by Harry Browne
43 Dunphy, Unforgettable Fire, 327.
44 U2: Bad (Live Dublin ’86 – Self Aid) HQ Stereo, n.d., at youtube.com.
45 Dunphy, Unforgettable Fire, 327–30.
46 ‘Pillar of Society: Paul McGuinness’, Phoenix, 27 August 1993.
47 ‘Bono’s Bum Deal’, Phoenix, 11 February 2000; ‘Bono, the Law and His Ass’, Phoenix, 25 February 2000; ‘L’ETAT C’EST MOI! KING BONO INVOKES OFFENCES AGAINST THE STATE ACT’, Phoenix, 25 February 2000.
48 ‘Ali Hewson’s Celestial Offer’, Phoenix, 29 March 2002.
49 James Henke, ‘U2: Here Comes the Next Big Thing’, Rolling Stone, 19 February 1981.
50 Trench, ‘See the Conquering Heroes Come’, Magill, June 1987.
51 Ross, Michael, “All That They Can’t Leave Behind,” Sunday Times, July 12, 2009, Ireland edition.
52 Assayas, Bono on Bono, 289.
53 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 172.
54 Andrew Cockburn, ‘Bono Betrays Ireland’, Counterpunch, 10 August 2002, at counterpunch.org.
55 ‘How Bono Staged the Hume and Trimble Handshake’, U2log, 9 June 2004, at u2log.com.
56 Gary Grattan and Maeve Quigley, ‘U2 Say Yes to New Two’, Belfast Telegraph, 20 May 1998.
57 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 285–6.
58 Assayas, Bono on Bono, 172–3.
59 ‘Give Us the Money’, Why Poverty? (BBC Four, 25 November 2012).
60 Trench, ‘See the Conquering Heroes Come.’
61 Matt Cooper, Who Really Runs Ireland? The Story of the Elite Who Led Ireland from Bust to Boom … and Back Again (Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2009), 124.
62 Ibid.
63 Mary Carolan, ‘Call for Retention of Artists’ Tax Exemption’, Irish Times, 15 September 2005.
64 Ibid.
65 Marie O’Halloran, ‘Call for Analysis of Benefits of Arts Tax Scheme’, Irish Times, 14 October 2005.
66 Hugh Linehan, ‘When the Band Has No Shame’, Irish Times, 12 August 2006.
67 Eamonn McCann, ‘Make Bono Pay Tax’, CounterPunch, 26 February 2009, at counterpunch.org.
68 Richard Tomlinson and Fergal O’Brien, ‘Bono, Who Preaches Charity, Profits From Buyouts, Tax Breaks’, Bloomberg, 25 January 2007.
69 ‘ “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich” ’, n.d., at nytimes.com.
70 Cooper, Who Really Runs Ireland?, 124.
71 Ibid., 126.
72 McCann, ‘Make Bono Pay Tax’.
73 ‘Pillar of Society: Diarmuid Martin’, Phoenix, 15 August 2003.
74 ‘Give Us the Money’.
75 Brian Boyd, ‘Bono “Hurt” by Criticism of U2 Move to Netherlands to Cut Tax’, Irish Times, 27 February 2009.
76 Cooper, Who Really Runs Ireland?, 125–127.
77 See, for example, Jim Stewart, ‘Financial Innovation and the Financial Crisis’ (presented at the International Schumpeter Society Conference 2010 on Innovation, Organisation, Sustainability and Crises, Aalborg, 2010), at schumpeter2010.dk.
78 Boyd, ‘Bono “Hurt” by Criticism’.
79 Eamonn McCann, ‘The Emperors of Bombast’, CounterPunch, 14 July 2009, at counterpunch.org.
80 Boyd, ‘Bono “Hurt” by Criticism’.
81 Olaf Tyaransen, ‘There Is Absolutely Nothing Fake About This Man’, Hot Press, 2 June 2011, at hotpress.com.
82 ‘Ireland’s Greatest’, RTE, n.d., at rte.ie.
