. No one said that it would be easy. Many had to give up their hopes of justice as well as the heartache of murdered loved ones. Political positions had to be compromised. Some lost their political careers. Peace on an island at conflict for centuries didn’t come cheap or easy.

I commit to that mark I made.


A TRIBUTE TO WINNIE ROWEN (20.4.34 - 10.3.23)

Winnie

I was so sorry to hear of the death of Winnie Rowen. It was just over a year ago that I wrote this now edited tribute to her husband Robert at the time of his death.  

Janice and I first met Winnie at a couple of Scripture Union Family Camps that I spoke at at Ovoca Manor in County Wicklow. She was so lovely. So gentle. So loved by all of her children and grandchildren and... Janice and I quickly fell in love with her gentle presence and smile.

Of course I was always in awe of her for other reasons. Winnie lived what seems like a pretty anonymous life in the Dublin suburbs but because she took the Scriptures seriously and loved her neighbour she in many ways blessed the entire world.

Winnie along with Robert had 10 children! As if 10 were not enough, when the wee boy across Cedarwood Road lost his mother, the Rowens took him in.

The wee boy across the road in number 10 was Paul Hewson, later known as Bono. He became best friend with Derek Rowen, better known as Guggi who became the main focus of two U2 songs - One and Cedarwood Road. 

Other Rowens became part of the story of the wee boy’s rock band. U2’s first album Boy and indeed their third album War had Peter Rowen's face on the covers. Peter went on to be a photographer himself and the band have used some of his photos.

Guggi wasn't the only brother with two U2 songs written about him. Both Bad and Raised By Wolves were written about Andy Rowen,who got caught up in UVF bombs in Dublin while out delivering with his dad, Robert. Read Andy's amazing story here

Anyway, it was Winnie and Robert who introduced Bono to Christian meetings. The Rowens were from the conservative Brethren and Robert was a stern, at times over stern disciplinarian. Winnie was his quiet, soft hearted yet stoic partner.

The Rowens reminded me of Andrew in the New Testament Gospels. It was Andrew who introduced his brother Peter to Jesus. Peter became the one with the widest influence but Andrew was the “gateway to the sun” as Bono sings of Robert's cherry blossom tree in the song Cedarwood Road!

I am always inspired by the very ordinary but tangible everyday way that Winnie and Robert loved their neighbour has changed millions of lives around the world. Quite an example to us all! 

In the sleeve notes to Songs Of Innocence, an album about U2’s childhoods. Bono mentions the Rowens from number 5. He calls them an “Old Testament tribe.” He is so right. I have had the privilege of getting to know some of this family. I think I once made a plea to be adopted as a 60 year old brother! They are Old Testament in size and their deep roots of faith and the drama of their lives. 

As well as Guggi’s friendship for life, Bono got so much more from Winnie and Robert. In the liner notes of Songs Of Innocence Bono writes about those Christian meetings with the tribe! 

He writes, “In their company I saw some great preachers who opened up these scary black bibles and made the word of God dance for them, and us.” In Cedarwood Road he sings, “Cymbals clashing, Bibles smashing/Paints the world you need to see.”

Brushing Lou Reed and the Rowen family together, Bono concludes, “Lou Reed, God rest his soul, said you need a busload of faith to get by. That bus was full of Rowens and I was on it.”

A few years after the Scripture Union camps I did one of my Gospel According To...U2 nights in Crinken Parish in Bray. A clatter of the Tribe, including Winnie and Robert showed up. Jonny Rowen actually sang for me that evening. I was nervous as I shared about the songs Cedarwood Road and Raised By Wolves. If anyone could shout, “Rubbish, he’s making it up” it was Winnie and Robert.

Afterwards I sat for a time with Winnie before moving on to Robert. We had a good yarn and then he says, “You know I took Bono to Bible Clubs!” Yes I do Robert. You’re the reason so much theology got out across rock music. Even after I’d preached his successful ‘Love thy neighbour’ he was still too humble to let it sink in.

