Quick heads up for those of you who are on Twitter:
U2 – A Diary is also on Twitter!
You can follow progress on the book here: @U2diary.
I’ll be sending out tweets when new blog posts are published here and generally using it to help keep you updated on how the work is going, as well as asking for help when needed, too.
(There’s also a Facebook group for the book, but I don’t use it much….)
I’m super-thrilled to announce that Omnibus Press will be publishing an updated, second edition of U2 – A Diary next year! This is all very much “hot off the press,” so I don’t have a ton of details yet, but here’s what I do know:
That’s about all I know at the moment. I’ve already updated this blog — you can check out the links above for more information, especially the FAQS page where I explain why we’re doing an update only three years after the first book was published. (Basically, because they’re running out of stock of the first book and, rather than re-print thousands of copies of a three-year-old book, it makes more sense to update the book and print those.)
I’ll be posting more frequently here on the blog over the next three months with progress updates and specific calls for help. I’ll be looking for help with:
So, please, if you’re interested in following along, feel free to bookmark this site or just subscribe to the RSS feed. And thanks in advance for your help, support, or interest!
You may have seen the reports from tonight’s concert in Brussels that the band celebrated their longtime sound engineer, Joe O’Herlihy. Today marks the 32nd anniversary of the day U2 met O’Herlihy, an amazingly long tenure that reflects the deep loyalty that exists in the U2 organization.
What’s not as well-known, though, is that O’Herlihy didn’t exactly “join” U2 32 years ago today. He worked for them occasionally for a couple years, but it wasn’t until Spring, 1980, when they could finally afford him permanently.
Here are the two diary entries from U2 – A Diary that talk about how O’Herlihy got involved with U2.
September 23, 1978
– Arcadia Ballroom, Cork, opening for D.C. Nien. U2 are one of a handful of bands on the bill. They meet Cork native Joe O’Herlihy, who owns a local sound-hire company, at this show. Though U2 is only a supporting act, they’re impressed by the attention O’Herlihy gives them and his efforts to make them sound good – a rare thing for supporting acts. O’Herlihy, though, is somewhat less impressed with U2.
[SIDEBAR]
Joe O’Herlihy meets U2 for the first time
“They barely knew how to turn on their own gear they were so inexperienced but we looked after them pretty well and they got a good sound. Things like that are noticed in this business….”
O’Herlihy works with U2 on a for-hire basis on and off over the next two years, sometimes renting gear for their use, and sometimes being their sound man. He doesn’t join the tour crew on a full-time basis until spring, 1980.
May 22, 1980
– Hope & Anchor, Islington, with Fashion. U2 opens its first tour since signing the Island Records contract in support of the ’11 O’Clock Tick Tock’ single. The band ask Joe O’Herlihy to be their sound engineer, but settle for a local sound crew when O’Herlihy passes.
[SIDEBAR]
Joe O’Herlihy recalls how he finally joined U2’s tour crew
“I gave them a price for doing the tour and they wouldn’t pay me the money. We had a fierce argument and I told them to f**k off – that was it. They basically had three and six to spend – I had a sound system worth thirteen and six and they wouldn’t pay! In the course of the band doing the tour, they went through approximately five different engineers in the space of a ten-day tour, so I was called up to go and work somebody else’s equipment. I went.”
O’Herlihy and McGuinness talk more about a permanent position handling U2’s sound. Confidently, McGuinness tells O’Herlihy “this thing’s going to go big”, and O’Herlihy eventually agrees to come along for the ride.
Around this time, U2 does an interview with French journalist Michka Assayas for Le Monde de la musique magazine.
I love finding little nuggets of information that can be added to U2 – A Diary … if and when we ever publish an update.
Like today, Bono did an interview on 2FM (I wrote about it here on @U2), and near the very end, host Ryan Tubridy asked Bono if he remembered the day he asked Ali to marry him. Bono said he did:
“It was Good Friday on Bull Island down there near Dollymount.”
Now, we know they were married on August 21, 1982. (Happy 28th anniversary!) Good Friday happens in March/April, two days before Easter Sunday. I’m going to assume he proposed either four months before the wedding (April 1982) or 16 months before (April 1981). Because really, how many people get engaged and wait more than two years for the wedding?? No way it could be 1980, I say.
So I head over to the trusty perpetual calendar that helped me answer so many questions for U2 – A Diary, and I discover that Good Friday in 1981 happened on April 17th. Well, on page 43 of the book, it says that U2 played a concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, on that date. No go.
But, Good Friday 1982 was on April 9th. And on page 58, the only thing I have for the entire month of April 1982 is that U2 shot the video for “A Celebration” in Dublin.
Bingo!
So, if and when we ever publish an update, you’ll find that I’ve listed April 9, 1982, as the day Bono and Ali were engaged to be married.
Ages ago, during the writing and researching of U2-A Diary, I put out a call for help on this blog with this post: When Did Adam Stand in Front of Bono during ‘Pride’? Sadly, I never did get enough solid information about that question and had to leave it out of the book.
Now, out of nowhere, the Arizona Republic has published an article that basically asks the same question: When did this happen? But unlike my rushed attempt to get answers, reporter Richard Ruelas did some digging with concert promoters, local law enforcement officials, and even the FBI. The results?
Neither Tempe police nor Arizona State University police could find a report about the incident. The Phoenix office of the FBI also came up empty. Special Agent Manual Johnson, the FBI’s spokesman, said he was at those shows as a fan but could not locate any report of a threat.
Fey, the now-retired concert promoter who lives in Denver, said he did not recall ordering extra security for any of the four Tempe shows as a result of a threat.
Ruelas’ article is a great read, but it assumes, as many do, that the incident happened during the Joshua Tree tour. Heck, Bono even says so in the official book, U2 by U2. But 10 years earlier, in this interview with NME, Bono said it happened during the Unforgettable Fire tour.
And that was always one of the biggest challenges of researching and writing my book: U2’s stories often changed from telling to telling. Sometimes, like in this case, there’s almost no way to reconcile the different stories to find a definitive version of events.
So, for now at least, this one remains an unsolved mystery.