Hot Press gets a sneak preview of Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman

Hot Press were among the lucky two hundred or so whose weekend kicked off with the Dublin premiere of Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman, the feature-length documentary that the whole of Planet Rock will be able to see from St. Patrick's Day courtesy of Disney+.

Before taking our seats – and demolishing the complimentary bags of popcorn – we got to chat to such fellow U2 admirers as Marty Miller and Dee Woods from Radio Nova, Tom Dunne, MayKay, Wild Youth drummer Callum MacAdam and Edge's legendary guitar tech Dallas Schoo who's (hint, hint) worth a documentary of his own.

Shot late last year in Dublin, A Sort of Homecoming makes great capital of it being Letterman's first ever trip to Ireland – and Bono and The Edge being his eager beaver tour guides who waste no time in introducing Dave to McDaid's, the Harry Street, D2 pub they repair to for a singsong with Imelda May, Saint Sister, Grian Chatten, Dermot Kennedy, Loah, Markéta Irglova and Glen Hansard who he immediately has a man crush on! It's a marvellous set-piece, which leaves Letterman almost (but not quite) lost for words.

Adopting an 'idiot abroad' persona and sporting a beard of almost ZZ Top proportions, he gets the mix of professional interrogator and wanton fan just right, with the re-telling of the U2 origin story as compelling as the footage of Bono and The Edge performing with a cast of young musicians at a secret gig in The Ambassador, which mirrors the reinventing/reinvigoration of U2 classics on their Songs Of Surrender album that also drops on Friday.

It's a wrinkles 'n' all affair with lots of close-ups and absolutely no vaseline on the lens. Far from fighting it, this, if you, will rockumentary
demonstrates that Bono and The Edge are embracing their older selves and the artistic possibilities it brings.

Letterman's genuine warmth and chumminess brings the best out in his subjects who (SPOILER ALERT!) blow his mind by penning him a farewell song. Moving at a furious pace, there's lots of archive footage; insights galore from Bono and The Edge whose friendship has touchingly moved onto an even higher plane than before; and Dublin looking impossibly photogenic.

Also giving great context – and having the absolute craic with Letterman – is Panti Bliss whose intimate friend Rory O'Neill is on Master of Ceremony duties tonight and does the boys proud.

Directed with customary élan by Morgan Neville who's previously zoomed in on Mark Ronson, Leonard Cohen and Anthony Bourdain, Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman is genuinely a ten out of ten affair.