People often ask me what I spoke about the short few minutes that I had with Bono after one of the Belfast gigs on the Songs Of Innocence Tour. The answer is the Rowen family, specifically Robert, Winnie and Andy.

So, once again I send my love to all those wonderful Rowens as you mourn the loss of the matriarch of your family. Janice and I grieve Winnie's loss with you. May Jesus be proved right when he called the Holy Spirit a Comforter. 

Winnie, thank you for how kind you were to us and for how kind you were to that boy from across the road. The Lord used you to be the catalyst of so many engaging with Jesus.


U2 LIVE IN LAS VEGAS - I SURMISE

U2-Sphere

 

EDGE: So, are we doing this

BONO: Ach, we would be mad not to

 

U2 doing a residency in Las Vegas. What? Does that mean they have finally become old and in age and art? Or is it a rite of passage giving them legendary status among the greats like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra? Good surmises?

My first thoughts, when I heard the news, was that they would get slated for being outdated. It would be seen as a sell out. Money had finally won over art. 

I don’t think so. The Vegas stigma is misleading. I bought a box set at Christmas - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Live at The Fillmore. At the beginning of 1997 The Heartbreakers did a 20 date residency at the Fillmore. The album consisted of all the best bits and they are so good! If U2 had chosen the Fillmore would there be the same slur.

Live music in Las Vegas might also have had an underserved bad name. It maybe has that Cadillac Ranch feel. Old relics of cars in the desert. Beautiful but outdated! Yet, Lady Gaga, Adele and Usher are all at it. 

It makes sense. Instead of carting 100 articulated trucks across America and setting up a massive stage in every city, why not have the crowd come to you. One venue. Always there. It is eco friendly as well as much easier on the 60 year old U2 band members. No travel. 

However, beyond that in U2’s case is their desire not to be old and out dated but to be ahead of the creative curve. It seems that in Las Vegas exists a thing called the MSG Sphere. It sounds like a futuristic venue that can give an immersive visual experience as well as the best sound imaginable. 

Now, that has U2 written all over it. Since Achtung Baby was released in 1991 and went on a stage called first ZooTV and later Zooropa U2’s visual innovator Willie Williams has been attempting all kinds of visual and audio inventions. Here’s something brand new to play with. Nobody better.

It’s why in that Super Bowl advertisement Bono states; “we would mad not to.” For U2 this is a possibility that is too tempting.

Doing it without Larry Mullen Jr is another surmise. Larry is having surgery on 50 years of drumming wear and tear. My take is that this idea has been bubbling under for so long that Larry’s surgery is just badly timed. He is not retiring but getting himself well enough to play again. It is unfortunate but this band has been on the whole very fortunate. It will seem strange but strange it will have to be.

So, American fans can fly down and see and hear this imaginative celebration of Achtung Baby. It’s a long way from Belfast, so I am glad that that Super Bowl advertisement started in Carrickfergus with Seamus Doherty. How good it would be if the next venture was replicating the MSG Sphere in Dublin. Much closer. Much more cred. Vegas will be very expensive.


BONO - SURRENDER; 40 Songs, One Story

Bono Book 1

Bono’s memoir came up in Church. “The problem with Bono,” I suggested, “is that having written a book about him I know more about him than he knows. When I met him I kind of finished his sentences”. “Ah”, replied Alison, “you know the facts but do you know the feelings.”

I laughed and the next day opened Surrender; 40 Songs. One Story where under the chapter headings of 40 U2 songs Bono takes us through his entire life, in a beautifully written poetic prose. It realise magnificently written. Bono might have an even better flair for prose than song lyrics. 

The title had me concerned. I feared a cheap explanation of a clatter of songs. I am delighted to confess how wrong I was. This is broad and deep and high in the memories of a life. In the end the songs give chapter headings, little hangers for Bono to set up his journey, pilgrimage he calls it. Though a general chronological trajectory he does shift back and forward, subject rather than dateline dominated.

