U2 formed in Dublin in the fall of 1976 after 14-year-old Larry Mullen, Jr. posted a note on the bulletin board at his high school seeking musicians for a new band. From the group of hopefuls that showed up at Mullen's home that first day, a 5-piece known originally as "Feedback" formed with Mullen (born October 31, 1961) on drums, Adam Clayton (born March 13, 1960) on bass, Paul Hewson (later nicknamed "Bono Vox" and eventually just "Bono", born May 10, 1960) on vocals, and Dave Evans (later nicknamed "The Edge", born August 8, 1961) on guitar. Dave's brother Dick also played guitar for a while, but left Feedback very early on to join another Dublin band.
Feedback quickly changed their name to "The Hype," and began rehearsing on weekends and after school as often as possible, forming genuine friendships and developing an undeniable chemistry in the process. After nearly 18 months of rehearsing, the band's big break came at a talent show in Limerick, Ireland, in March, 1978. With CBS Records' Jackie Hayden judging, U2 (they had just changed their name again) won the contest, earning a £500 prize and impressing Hayden enough to be given studio time to record their first demo.
Shortly after the talent show contest, the band convinced a Dublin businessman named Paul McGuinness to manage them. Now out of school, the band played as many shows as possible in and around Dublin, trying to build up a local fan base. In September, 1979, U2 released its first single, an Irish-only release called U2:3 which topped the national charts. In December of that year, U2 traveled to London for its first shows outside Ireland, but struggled to get attention from music fans and critics. After continuing to build a large following inside Ireland, and after the success of a second Irish-only single, Island Records signed U2 to its first international contract in March, 1980. The first album to come from that agreement was Boy, released in October of that year. The album offered a fresh, new sound that earned rave reviews in both the Irish and UK press. Bono's lyrics tackled subjects like faith, spirituality, and death -- subjects generally avoided by even the most seasoned rock acts. U2's first tour outside the UK helped develop new fan bases in other parts of Europe and in the United States, where strong club shows helped propel Boy briefly onto the U.S. album charts.
Of the four band members, only Adam Clayton wasn't an admitted Christian. Bono, The Edge, and Larry joined a religious group in Dublin called Shalom, which led all three to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle. After nearly throwing in the towel on U2, they decided it was possible to reconcile the two and continue making music without shedding their personal beliefs. But the band's confusion led to an unfocused record: October sold relatively well on the growing strength of U2's name, but failed to yield the hit single many in the industry expected.
That changed in 1983, with the release of War, U2's third album. An all-out attack against the keyboard- and drum machine-based songs that made up the song and album charts, War featured the band's most aggressive songwriting to date in both music and lyrics. For the first time, Bono addressed the long-standing "troubles" in Northern Ireland with the song "Sunday, Bloody Sunday." Fearful to be seen as taking one side over another, he insisted on introducing the song during concerts by saying "This is NOT a rebel song!", and wrapped himself in a white flag while he sang it, to symbolize the song's call for peace. The album's first single, "New Year's Day," was U2's first legitimate hit single, reaching the #10 spot on the UK charts and almost cracking the Top 50 in the U.S. MTV put the song's video into heavy rotation, and helped introduce U2 to a new audience of fans. Tours that supported the War album in the U.S. and Europe included sold out shows at many stops. The band captured this era with the Under a Blood Red Sky mini-album and video, which also received heavy airplay on MTV and other TV channels in Europe, and only served to add to U2's reputation as a top-notch live act. The success of War and Under a Blood Red Sky allowed U2 to renegotiate their record deal with Island Records, and the band gained more creative control and financial rewards for the future.
1984's The Unforgettable Fire -- named for a series of paintings drawn by survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- introduced the world to a new U2, a more experimental and unfocused U2. Gone was the aggression of War, but the band's social and political messages stayed alive in songs such as "Pride (In the Name of Love)," which was written for Martin Luther King, Jr., and the mesmerizing "Bad", written in response to the struggles Bono's friends had with drugs in Dublin. While "Bad" quickly became a highlight of the band's live set, it was "Pride" that took U2 up another rung on the charts. The single cracked the UK Top 5 and the U.S. Top 50. The tour that supported The Unforgettable Fire saw U2 expanding its itinerary to more countries than ever before, and saw them playing to sold out sports arenas in the U.S. for the first time. Rolling Stone magazine named U2 its "Band of the 80s," suggesting that "for a growing number of rock-and-roll fans, U2 has become the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters."
