During U2’s earliest shows in San Francisco, a ritual developed: Bono would lift a child from the crowd onto the stage and prop her on his shoulders. The girl’s name was Megan and I was acquainted with her family; they ran the Psychedelic Shop on Market Street, a remnant of the hippie days and an essential stop on our ‘80s routes as one of the few places in town that sold rock ’n’ roll badges. I haven’t seen Megan or her family for years but she appears at about the forty minute mark in U2’s live set from California Hall, May 15, 1981, just two months after their first San Francisco appearance at the Old Waldorf on March 20.
The band gave small nightclub performances with stadium energy. Their gestures – well at least one member’s – were at once big and grand, generous and self-indulgent, a harbinger of a future self. These were also the things I came to love and not so much love about Bono. In passage over passage in Surrender, Bono’s recently published memoir, the singer knows this about himself – he is a the ultimate showman and a humble servant to the stage. The two extremes come packed with the character traits that make him a frontman: He runs mostly in the red. I think I would have rejected him and the band entirely back then had I not felt like what my generation needed was a rock star of our own- not Bob Dylan or Patti Smith, the Ramones, or the Clash but boys and girls – just like us – who seemed capable of making something happen, of getting something done in the face of a new age of nihilism. The earnest young men of U2 seemed like contenders – a “nice bunch of Christian boys,” as photographer Chester Simpson characterized them. The band fulfilled its promise and then Bono went beyond the call of duty to become the most charitable of rock stars of my generation. His faith is estimable, though he is a man and U2 is a band of contradictions. There is much more to tell. Full story at the the link to Tourworthy.
Filed under: anti-war, Arts and Culture, rock 'n' roll, Bono, books, Ireland, San Francisco news, Songs of Surrender, SOS, Surrender, U2
Denise Sullivan 