Paul Hewson, as Bono was born, has lived quite the life. He is born into an ordinary family in a very ordinary street in Dublin. He loses his mother as a teenager at his grandfather’s funeral. Then, at a cross denominational school in Dublin he meets his future wife. The same week, in the same place, he joins a band. He later becomes friends with super models, American and Russian Presidents, tackles cancelling the debts of African countries, the AIDS pandemic and stands between national and unionist politicians in winning a Peace Agreement in Northern Ireland. He also finds himself pushing his family under a restaurant table during a terrorist attack in Nice just weeks after U2 were rehearsing in another part of Paris during the 2015 Paris attacks.

That is all happening around the fact that that band that he joined as teenager became the biggest rock band on earth making iconic records for four decades and changing the face of what is expected from a live rock show.

Of course I knew all of these facts but my friend Alison was right. I didn’t know the feelings and from the opening pages I was surprised by how Bono wears his heart on his sleeve. Surrender begins with Bono on an operating table in Mount Sinai Hospital in 2016 as a surgeon pulls his chest apart to fix an eccentric heart. It’s raw. 

On it goes. Of course I knew the facts of his mother’s death and his struggles living in 10 Cedarwood Road with his father and brother Norman but the depth of his heartache. I also knew about his dependence of Ali his wife but their early kisses at bus stops; his emotional lack of parental loss getting balanced by the woman who has been his rock.

As well as his heart, Bono lets us into his soul.  That might be what has most kept my interest in U2 down all these years. The book is peppered with testimony, Bible stories and quotations. He ends a chapter with a verse from St. Paul. In the middle of a discussion about capitalism he quotes Jesus. He cannot not! 

Two stories gave me the feeling of Bono’s depth of faith. In the first he tells us of having voice problems and anxiety is likely the cause. He does something he has never done. He goes to a hypnotist who asks him to imagine a room of happy and safe memories. When asked to open a drawer and pick out the best memory Bono finds himself walking by a river with his best friend. “Who?” asks the hypnotist. “Jesus”, Bono answers.

In the other Bono entire family are by the River Jordan and go for a swim. Bono writes - “The symbol of baptism is about submerging into your death in order to emerge into new life, a powerful poetry, and I’m a fortunate man to have a family of foolish pilgrims who will follow me into this symbolism.” 

Bono’s early faith was nurtured in the Shalom fellowship, one of so many house groups that popped up at the time of a charismatic movement that swept the world in the late 70s. It was full of spiritual energy but lacked in wise leadership.

There was no shortage of naivety. I smiled at the story where Bono takes Ali to London and has no money, expecting God to supply. The same naivety though almost costs us U2, all those records and all Bono’s phenomenal justice campaigning. 

Initially seeing U2 as a missional arm to the youth Shalom turned on the band and suggested rock music wasn’t a healthy place for young believers.

Under such influence, Edge left the band. Telling their manager Paul McGinness of their decision he played along to their piety and asked if God would be happy for his followers to not fulfil contracts. The break up was off. A vocation survived and a vocation is what Bono believes he has. 

It is frightening to surmise the amount of things that the world would have missed had they listened to their pastor in Shalom and given up music. Pastors… be careful.

It might be as a result of the Shalom experience that has Bono questioning institutional Christianity. He seems to prefer sitting alone in Churches than being part of communities with Creeds and leaders who might lead badly.

He doesn’t hold back. He writes about how, “at times religion can be the biggest obstacle in your path” and how Christianity seems to have become “the enemy of the radical Jesus”. He also mentions “The Bible belt and its unchristian undertow leaving welts on the bare bottoms of unbelievers.” I did say poetic!

I read someone suggesting that this is the best ever rock memoir. I half agree. It is a fascinating diving deep into the feelings of being in a rock band’s rise to the top. There might not be a book that better expresses how bands begin and develop. It gives great insight into the democracy of U2. Bono shares lessons learned in the music business and how import their manager Paul McGinness was. As to how music comes together in a. Studio or on a stage it is very good. 

