Interview extract with thanks to the Official Site

 

http://www.u2.com/stream/article/display/t...family-business

 

 

The band were guests of Pat Kenny last night, his final night presenting The Late Late Show. As well as playing Magnificent and presenting Pat with some leaving gifts, they also had a revealing conversation which touched on the upcoming tour production, how they once nearly parted company with Paul McGuinness, what it's like to bring a tour home to Ireland and how U2 is a 'family business' built on disagreement.

 

Here's a few choice highlights - you can watch the extended interview (when we last looked) here

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr_yz0xci0w...player_embedded

 

 

The guitar they presented to Pat

'It's a guitar made by Gibson. There's only 300 of them in the world and it's in aid of a charity that I co-founded for New Orleans, for the musicians of New Orleans. So it's very rare.' (Edge)

 

The New Show

'For a long time we said to people within our production team we love it when we have people all around us, which we do sometimes indoors, but we never had it outdoors. Can you help us figure it out?' (Edge)

 

'People used to say that outside of Ireland the best place to see U2 was Madison Square Gardens and that's where you play in the round up at one end and our audience say that's the best seats... and it feels like you're on stage sort of thing. And so we wanted to see could we apply this outdoors. Of course how do you hang the gear from the sky so to speak? So the engineering is to allow us to do that." (Bono)

 

'We haven't seen it yet but we've seen some footage of it as it's been built in Belgium and I have to say I looked at it today and thought, 'Oh my God we've actually designed the Eiffel Tower!' It's this huge thing. It's pretty amazing.' (Edge)

 

Almost Parting Company with Paul McGuinness

'... there's a story... that we've never told, but there was a serious disagreement early on about his ability to get us a van. And there were negotiations and deals over getting us a van and he said he could get us a van, but maybe we weren't good enough and this kind of thing. So we met in Captain America's and we had a pow wow with the band where we discussed firing him. And we went through the ups and downs of it all and we were there for about an hour and this fella just walked up from the next table and he said look I'm really sorry to say this but I couldn't help but overhearing what you were talking about and I actually know the person you were talking about. And I had that sinking feeling, and he said this is a really, really big mistake. This is exactly the right manager for U2. You should really work it out because this is a great great guy. And I said, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'My name is Louis Walsh.' (Bono)

 

Playing Croke Park

'Expectations are always high, particularly in your homeland, but you know that's what we do. We fly the flag wherever we can. And nowhere prouder than in our homeland. So you take the pressure on, understanding that your family and your friends are expecting great things. They hear about all the stuff you do around the world and they want you to come home and show that you can do it for them as well.' (Larry)

 

Bigging Up Ireland

'Larry was saying just a few days ago...I thought it was smart... that we have to, wherever we go, whether it's Barcelona, whether it's Chicago, just tell people about this little gem, this little jewel on the north Atlantic and how extraordinary its people are and how innovative and how smart they are and they'll get their way out of this mess. We're just going to tell them that nightly.' (Bono)

 

Getting On

'It's like a family business. I mean it's like being in business with your four brothers. So we're four brothers and it gets rough. As Adam has explained there's matters of personal hygiene.' (Bono)

 

'I think bar the odd gust of wind, hygiene in cramped small places is very important. We�re used to being in small little vans and travelling around the country.' (Adam)

 

'And then there was the lemon. That was a very cramped place.' (Edge)

 

 

Co-Dependence

' Just having the loudest voice and the most persuasive tone does not mean it's the best idea, sadly. And that's why we're a band. We very much depend on each other and what we've learned to do is... the individual egos are sort of subservient to a band ego which is pretty big. But that's the way it works, so if the idea is a great idea we soon forget who had it or where it came from, and I would say all four of us win the day on different things.'