83 Photographs of both sets of graffiti are in the author’s possession.
84 ‘U2 and Tax Avoidance’, Irish Times, 6 March 2009.
85 Lara Gould, ‘ “Heavy Handed” Glastonbury Guards Break up U2 Protest’, Mail Online, 26 June 2011, at dailymail.co.uk.
86 Ibid.
87 James O’Shea, ‘Sinead O’Connor Slams Bono, Bob Geldof as “Bozo” and “Lily Livered Cowards” ’, IrishCentral.com, 19 June 2012, at irishcentral.com.
88 Visnja Cogan, U2: An Irish Phenomenon (Cork: Collins Press, 2006), 162.
89 ‘U2 Put Their House in Order’, Phoenix, 20 October 2006.
90 ‘Pillar of Society: Ossie Kilkenny’, Phoenix, 14 January, 2000.
91 Tomlinson and O’Brien, ‘Bono, Who Preaches Charity, Profits From Buyouts, Tax Breaks’.
92 Cogan, U2: An Irish Phenomenon, 164.
93 Paul Colgan, ‘U2’s Tangled Financial Web’, Sunday Business Post, 19 June 2005.
94 ‘U2 Put Their House in Order’.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Donal O’Donovan, ‘U2 Firm Pays Tax Bill of Just €16,500 as Profits Plummet’, Irish Independent, 2 December 2011.
98 Colgan, ‘U2’s Tangled Financial Web’.
99 Gordon Deegan, ‘Bono and the Edge Help Clarence Hotel Back to Profit’, Irish Examiner, 15 October 2011.
100 Frank McDonald, ‘Clarence Group Gets Permission to Redevelop’, Irish Times, 18 July 2008.
101 Ibid.
102 Boyd, ‘Bono “Hurt” by Criticism’.
103 Frank McDonald, ‘Bono Sees a Dublin “Defaced” by Developers’, Irish Times, 13 November 2002.
104 ‘U2 Tower Land to Help Settle NAMA Debts’, RTE News, 25 November 2011.
105 Accumulated losses in the Gerenger consortium that was to build the tower, only partly owned by U2, were €2.8 million according to accounts filed early in 2010. See ‘Bono’s Birthday Blues’, Phoenix, 21 May 2010.
106 Tyaransen, ‘There Is Absolutely Nothing Fake About This Man’.
107 Bono Addresses the American Ireland Fund 35th Anniversary New York Gala, 2010, at youtube.com. The quotes that follow are all transcribed from that video.
108 Bono, despite occasional efforts, lacks a common touch when it comes to sport, and sports personalities are in general notable by their absence from his celebrity-filled campaigns.
109 ‘When Bono Meets the Queen’, Mysterious Distance, 24 May 2012, at mysteriousways-mysteriousdistance.blogspot.ie.
110 ‘Bow Before His “Demigodness”: Bono Knighted’, TODAY.com, 29 March 2007, at today.msnbc.msn.com.
111 Eamonn McCann, ‘Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle’, CounterPunch, 16 April 2007, at counterpunch.org.
2 AFRICA
1 Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, U2 by U2 (London: HarperCollins, 2006), 179.
2 Olaf Tyaransen, ‘There Is Absolutely Nothing Fake About This Man’, Hot Press, 2 June 2011, at hotpress.com.
3 Tom Lodge, ‘An “Boks Amach”: The Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement’, History Ireland 14: 4 (August 2006).
4 ‘STRIKE!’, Diatribes of a Dilettante, n.d., at cake1983.wordpress.com.
5 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 351.
6 Ibid., 158.
7 ‘Give Us the Money’, Why Poverty? (BBC Four, 25 November 2012).
8 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 158.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday – Live Aid 1985, 2011, at youtube.com.
13 U2 BAD Live Aid 1985, 2006, at youtube.com.
14 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 164.