However, if the reader is looking for what the cliché states as Sex and Drugs and Rock ’n Roll then they will be very disappointed. This is a book about one man’s relationships with A Girl, God and a Rock N Roll Band… and how through those relationships that have each lasted almost 50 years he has found romantic companionship, musical comradeship and spiritual meaning; salvation in every corner of his brokenness. This is a testimony of the feelings of all of these. 

5 STARS!


BONO ON DESERT ISLAND DISCS - MY SURMISE

Bono Desert Island Discs

Bono on Desert Island Discs (June 26, 2022) was a beautiful radio show. 

He has that lazy north Dublin brogue. His deliberate diction has almost a poetic and sage-like authority, probably more poetic and sage-like than he actually is.

Bono’s honesty would probably have him agree with me. He doesn’t hide away from confessing his weaknesses laughing at his annoying gene. He is then honest about U2 and his part in it, even their tax decisions. 

He is even better when he opens up vulnerably about family, faith, his dad and the long secret of of a step son! Then there is his love and dependence on his wife Ali. His openness is always so refreshing. 

His choice of songs was very interesting. An Opera for his dad, Ali’s night time song of joy from Angelique Kidjo and his son’s very own song with his own band Inhaler suggests that Bono is without doubt a family man as well as rock ’n roll front man and activist.

Spiritually I was intrigued by the old hymn Abide With Me. I was even more fascinated at how he had sung Peter Frampton’s Show Me The Way at U2’s earliest gig. The nerd that I am knew he had but I hadn’t know why. I hadn’t seen it as the prayer that Bono made it for his teenage self:

 

Who can I believe in?

I'm kneeling on the floor

There has to be a force

Who do I phone?

The stars are out and shining

But all I really wanna know

 

Oh, won't you show me the way, yeah

I want you to show me the way

 

Of course! How I’ve been using music prayerfully since my own teens.

Best of all for me was his choice of Bob Dylan’s Every Grain Of Sand. I’ve also loved this song since the very first time I heard it. For me it is Dylan’s finest moment poetically and easily the best song he wrote in his Christian trilogy of albums between 1979 and 1981.

Bono speaks about stopping in to St Paul’s Cathedral on his way to the interview and seeing William Blake’s most famous lines on the wall:

 

To see a World in a grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour 

 

Bono suggests that Dylan must have had this in his mind as he wrote Every Grain Of Sand. 

 

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.”

 

I had narrowly locked this inspiration into “the every sparrow falling” line of Jesus from Luke 10 but Bono’s observation widens the lens. 

In the end this is the song that Bono wants on his Desert Island. I can understand. It is an encompassing song of the inner life and spiritual pilgrimage. We all need to confess our mistakes and admit our hanging in the balance of faith and life. From there all we can is trust. Every Grain Of Sand is hymn-like in its use of language and image:

 

“Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

 

Great choice. Great show.


U2: A CELEBRATION

Celebration U2

In October 1981 I used birthday gift record tokens to buy U2’sOctober album. Someone told me that they were Christians. I remember putting the needle down on the opening song Gloria and… BOOM!

By the time they released the 7” single A Celebration in March 1982 U2 were my band.  I loved the energy and exhilaration of their sound BUT beyond that they really did articulate something of my relatively new Christian faith. That a rock band could do that. My spiritual life had a soundtrack. A soundtrack that would travel with me through the rest of my life. I had found companions for the road.

A Celebration could feel rather hard done by. It has been, it would seem intentionally, hidden away in the annals. It’s first release on CD was 27 years later on the extra disc with the deluxe remastered October album. Even there it is hidden at track 9. In the sleeved notes Edge calls it “our attempt at a stop gap single”. He goes on, “It’s a little fraught, and shows the signs of being put together in the middle of a touring cycle.” 

I am not going to debate the songwriting or recording technique qualities  of A Celebration. Regardless, I will always love it for what it was at that stage of their career. It is the link, musically and spiritually between October and the band’s third album War. 

October was all personal spiritual ecstasy, almost worship. War was a band of young men, three of them Christians, trying to make sense of the world outside their home city and indeed fellowship group. They were starting to caress and collide their faith and the world.

