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Reading between the line (part 1)

As U2 gear up for the release of No Line On The Horizon, they meet HP to talk about the creation of their latest masterwork, meeting world leaders, the way they’re perceived in Ireland, the current state of the music business and their future plans.

Olaf Tyaransen, 11 Mar 2009

It’s not yet 9am on a bright February morning in Galway City, and Bono is putting your Hot Press correspondent through some serious aural torture. “Sorry, man,” he apologises in that familiar cigar-smooth, Mid-Atlantic purr. “I’ve just got to run you through this security machine for a moment.”

“AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!”

Relax, readers, the U2 singer hasn’t gone Guantanamo. But the screeched feedback from the two digital recorders placed around my mobile phone’s loudspeaker as he runs his own through a London airport x-ray machine isn’t easy on the ears. He’s en route to Berlin for a midday meeting with Angela Merkel’s office and, never a man to waste a precious moment of his increasingly busy days, he decided to call yours truly to clarify a few points we’d discussed in London some 60 hours earlier.

A moment later, he retrieves his phone from the other end of the scanner. “You still there?” he asks. “You’ve just been x-rayed... and have come up wanting. Your soul, Olaf, is being viewed by British security.”

Bono’s in good form – and not just because Angela Merkel’s government has agreed to budget another €900million in African aid for 2010. As U2 gear up to release their 12 studio album, No Line On The Horizon (which any number of critics have already hailed as being possibly the best of their career), they’re seriously getting their promotional boots on. A few weeks ago U2 played at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Last weekend, they performed the album’s first cut ‘Get On Your Boots’ at the Grammys. In March they’ll be doing a week-long stint as David Letterman’s house band.

Before that, though, they were scheduled to open this year’s televised Brit Awards at Earl’s Court. So let’s rewind a couple of days to the late afternoon of Tuesday, February 17, and the moment a sleek back Mercedes pulls away from the front entrance to Claridge’s Hotel. I’m sitting in the back with The Edge, fervently hoping that we get stuck in rush hour traffic. We’re heading towards Earl’s Court for U2’s tightly-scheduled soundcheck, and my interview time with the skull-capped guitarist is to be measured in miles rather than minutes.



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Olaf Tyaransen

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