15 Ibid.
16 U2 At Live Aid, 2009, at youtube.com.
17 Frank Zappa On Howard Stern Show 1985 (pt. 1).
18 U2 At Live Aid.
19 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 162.
20 Pete Paphides, ‘U2 Become Stars After Live Aid’, Observer, 12 June 2011.
21 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 167.
22 Bono, A String of Pearls: Photographs of Ethiopia, 1988.
23 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 167.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 167–9.
26 Ibid., 169.
27 Ibid.
28 Phil Joanou, U2: Rattle and Hum, DVD (Paramount, 1999). Bono concludes his speaking interlude with the injunction, ‘Play the blues, Edge’, to which Edge replies with a not very bluesy solo, underlining both Bono’s desire to connect this song to the blues and U2’s incapacity to make that connection.
29 Noel McLaughlin and Martin McLoone, Rock and Popular Music in Ireland Before and After U2 (Dublin: Iris
h Academic Press, 2012), 188.
30 At the risk of excessive literalism, it should be noted that the limousine trip in which Bono allegedly heard Holiday on WBLS, on the band’s first night in New York in 1980, occurred on a Thursday, when an oldies show would have been highly unlikely. See Matt McGee, U2: A Diary (London: Omnibus Press, 2008).
31 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 207.
32 Ibid., 211.
33 Ibid., 213.
34 McLaughlin and McLoone, Rock and Popular Music in Ireland Before and After U2, 190.
35 Save the Children, 1995, at youtube.com.
36 Bono, ‘World Debt Angers Me’, Guardian, 17 February 1999.
37 ‘Give Us the Money’.
38 Nick Buxton, ‘Debt Cancellation and Civil Society: A Case Study of Jubilee 2000’, in Paul Gready, ed., Fighting for Human Rights (London: Routledge, 2004).
39 Charlotte Denny, ‘Brown’s $50bn Demand’, Guardian, 20 February 1999.
40 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 293.
41 Michka Assayas, Bono on Bono: Conversations with Michka Assayas (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005), 89.
42 Ibid.
43 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 290.
44 James Traub, ‘The Statesman’, New York Times, 18 September 2005.
45 ‘Give Us the Money’.
46 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
47 ‘Washington Wire’, Wall Street Journal, 22 September 2000.
48 Bono et al., U2 by U2, 290.
49 Quoted in Sean O’Hagan, ‘Pro Bono’, Observer, 26 September 2004.
50 Mark Memmott, ‘Rocker Leads Drive to Lift Third World Debt’, USA Today, 14 June 2001, at usatoday.com.
51 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 ‘Bono, Mar. 4, 2002’, at time.com.
55 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
56 Assayas, Bono on Bono, 263.
57 Quoted in Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
58 Robert Pollin, Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (London: Verso, 2003), 165–7.
59 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
60 ‘Give Us the Money’.
61 Daniel Schorn, ‘Bono And The Christian Right’, CBS News, 20 November 2005, at cbsnews.com.
62 Alex de Waal, ‘The Humanitarian Carnival: A Celebrity Vogue’, World Affairs 171: 2 (Fall 2008), 47.
63 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
64 ‘AIDS: Too Much Morality, Too Little Sense’, Economist, 28 July 2005, at economist.com.
65 Kapya John Kaoma, Colonizing African Values: How the US Christian Right Is Transforming Sexual Politics in Africa (Somerville, MA: Political Research Associates, 2012).
66 Riina Yrjölä, ‘From Street into the World: Towards a Politicised Reading of Celebrity Humanitarianism’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 14: 3 (August 2012), 361–2.
67 Quoted in ibid., 359.
68 Audrey Bryan, ‘Band-Aid Pedagogy, Celebrity Humanitarianism, and Cosmopolitan Provincialism: A Critical Analysis of Global Citizenship Education’, in Charles Wankel and Shaun Malleck, eds, Ethical Models and Applications of Globalization: Cultural, Socio-Political and Economic Perspectives (Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference, 2012), 276.