Here on A Celebration they are still celebrating the liberation of Christ, as seen in the video that was filmed at Dublin’s famous Kilmainham Gaol. They are still invoking prayer and praise to the transcendent but they are now becoming aware of world wars and atomic bombs. Yes, the lyrics are a little generic in this “stop gap”song but they are taking more shape than the articulate speech in Bono’s heart on October

Author Philip Yancey, now a friend of the band, once described Christian growth from a verse in Isaiah 40 (v31),

They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

Yancey points out how this seems to be the wrong way round. Should we not walk first? Yancey suggests that the early days of Christian faith is full of idealistic naivety. We believe we can make the world perfect overnight. We fly out of the blocks. Yet, later we watch friends get sick and die, we watch the TV news and realise that despite our faith all is not well with the world. We land with a thud. We are still running but later we are even walking because this faith journey is tough.

The repetition of  “I believe” in Celebration sounds like John Lennon’s song God, from his Plastic Ono Band album, where the Beatle sings about what he doesn’t believe in (including Beatlesactually!).  U2 would further develop this responsive conversation with the late Lennon on Rattle And Hum’s God Part 2

It doesn’t seem too contrived, to rush up the road and five years hear… “I believe in the kingdom come… but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

A Celebration is the perfect hinge between the flying and running in the spiritual life and U2’s next few records, maybe their entire career, would continue to live out Yancey’s commentary on Isaiah 40… a verse U2 would actually use on Drowning Man, a song on that next record War.


ROBERT ROWEN - A TRIBUTE

Robert and Winnie

I am so sorry to hear of the passing of Robert Rowen. Robert lived what seems like a pretty anonymous life in the Dublin suburbs but because he took the Scriptures seriously and loved his neighbour he in many ways blessed the entire world.

Robert and his wife Winnie had 10 children! As if 10 were not enough, when the wee boy across Cedarwood Road lost his mother, the Rowens took him in.

The wee boy across the road in number 10 was Paul Hewson, later known as Bono. He became best friend with Derek Rowen, better known as Guggi who became the main focus of two U2 songs - One and Cedarwood Road. 

Other Rowens became part of the story of the wee boy’s rock band. U2’s first album Boy and indeed their third album War had Peter Rowen's face on the covers. Peter went on to be a photographer himself and the band have used some of his photos.

Guggi wasn't the only brother with two U2 songs written about him. Both Bad and Raised By Wolves were written about Andy Rowen, who got caught up in UVF bombs in Dublin while out delivering with his dad, Robert. Read Andy's amazing story here

Anyway, it was Robert and Winnie who took Bono to Christian meetings. The Rowens were from the conservative Brethren and Robert was a stern, at times over stern disciplinarian.

Robert reminds me of Andrew in the New Testament Gospels. It was Andrew who introduced his brother Peter to Jesus. Peter became the one with the widest influence but Andrew was the “gateway to the sun” as Bono sings of Robert's cherry blossom tree in the song Cedarwood Road!

I am always inspired by the very ordinary but tangible everyday way that Robert and Winnie Rowen loved their neighbour has changed millions of lives around the world. Quite an example to us all! 

In the sleeve notes to Songs Of Innocence, an album about U2’s childhoods. Bono mentions the Rowens from number 5. He calls them an “Old Testament tribe.” He is so right. I have had the privilege of getting to know some of this family. I think I once made a plea to be adopted as a 60 year old brother! They are Old Testament in size and their deep roots of faith and the drama of their lives. 

As well as Guggi’s friendship for life, Bono got so much more from Robert and Winnie Rowen. In the liner notes of Songs Of Innocence Bono writes about those Christian meetings with the tribe! 

He writes, “In their company I saw some great preachers who opened up these scary black bibles and made the word of God dance for them, and us.” In Cedarwood Road he sings, “Cymbals clashing, Bibles smashing/Paints the world you need to see.”

Brushing Lou Reed and the Rowen family together, Bono concludes, “Lou Reed, God rest his soul, said you need a busload of faith to get by. That bus was full of Rowens and I was on it.”

