The greatest rock band in the world wake up every day with the fear of mistaking themselves for great. That’s what Bono says. “If you get to be very good, (you find) there’s a huge chasm between very good and great.”
But there’s little chance that U2 fans will feel that divide when they play at FNB Stadium in Joburg tonight.
The spider that arches its magnificent tentacles over the 360º stage where the band will step up as night covers Soweto, dwarfs the World Cup final pitch.
Suddenly it’s intimate. It holds you tighter. As evening laces over the dazzling orange seats, shadows crossing the boundaries, Bono’s promise that every fan there will get the same visual thrill is a sure thing. Their rehearsal pounds over the ground, the light checks turning the stadium into a giant pulsar, a roaring disco for the imagination of the faithful.
The band is having dinner in a box above the spider. It’s Friday night, and they flew into Joburg the day before, but there’s no glimmer of jet lag. Bono is taller than expected, by quite a bit. The Edge says he’s hardly recognisable out there in the world, and trusts the media gathered can make him “more interesting”.
No need. They move swiftly into their abiding love of music, and their enchantment at playing in South Africa for the second time, this concert at the stadium where Spain lifted the trophy in front of the world in July. U2 are moved: it’s also where Nelson Mandela - “our friend” - stepped out a free man exactly 21 years ago, to raise a fist for the residents of the world’s most famous township.
They’re interested in how their songs will fit into this political space.
“Our music has come out of an Anglo-Saxon tradition, so you can’t imagine that it just crosses over. You also have to be true to your own musicality,” says Bono. A journalist asks them about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll after 30 years together. “And that’s only this afternoon,” they all laugh.
“I think it’s called wives, actually,” says Adam Clayton, to more laughter. That’s why they behave. That might be another reason they’re still together.
“Everybody has a chance when the mantle falls on them to be grown up,” says Bono. “It hasn’t fallen on me yet.”
There’s seriousness to follow. A conversation about the revolution in Egypt, just as Hosni Mubarak finally concedes, and resigns on television in the background. Then they switch to optimism for southern Sudan.
That’s how many fans know the band. Less playful. Samaritans for those dislocated from the spectacle that will bedazzle Soweto tonight.
They’re troubled by the pain in their own country, Ireland, after it succumbed to the recession, and they say they’re going to reconnect and get more involved there later this year.
“The Irish are great entrepreneurs,” says Bono. “They’re very suited to the 21st century, just like Africans. There’s an anarchic spirit in our country, a refusal to bow down. We’re not very good at taking orders. And that’s what will get us out of this black hole.”
Bono sings us an old Irish rebel song. It’s beautiful.
Then they concede that they’re not from the proletariat, even if they might once have grown up in what Bono’s father calls “upper working class”.
He smiles broadly.
“None of us has ever done a day’s work. We got together so that we wouldn’t have to work. We do what we love in a world where so few people get that same privilege.” - Sunday Independent