{"id":905764,"date":"2026-09-26T03:58:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905764\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T03:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:58:17","slug":"u2-rock-their-old-school-with-surprise-concert-to-mark-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905764\/","title":{"rendered":"U2 rock their old school with surprise concert to mark 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

September 26, 2026 \u2014 10:17am<\/p>\n

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London: Irish rock group U2 have gone back to school to perform to students and teachers on the grounds where they formed their band 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

The group followed the school performance with a surprise concert on a Dublin pedestrian mall famous for hosting buskers, where they played from a building as hundreds of fans gathered below.<\/p>\n

\"U2U2 have celebrated their 50th Anniversary by returning to Mount Temple Comprehensive School.Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images for U2<\/p>\n

Lead singer Bono joked to Irish national broadcaster RTE that the band\u2019s lead guitarist, The Edge, was worried the students at their old school, Mount Temple Comprehensive, might not have liked the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they can\u2019t ask for their money back,\u201d the singer said. \u201cBecause it\u2019s free.\u201d<\/p>\n

U2 formed at the school when the band\u2019s drummer, Larry Mullen Jnr, posted a note on a school notice board asking if fellow students wanted to join a band.<\/p>\n

Their Friday concert on the school grounds was held 50 years to the day after the band members first gathered at Mullen\u2019s family home in Dublin on September 25, 1976.<\/p>\n

They performed at the same school building where they were photographed in 1977 in their first iteration as a band, three years before they released their first album, Boy. At their Friday concert they performed their first hit from that album, I Will Follow.<\/p>\n

The Edge joked about the contrast between the Friday concert and their debut on the school grounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were good. I think the sound was better this time, is my sense, and I was more in tune,\u201d he told<\/a> RTE.<\/p>\n

\"U2U2 in 1979: from left, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr., David Evans (aka \u201cthe Edge\u201d) and Bono.Paul Slattery<\/p>\n

The band performed hits including Vertigo, Beautiful Day and With Or Without You, as well as their latest single, Silencio.<\/p>\n

The band finished the school performance with a rendition of their hit, One, with backing from music students playing violins, cellos and harps.<\/p>\n

The band are considered one of the world\u2019s biggest rock groups with an estimated 170 million record sales, placing them 22nd on a Wikipedia list of major artists by sales volume. (The Beatles rank first with 600 million sales; Australia\u2019s biggest musical export, AC\/DC, have an estimated 200 million sales.)<\/p>\n

\"BonoBono looks out on the crowd as U2 perform an impromptu concert from a balcony in central Dublin, Ireland.AP Photo\/Peter Morrison<\/p>\n

A few hours after the school concert, crowds gathered in Grafton Street \u2013 one of Dublin\u2019s main pedestrian thoroughfares \u2013 as rumours circulated about a free concert.<\/p>\n

The band appeared on the first-floor balcony if a Dublin landmark, Bewley\u2019s Caf\u00e9, and began a concert for hundreds of people gathered in the street below.<\/p>\n

\"CrowdCrowd lapping up the impromptu concert from U2 in Grafton Street \u2013 one of Dublin\u2019s main pedestrian thoroughfares.AP Photo\/Peter Morrison<\/p>\n

They performed I Will Follow as well as another song from their earliest days, Out of Control. They also performed One, Where the Streets Have No Name, Silencio and With or Without You.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Irish<\/a><\/p>\n

The Grafton Street concert also included a moment to honour the Irish songwriter Glen Hansard, who died<\/a> in July. He was a regular busker in the Dublin street before the global success of the film Once, which featured songs he wrote and performed with Mark\u00e9ta Irglov\u00e1.<\/p>\n

U2 performed Falling Slowly, one of the songs from the film.<\/p>\n

Hansard, who died in July, had a long association with Grafton Street and was closely associated with the annual Christmas Eve charity busk in Dublin city centre.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s next album, Carnaval de Luz, is due to be released in November and includes a track co-written and performed with Dolly Parton, the American music star who died last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"DavidDavid Crowe<\/a> is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 26, 2026 \u2014 10:17am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-905764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}