69 Riina Yrjölä, ‘The Invisible Violence of Celebrity Humanitarianism: Soft Images and Hard Words in the Making and Unmaking of Africa’, World Political Science Review 5: 1 (2009), 1.
70 Yrjölä, ‘From Street into the World’, 367.
71 Bono, ‘Transcript: Bono Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast’, USA Today, 2 February 2006.
72 Assayas, Bono on Bono, 264.
73 Yrjölä, ‘From Street into the World’, 369.
74 Ibid., 358.
75 Yrjölä, ‘Invisible Violence’, 4.
76 Yrjölä, ‘From Street into the World’, 361–2.
77 Summarised in John Street, ‘Do Celebrity Politics and Celebrity Politicians Matter?’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 14: 3 (August 2012), 351.
78 Yrjölä, ‘From Street into the World’, 359.
79 Quoted in Nathan Farrell, ‘Celebrity Politics: Bono, Product (RED) and the Legitimising of Philanthrocapitalism’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 14: 3 (August 2012), 397.
80 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
81 de Waal, ‘Humanitarian Carnival’, 49.
82 Tony Blair, A Journey (London: Random House, 2010), 555.
83 Quoted in Stuart Hodkinson, ‘G8 – Africa Nil’, Red Pepper, November 2005.
84 ‘ “Get Real” on Africa, Urges Bono’, BBC.co.uk, 29 September 2004.
85 Quoted in Julie Hollar, ‘Bono, I Presume: Covering Africa Through Celebrities’, Extra!, June 2007, at fair.org.
86 Josh Tyrangiel, ‘The Constant Charmer’, Time, 19 December 2005.
87 Traub, ‘The Statesman’.
88 Blair, A Journey, 555. Blair’s book is awash with idiotic facsimiles of natural speech such as this one.
89 Ibid.
90 Street, ‘Do Celebrity Politics and Celebrity Politicians Matter?’, 350.
91 Blair, A Journey, 570.
92 Hodkinson, ‘G8 – Africa Nil’.
93 Kate Nash, ‘Global Citizenship as Show Business: The Cultural Politics of Make Poverty History’, Media, Culture and Society 30: 2 (1 March 2008), 175.
94 Ibid., 179.
95 Ibid., 176.
96 Ibid., 177.
97 ‘Albarn Criticises Live 8 Concerts’, BBC, 10 June 2005.
98 Maxine Frith, ‘Celebrities “Hijacked” Poverty Campaign, Say Furious Charities’, Independent, 27 December 2005.
99 Ibid.
100 Hodkinson, ‘G8 – Africa Nil’.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 George Monbiot, ‘Bards of the Powerful’, Guardian, 21 June 2005.
104 ‘Bob, Bono and Africa’, Guardian, 27 June 2005.
105 Hodkinson, ‘G8 – Africa Nil’.
106 The colour and the capital letters denote emergency, apparently, and the parentheses are like embracing arms. Confusingly, when attached to products the brand often appears as (PRODUCT)RED, supposedly with the product name occupying the embrace in place of the word ‘product’, though in practice this doesn’t always happen. Some of the passages quoted in this section did not employ the parentheses at all, and I have retained the original presentation in each case.
107 Ray Waddell, ‘U2 Set to Wrap Biggest Concert Tour Ever’, Billboard, 29 July 2011.
108 Bono, ‘Message 2U’, Vanity Fair, 1 July 2007.
109 Alex Shoumatoff, ‘The Lazarus Effect’, Vanity Fair, 1 July 2007. Nike would eventually board the bandwagon in 2009 with some (RED), and red, shoelaces.
110 Eric Dash and Louise Story, ‘Rubin Leaving Citigroup; Smith Barney for Sale’, New York Times, 10 January 2009.
111 Sarah Dadush, ‘Profiting in (RED): The Need for Enhanced Transparency in Cause-Related Marketing’, New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 42: 4 (Summer 2010), 1269–336.
112 ‘One Great Color. One Great Cause’, Apple.com, n.d., at apple.com.
