U2, Bono and the forgotten racist moments on tour
Opinion
U2 is my favorite band of all time.
When I was a kid, my father cranked up the car stereo after “Vertigo” came on the radio one fateful evening. The loud, distorted riffs of The Edge’s guitar ripped through my little eardrums as I sat in the back seat, covering my ears until the song was over. It was magical.
As I grew older, I began to appreciate U2’s politics. I saw them as more of a protest group than simply a rock band. They did not shy away from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Polish Solidarity movement, or U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, particularly under Ronald Reagan. They were the first major band to play in Sarajevo after the Bosnian War. Standing up to hate and violence seemed to be their theme, and I liked it. Combine that with lead singer Bono’s humanitarian work around the world, especially the fight against AIDS, and U2 became something of a musical moral compass for me.
All of this is why I was so taken aback to hear Bono say this:
“Pull the trigger, I’m a rock and roll n***er, bigger than Jesus on a bumper sticker…”
Bono said that line twice during a rendition of “Bullet the Blue Sky” during the Boston stop of U2’s “Elevation” tour. That same show was recorded and published on the band’s official concert DVD, “Elevation 2001: U2 Live from Boston.”
I felt such an immense disconnect between hearing those words and recalling the image that U2, and Bono in particular, had built for themselves up to that point.
How could someone who has fought for equity and justice around the world be that stupid? That ignorant? Surely Bono, of all people, understands the significance of what he’s saying, right? He understands just how racist it is to go in front of thousands of cheering fans and say that, right?… Right?
Why would Bono even think to use that word?
One answer might be Patti Smith.
In March 1978, the Patti Smith Group released the album “Easter,” which included an infamous track: “Rock N Roll N***er.” Smith used the word to refer to herself, trying to re-image it to mean a sort of outsider. Her attempt to unite the masses under a new definition of the N-word didn’t go so well with some listeners. Upon the album’s release, Rolling Stone’s Dave Marsh called the song “an unpalatable chant because Smith doesn’t understand the word’s connotation, which is not outlawry but a particularly vicious kind of subjugation and humiliation that’s antithetical to her motive.” Nonetheless, the album was well-received by most critics and sold well overall.
One could make the argument that Bono was referencing this song in his modified “Bullet” speech. Bono and the rest of the U2 gang know Smith and have invited her on stage several times at other concerts. Even if that wasn’t his inspiration, however, it’s clear that Bono knew Smith’s song, because he’d sung it on multiple occasions, N-word and all.
While searching for more background for this piece, I came across the website U2gigs, a fan-made tour database listing all of U2’s known set lists going back as far as 1976. I searched through the site and found 14 different instances of Smith’s song being included in the band’s set list. Smith’s song is not listed on U2’s official website, which also includes archive’s of the band’s same shows and set lists. U2gigs recommends that fans who want to watch bootleg recordings of these shows visit a different website: U2start. Surprisingly, U2start uploads these bootleg recordings publicly via its own YouTube channel (in flagrant violation of current U.S. copyright policy).
Upon comparing the dates on U2gigs with the dates provided on bootleg recordings posted to YouTube, eight out of the 14 listed instances appear to show Bono singing the first verse of Smith’s song, which includes the N-word, after a rendition of “Vertigo.” What’s even worse is that the band appears to deliberately extend the song to let Bono sing this verse.
While comparing the tour dates to the bootlegs, I realized that I attended one of the concerts listed. The only time I ever saw U2 was on July 20th, 2011 at the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was the summer before I began high school. My father drove us all the way from my hometown of Philadelphia to attend the concert. I don’t remember Bono using the word at the time, but I was a teenager back then and my memory was not at all perfect. It was also hard to hear most of the lyrics to any song given our seats on the upper decks of the stadium and the sheer difficulty of making out any words at an arena concert. But a bootleg tape posted to YouTube, claiming to be recorded at the same concert, appears to show Bono using the word.
In my mind, Bono has lost a good bit of social justice credibility that he and his band have worked for years to build. If he simply doesn’t understand the implications of the word, that still shouldn’t give him a pass, as it speaks to a lack of awareness on his part about the history of racism.
Ireland has not been immune from systemic racism. Just a few months after the band filmed their Boston DVD, a national survey conducted by Amnesty International revealed inadequate responses to racism throughout the Irish government and police (officially known as the Garda Síochána, or Gardaí), as well as a feeling of little faith among minority Irish citizens that reporting acts of racism would result in any action. These issues have cast a long shadow over contemporary Irish society, as highlighted in pieces like this one from the Irish Times.
Being arbiters of social and political change isn’t a clean or perfect job, but it comes with a certain weight of responsibility to use that influence wisely. The hurt inflicted by using such a powerful word should not be lost on Bono or his band mates, and yet its repeated use seems to imply a willful ignorance on the part of the band and even the group’s management. Remember: Bono’s use of the word made it onto one of U2’s official DVDs. Someone heard that, edited it, and signed off on it.
I can’t help but feel less enthusiastic about U2’s music. Bono’s lyrics and politics made U2 my favorite band. Bono’s use of such a word puts those same political motivations for me loving the band into doubt. I can’t discount U2 from my own personal history, but I have to reckon with what I have heard… and I believe every U2 fan has to as well.