 

The Politics

'I think U2 was always interested in politics. I think that's where we came from. In 1976 Dublin was a very different place than it is now. It was in a recession... and when we heard punk music that was an opportunity for us to do something, to get involved and to be part of a thought process that was about changing your world and changing the ideas in your world and that is something we've carried through over the last 30 years. And Bono's activism is something that we all support and we all stand behind him. We might be in the studio finishing a record and he's off doing something else but it's something that he does very much on our behalf as much as his own.' (Adam)

 

The Disagreements

'U2 is built on disagreement. I mean, it's always been like that and it is a democracy, to an extent and you know, you have to be allowed express your views. And I have to. It's my duty to.' (Larry)

 

 

http://www.herald.ie/entertainment/tv-radi...ah-1756398.html

 

Garden party almost ruined last hurrah

 

Saturday May 30 2009

 

I had been hoping that someone during Pat Kenny's final stint at the helm of The Late Late Show would be smart enough to ask the man a question that had, I'm sure, been circulating in many minds.

 

As it turned out it was the extremely smart Gabriel Byrne (the actor, that is, not the former Late Late host) who did the honours on behalf of the rest of us. "How do you feel, Pat, on your final night?" he asked.

 

Pat seemed momentarily taken aback, as well as genuinely touched. "Business as usual," he said, adding after a brief pause: "at the moment." He suspected, he said, that by the end of the night it might not be business as usual.

 

The show had got off to a cracking start. Pat emerged to a thunderous standing ovation, which drew a mildly cheeky remark about his successor, Ryan Tubridy: "If you guys keep this up I might just change my mind -- and there'd be one very disappointed neighbour of mine out in Dalkey."

 

Gabriel Byrne, who's always excellent value as a guest, was on first and spoke eloquently and angrily about the disgraceful standards of palliative care in this country. It was reminiscent of Brendan Gleeson's impassioned Late Late tirade against the health service.

 

It was almost inevitable that U2, who had graced Gay Byrne's final Late Late Show, would make an appearance. And they did, delivering a storming track from their latest album and then sitting down for a lengthy chat.

 

The band famously gifted Gaybo a Harley-Davidson motorcycle as a going-away present.

 

For my money, Pat got something even better: a beautiful Gibson guitar belonging to The Edge, of which there are only 300 in the world.

 

Bono threw in a pair of his trademark wraparound shades as well, which Pat duly tried on. "You've got a Terminator vibe with those," quipped Bono. "Well, I am being terminated tonight," Pat quipped back.

 

The interview took an unexpectedly edgy turn when Pat raised the issue of how Bono's side-career as the man who wants to save the world sometimes rankles with the other band members -- notably the plain-speaking Larry Mullen.

 

You could have sliced the atmosphere with a drumstick as Mullen fired Bono the kind of daggers looks that could wither a Joshua tree, and for a few minutes it looked as if Pat Kenny would end his Late Late career as the man who caused the biggest band in the world to split up.

 

Throw in a comic recitation from an in-form Pat Shortt and a foot-stomping rockabilly number from the lovely and talented Imelda May and you were halfway to a firecracker of a farewell show.

 

And then something peculiar happened.

 

The firecracker turned into a damp squib as the whole shebang -- host, guests, studio audience and technicians -- relocated to the elaborately decked-out Montrose garden.

 

The Late Late Show suddenly turned into what I can only describe as an avant-garde garden party, complete with shaky handheld camerawork and a pig in a sty.

 

There were brief encounters with Louis Walsh and a sketch from two-thirds of the Apres Match team, and I'm sure it was all great fun for the audience and invited guests who chattered in the background, stuffing their faces with free wine and food.

 

But as a way of bringing the curtain down on Pat Kenny's decade on the Late Late it killed what should have been a memorable farewell stone dead.

 

Mercifully, things took an upward swing near the end when Joe Duffy intervened to wish Pat well on everyone's behalf and treated us to a montage of clips from his Late Late career. This was the kind of stellar parade we expected -- and Pat Kenny deserved -- to mark the end of a 10-year reign that, while it hasn't been without its bumpy patches, has still been quite remarkable.

 

Pat was clearly deeply moved. "It is an extraordinary feeling to feel a little bit loved," he said, "and I feel a little bit loved tonight." The dam didn't quite burst -- but it was a close call.

 

:cheer: Part two of the interview on The Late Show

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYWOa0yLI2c