The crowd beneath their feet

GAVIN FRIDAY:

OK, so Gavin was a neighbour from Cedarwood Road in Dublin, rather than Sunset Boulevard or Düsseldorf, but Gavin’s imput has been critical. He was the one who loaned the teenage Bono those Bowie and T Rex albums, getting them back smeared with jam and carpet fluff. In the late ‘70s, Gavin was an important conceptualizer when a number of wannabe performers formed a northside clique called Lypton Village. Out of it came U2, the popular wing, allied to Gavin and The Virgin Prunes, the transvestite art yobs and (arguably) the forerunners of Zoo TV. The relationship seems to be so strong that they occasionally morph into each other. Witness the Bono persona during the start of the ‘PopMart’ tour when he’d strut along the catwalk with his chin out and his fists clenched, challenging anyone to take a pop. Pure Friday. He should sue.

THE RAMONES:

The Ramones were the big influence for masses of first generation punk bands. You could demonstrably get away with three chords played fast and lashed to lyrics about the twisted side of teenage life. Bono built up a friendship with Joey Ramone, and kept in contact as the latter lay sick earlier this year with lymphatic cancer. Apparently, the last song Joey heard as he slipped into unconsciousness was the U2 track ‘In A Little While’. The band have also played a Ramones song, ‘I Remember You’, on several key occasions lately.

DAVID BOWIE / BRIAN ENO:

Any late ‘70s band with an ear for the experimental was inevitably drawn to David Bowie and his electronic trilogy: Low, Heroes and Lodger. Brian Eno was Dave’s partner for that stretch, and the second side of Low was deeply suffused with the Eno trademarks of texture, sonic depth and improvisation.

Eno, of course, joined U2 for The Unforgettable Fire and has been a fairly steady feature since. Ambitiously, U2 moved to the Hansa studios, by the Berlin Wall for the start of Achtung Baby. However, Hansa (a former Nazi ballroom where Bowie, Eno and Iggy Pop became bold and Teutonic) was rather dilapidated when U2 arrived, and much of the real action happened elsewhere. Later on, with The Passengers, U2 and Eno revisted those musical zones, and ‘Your Blue Room’ was Bowie pastiche at its most shameless.

PATTI SMITH:

Patti gave tremendous raving attitude from Detroit, then seasoned in New York as the singer/poetess/dramatist hung with Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Sheppard, copping ideas from Brian Jones and Dylan (the scowling ’65 model). Her debut 1975 album Horses has subsequently blown the minds of many artists, including Michael Stipe and Bono. Her schtick was to combine the spirit of rock with fierce poetry – Hendrix wigging out with the Parisian symbolist poets.

U2 released the Patti song, ‘Dancing Barefoot’, on the B-side of ‘When Love Comes To Town’ in 1989. Many years later, Bono gave an introduction to Patti when she was honoured at the Q Awards, but the subject of his affections rebuffed his words in a typically scratchy acceptance speech.

IAN CURTIS:

Curtis fronted Joy Division, the Manchester band that took the Bowie aesthetic of Low and made it even darker. Curtis suffered from epilepsy and was haunted by depression. He hung himself on May 18, 1980, ahead of an American tour, after listening to Iggy Pop’s ‘The Idiot’ and watching Herzog’s Strojek. At this time, U2 had been working with Joy Division producer, Martin Hannett, another erratic soul who had an enormous bearing on the sound of new music, particularly the futuristic drum sound, which can be heard on U2’s debut single, ‘Eleven O’ Clock Tick Tock’. A grief-stricken Hannet was unable to work on the debut U2 album, so Steve Lilywhite was brought in instead. One of those pieces was ‘A Day Without Me’, which Bono wrote as a tribute to Ian Curtis.

PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED:

After quitting the Sex Pistols in 1978, Johnny Rotten changed his name back to Lydon and began looking for a music that avoided all the old rock and roll clichés. His first call was the 1979 single, ‘Public Image’ featuring the clear, edgy guitar playing of Keith Levene, a sometime Clash member. Compare Levene’s two note riff at the intro to ‘Public Image’ to Edge’s work on ‘I Will Follow’ and draw your own conclusions.

LOU REED:

Lou toured with U2 on the Conspiracy Of Hope tour in 1986. A few months later, Bono recorded a song in the Lou idiom: ‘Running To Stand Still’. Only in this case, the junkies were in Ballymun rather than Lexington 125.

Lou turned Bono onto his old writing tutor from Syracuse University, Delmore Schwartz, who received a special mention on the credits to Achtung Baby. On a date on the subsequent Zoo TV tour, Lou sang ‘Satellite Of Love’ with Bono. Reed’s performance was filmed, allowing Bono to carry on with the duet for extra dates, singing to a virtual Lou on the Zoo TV screen.

VAN MORRISON:

Like many youngsters from the punk era, Bono didn’t take to Van immediately. By the time he interviewed Morrison in the company of Dylan (for hotpress in 1984), he was an avowed fan. In that same year, he laid out his influences on the U2 album, The Unforgettable Fire. The lyrics were free-associating more than ever, recalling the Van of Astral Weeks. Indeed many of Bono’s words drew a sure connection back to Van’s classic album. The song ‘A Sort Of Homecoming’ has the following lines: “And you know it’s time to go/Through the sleet and driving snow”, which are deftly borrowed from Van and ‘Madame George’. The U2 track ‘Promenade’ is also an unabashed tribute, echoing Morrison’s ‘Wavelength’ at times.

Let’s not forget, both acts were famous early on with a track called ‘Gloria’.

HAPPY MONDAYS / JOHN LENNON:

During the sessions for Achtung Baby, U2 realised that a new generation of UK acts were soundtracking the era of pills, thrills and clubland diversions. The prime contenders were Happy Mondays, and so U2 listened carefully. The U2 track ‘Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World’ has some interesting parallels in the Happy Mondays tune, ‘Lazyitis’, which is turn was partly stolen from The Beatles and ‘Ticket to Ride’.

Bono, of course, has referenced John Lennon on countless occasions. ‘God Part II’ was an angry response to the Lennon biography by Albert Goldman. More recently, ‘Wild Honey’ was an approximation of Lennon in his happy, domesticated years.

BOB DYLAN / DANIEL LANOIS:

Bono met Dylan at Slane in 1984 and the American melted his head by talking about Liam Clancy, the McPeake family and sundry Irish folk tunes. Indirectly, this led to The Joshua Tree and Rattle And Hum. Bono put it straight in the introduction to the Q magazine special on Dylan: “Suffice to say, I would carry his luggage.”

It was 1984 too, when U2 encountered Lanois for the first time. He was Brian Eno’s sidekick, engineering The Unforgettable Fire for the band – and subsequently sharing production duties with Eno on The Joshua Tree, taking the lead role for Achtung Baby! and returning to the fray for All That You Can’t Leave Behind (and The Million Dollar Hotel).

Lanois has been a huge influence on Bono’s songwriting, often helping him to draw together disparate lyrical ideas and strands – and galvanising the band’s ambition to fashion great and lasting songs.