With four years of nearly constant recording and touring behind them, and with album and single sales increasing with each release, U2 was poised for international stardom in the mid-1980s. They earned it with a pair of charitable live shows. The Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine relief in July, 1985, was seen by more than a billion people worldwide. Not expected to be one of the main draws, U2 stole the show with a relentless 13-minute version of "Bad" in which Bono jumped down into the Wembley Stadium crowd to dance with a fan. That performance helped earn U2 the headlining spot on 1986's "Conspiracy of Hope" tour for Amnesty International. This 6-show caravan across the U.S. played to sold out arenas and stadiums, and helped Amnesty International triple its membership in the process. It also solidified U2's spot as international stars on the verge of greatness. Greatness arrived in 1987, with the release of U2's 5th studio album, The Joshua Tree. U2 had delivered a record that caught them at their musical and lyrical peak, finally comfortable with the "rock band with a conscience" label they first encountered with the War album four years earlier. In the spiritual and moral desert that had become the U.S. of the mid-1980s, U2 stood out by bringing meaning and passion to its music. Bono tackled his contradictory feelings about America in "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "In God's Country." Biblical images showed up throughout the record as Bono questioned faith, social injustices, governmental oppression, terrorism, and drug addiction. The album debuted at #1 in the U.K., and quickly reached #1 in the U.S. The songs "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" gave U2 its first #1 singles in the U.S. Even TIME magazine put U2 on its cover, declaring the band "Rock's Hottest Ticket." The Joshua Tree tour sold out stadiums around the world. U2 had become the biggest band in the world.
On Rattle and Hum, U2 played with B.B. King and at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, where Elvis Presley first found his feet as a rock and roll star. They wrote with Bob Dylan, sang about blues great Billie Holiday, and covered The Beatles. And for many critics, U2 had gone too far. Rattle and Hum was widely praised as a rock movie, but the project as a whole was roundly discarded by critics for being pretentious and excessive. It was seen by many as an overblown homage to U2's self-importance. The U2 backlash had begun, and U2 decided to stay away from the public eye for a while. The brief "Lovetown" tour of late 1989 lasted less than four months, and steered clear of North America.
During a break in the nearly two-year Zoo TV tour, U2 went back into the studio to work on ideas they first developed during the tour. These sessions resulted in Zooropa, the band's 7th studio album, released in July, 1993. Zooropa took the experimentalism of Achtung Baby and multiplied it exponentially. "Numb," the album's first single, featured Edge on lead vocals reciting a monotone list of admonitions over a repetitive guitar riff. But like its predecessor, the album still managed to dominate the charts (admittedly for a shorter time than Achtung Baby did) and provided even more material for the remainder of their world tour.
After PopMart, U2 remained in the public eye by throwing the band's weight behind the Northern Ireland Peace Accord. They played a brief concert in Belfast in May, 1998, three days before the public voted in favor of the agreement. Later that year, U2 would perform on Irish TV during a tribute show and fundraiser for victims of the Omagh, Northern Ireland, bombing which killed 28 and injured hundreds more earlier in the year. In late 1998, U2 issued its first compilation, The Best of 1980-1990, which included an updated version of "Sweetest Thing", an old b-side from The Joshua Tree sessions.
U2 set out on a full-blown world tour in the spring of 2001 to promote All That You Can't Leave Behind. The Elevation Tour saw the band return to arenas for the first time since Zoo TV in 1992. After the extravaganzas of that tour and PopMart in 1997, the relatively stripped-down Elevation Tour saw U2 perform on a heart-shaped stage which brought the fans closer to the band than ever. The highlight of the tour was an unprecedented two concerts at Slane Castle outside Dublin, the first of which took place just days after the death of Bono's father. The terrorist attacks of September 11th led U2 to rethink continuing the tour, but they chose to tour throughout October and November with a setlist that had changed to reflect the times. The Elevation tour was nearly a complete sellout, and U2 was the top concert draw in North America. The band's 80 shows (of 113 total) in North America grossed $110 million, the second-highest total behind The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge Tour in 1994.
More than twenty years on, it appears that U2 still has plenty of gas in its tank. The four original band members remain close friends and stellar musicians, and their collective ambition appears to be as strong as ever. U2 remains one of only a few bands qualified to wear the label of World's Biggest Band. They continue to write music and explore new ideas on their own terms, and their future releases and tours will be no less anticipated than those of the past.
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