Robert and Winnie with other members of the Tribe came to an event I was doing in Dublin at the time of Songs Of Innocence. Another brother Jonny was singing for me at the event. 

I was nervous as I shared the family’s story in front of them. If anyone could shout, “Rubbish, he’s making it up” it was them. Afterwards I sat for a time with Robert. We had a good yarn and then he says, “You know I took Bono to Bible Clubs!” Yes I do Robert. You’re the reason so much theology got out across rock music. Even after I’d preached his successful ‘Love thy neighbour’ he was still too humble to let it sink in.

People often ask me what I spoke about the short few minutes that I had with Bono after one of the Belfast gigs on the Songs Of Innocence Tour. The answer is the Rowen family, specifically Robert, Winnie and Andy.

To Winnie particularly we send our love and prayers today. May Jesus be proved right when he called the Holy Spirit a Comforter. To all the brothers and sisters that I know and those I don’t plus grandchildren and great grandchildren, may God bless each one of you with peace beyond understanding. Robert Rowen stood firm until the end.

Thank you sir…


STOCKI DEFENDS BONO AGAINST BONO

Bono 5

I was not surprised or shocked by Bono suggesting in a recent podcast that he hates his voice and that he turns the radio off when U2 songs come on. This is nothing new. Bono has been talking about his voice for years and about how he had to learn how to sing over decades. 

As for songs, the band talked a lot around the time of Songs Of Innocence about trying to write songs. They released 5 of the songs on that record in acoustic form. I think that was to highlight their sing-ability. I have often said that Every Breaking Wave off that record was their most perfectly constructed song. Song For Someone that morphed into 13 (There Is a Light) on Songs Of Experience is very much another song. Songs. 40 years into their career!

In all honesty I can kind of understand Bono's critique. 

I mean if I think melodies that can fill radio shows I am thinking The Beatles. So catchy that my children were singing a long from a very early age. They didn't get into U2 so quickly. In fact it was Songs Of Innocence before I heard my daughters paying any attention to U2.

If I think poetic lyrics I am thinking Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell or maybe Jackson Browne. U2 worked on wordy sketches in their early years. They lost the lyrics for October and felt Pop was lyrically rushed.

If I think about best rock voices I am thinking Rod Stewart around 1972 or in a contemporary sense Hozier. Bono was a front man before he learned to be the singer! I don't talk about his voice in the early gigs as much as I talk about him climbing up amplifiers!

So, I can get where Bono is coming from. Their best work has been about experimental soundscapes and creating anthemic atmospheres. My 40 years fandom with U2 has not been so much with songs or vocal accomplishment as theological content and spiritual experience.

My first listen to a new U2 record is always about content. I am always listening for what they are trying to say. As what is called a Theo-musicologist I am listening for spiritual nuggets and prophetic statements. No one else has ever contributed God into the rock song conversation like U2. I love that they took a Gospel song to number 1 in the US charts:

"You broke the bonds/Loosed the chains/Carried the cross and my shame/ You know I believe it..."

To be fair that's a theologically succinct lyric and when the choir were added on Rattle And Hum it was quite the song! 

Similarly live, they create this spiritual energy. I remember standing at Croke Park as the band played Moment Of Surrender and Bono stands centre stage with his hands open and eyes to the sky and the hairs on the back of my soul are standing to attention.

Bono should get over his weaknesses and stand over his strengths. I am imagining he knows!

There is something maybe even more significant about Bono hating his songs and his voice. It is typically self deprecating. That I say 'typically' might surprise people. Many people have an opinion of Bono that he is arrogant and egotistical. I believe such an opinion to be lazing and founded upon caricatures, never minding missing the irony at work in U2.

When Bono put on a gold lame suit and preened himself in front of the mirror he wasn't being egotistical. He was being ironic, pointing out the ridiculousness of the rock star. In some of those songs that he might not like he is constantly talking about the trouble with a big mouth or that his wife is the best thing about him. Bono comes across arrogant but has always held a humility alongside it.