Lights, Camera, Rock action

"Arranging to have Fitzwilliam Place closed for the day so we could drive a horse-drawn carriage down it was difficult enough, but then somebody said, ‘Let’s get an elephant!’ Limited as my zoological knowledge is, I knew we weren’t going to find one under ‘E’ in The Golden Pages.”

Ned O’Hanlon is recalling the mad flurry of activity which proceeded the shooting of U2’s ‘The Sweetest Thing’ video in 1998. Having ruled out The Golden Pages option, O’Hanlon set about ringing up every circus in Europe – trunk calls, naturally – to see if they’d give him a go of their Jumbo.
“We eventually found a lady elephant in Italy which commanded a £20,000 per day appearance fee, pooed a lot and had to be given a rest every hour or she got cranky,” he resumes. “It was all done in one take, which is not easy when you’ve a circus animal, a horse & cart, Boyzone, The Artane Boys Band, Steve Collins and God knows who else to factor in! Given all that, we did pretty well to nail it in just nine takes.”
As M.D. of first Dreamchaser Productions and now Solo Too, O’Hanlon is responsible for not only a string of U2 promo clips but such long-form concert films as Zoo TV - Live From Sydney, PopMart – Live From Mexico and the brand spanking new U2 Go Home – Live At Slane Castle, Ireland.
“We’ve had a few adventures together down through the years, that’s for sure! When we were in Mexico, show production lost a truck to customs – or people who said they were customs. They wanted $1 million ransom for its return, which over the course of 24 hours worked its way down to four tickets!
“The level of corruption there is unbelievable, so before we did anything we had to make sure that the right people got backhanders. You’re never entirely sure who you’re dealing with, so a lot of the wrong ones got them too.”
Staged in a 40,000-capacity raceway, the November 1998 gig sparked off a major diplomatic incident.
“The Mexican president’s son and two security guards decided to take a short-cut through a fenced off area that had an enormous camera-carrying crane in it,” O’Hanlon explains. “Once this thing starts whizzing around you can’t stop it, so one of our security guys (Jerry Meltzer) put a hand out to alert him. Extremely sensible in the circumstances, but not to the liking of one of the bodyguards who pistol-whipped him to the ground. Five years later the guy’s still out of action so we’re talking serious assault. I think (U2 manager) Paul McGuinness met with the Mexico City District Attorney afterwards, but no charges were ever brought.”
Unlike some bands who only take an interest when it comes out of the box, U2 insist on giving all their films and videos the personal ‘thumbs up’.
“They’re hands on in pretty much everything they do, and demand the same level of perfection from other people as they do from themselves,” O’Hanlon reflects. “It can be a monumental pain in the ass at times but it works. For them and the fans who always get a quality product.”
Does he ever have to go, “Thanks for the input lads, but you’re wrong?”
“A few times, yeah, but 9 times out of 10 they call it right. We had to fight our corner over Live At Slane Castle because initially they didn’t want the cameras there. We’d shot an earlier show in Boston which as far as Paul McGuinness was concerned was the tour film, but I said, ‘This is too big and historic a gig not to document.’ Their only previous Slane appearance had been in 1981 supporting Thin Lizzy and, by their own admission, they weren’t great that day.”
Despite the relative simplicity of the shoot – “We used 12 cameras at Slane as opposed to the 26 or so we had in Mexico City” – U2 Go Home is a seriously retina-pleasing affair which is being tipped to beat the one million units shifted by its PopMart predecessor.
“On previous occasions we had loads of multimillion dollar effects and gimmicks, but Elevation was all about the four boys going on stage and reminding people that they’re the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world,” he enthuses. “It’s strength really is its simplicity. Well, relative simplicity because a great deal of work went into making sure we captured all that raw excitement.”
While justifiably proud of his and Solo Too’s latest creation, O’Hanlon’s favourite U2 tour is still the technological headfuck that was Zoo TV.
“Technological headfuck is right” he laughs. “The best – and worst! – thing about Zoo TV is that you were always flying by the seat of your pants. One of the hairiest moments was when we had a hook up to a stranded Russian cosmonaut who bottled half an hour before the show. The Wall had come down and no one wanted to pay to bring this poor man, who’d been stranded up there for nine months, home.”
Returning to terra firma, where does Ned O’Hanlon expect U2 to go next?
“They put themselves right back on top last time by going indoors, pairing everything down and just being a four-piece band. Having loved every moment of it, I imagine it’ll be more of the same but with the twist and turns you expect from U2.”

The U2 Go Home: Live At Slane DVD is out now