113 Dadush, ‘Profiting in (RED)’, 1336 n. 21.
114 Ibid., 1336 n. 19.
115 Farrell, ‘Celebrity Politics’, 399.
116 Dadush, ‘Profiting in (RED)’, 1284–5.
117 ‘Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million’, n.d., at adage.com.
118 Farrell, ‘Celebrity Politics’, 399.
119 Jane Martinson, ‘The Amex Chief Providing Backing for Bono’, Guardian, 17 March 2006.
120 Ibid.
121 Farrell, ‘Celebrity Politics’, 402.
122 Ibid., 404.
123 See Norma Anderson, ‘Shoppers of the World Unite: (RED)’s Messaging and Morality in the Fight Against African AIDS’, Journal of Pan African Studies 2: 6 (September 2008), 32–54.
124 Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte, ‘Better (Red)TM Than Dead? Celebritie
s, Consumption and International Aid’, Third World Quarterly 29: 4 (June 2008), 719–21.
125 Colleen O’Manique and Ronald Labonte, ‘Rethinking (Product) RED’, Lancet 371: 9624 (May 2008), 1561–3.
126 Colleen O’Manique and Ronald Labonté, ‘Seeing (RED) – Authors’ Reply’, Lancet 371: 9627 (May 2008), 1836.
127 Bono, ‘ “We Need Europe to Be a Melting-Pot. We Need to Melt” ’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
128 Bono, ‘Bono, Guest Editor: I Am a Witness. What Can I Do?’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
129 Bono, ‘The Africa Issue: Still Optimistic, but No Sleep Until G8 Promises Fulfilled’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
130 Paul Vallely, ‘Can Rock Stars Change the World? The Big Question’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
131 Ciar Byrne, ‘ “We Just Look for the Stuff That Feels Most Visceral” ’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
132 Bob Geldof, ‘Aid Isn’t the Only Answer. Africa Must Be Allowed to Trade Its Way Out of Poverty’, Independent, 16 May 2006.
133 Lisa Robinson, ‘It’s Bono, on Line 1’, Vanity Fair, July 2007.
134 Bono, ‘Meanwhile, in the Next White House …’, Vanity Fair, 1 July 2007.
135 David Carr, ‘Citizen Bono Brings Africa to Idle Rich’, New York Times, 5 March 2007.
136 Bongani Madondo, quoted in Natasha Himmelman and Danai Mupotsa, ‘(Product)Red: (re)Branding Africa?’, Journal of Pan African Studies 2: 6 (September 2008), 1.
137 Ibid., 2.
138 Zine Magubane, ‘The (Product) Red Man’s Burden: Charity, Celebrity, and the Contradictions of Coevalness’, Journal of Pan African Studies 2: 6 (2008).
139 Karon Liu, ‘Bono and Bob Geldof Bring Their Bleeding Hearts (and Headline-Writing Skills) to the Globe’, Toronto Life, 5 May 2010.
140 Jason Pontin, ‘TED Day 1: Bono Heckles the Stage – Technology Review’, Technology Review, 5 June 2007.
141 Felix Salmon, ‘Mwenda vs Bono in Tanzania’, 5 June 2007, at upstart.bizjournals.com.
142 Pontin, ‘TED Day 1’.
143 U2Miracle.com = Bono & Ali Hewson by Annie Leibovitz for Louis Vuitton’s Core Values Ad Campaign, 2010, at youtube.com.
144 ‘EU Court Rules Against Louis Vuitton in Nadia Plesner Copyright Case’, Eyeteeth, 4 May 2011, at eyeteeth.blogspot.com.
145 ‘De Beers Jewellery – About De Beers’, De Beers Jewellery, n.d., at debeers.com.
146 Tamara Abraham, ‘Stuck in a Louis Vuitton Moment: Bono and Ali Hewson Pose for French Megabrand … in Clothes from Their Own Ethical Label’, Mail Online, 2 September 2010, at dailymail.co.uk.