(Credits: Far Out / Daniel Hazard)
Sun 22 February 2026 14:15, UK
It doesn’t normally take Bono that long to start talking about the importance of rock and roll every time U2 perform.
The entire music scene meant a lot more than a couple of catchy tunes to him, and he was going to do everything in his power to try and move the audience the same way that his favourite records moved him when he first started playing gigs in Ireland. But even if he has rubbed elbows with some of the greatest musical legends to ever walk the Earth, there were moments where Bono could still get starstruck.
However, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Bono has almost too many friends in the industry to be starstruck at this point. He was able to rub elbows with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Cash to Pavarotti, so it’s not like he was surrounding himself with only his friends from back in the day. He could practically become mates with anyone that crossed his path, but that wasn’t always the case.
In fact, the era of War saw him with more than a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. October may have been the faith-fuelled album for the band, but getting into politics was always going to be close to his heart. This was them following in the footsteps of bands like The Clash and even Bob Marley, but it wasn’t until they actually played Live Aid a few years later that everyone got a better look at who they were dealing with.
Bono himself had heralded their performance as one of the great failures when he first saw the footage, but what he saw as embarrassing was enough to become transcendent. A lot of the audience participation that he was doing was second only to Queen’s set that day, but whereas they were making their first steps into rock and roll sainthood, David Bowie was already one of the biggest global megastars in the world.
‘The Starman’ had travelled on musical voyages no one had ever thought of before, and even though he was more of a pop star at this juncture, he could still create some of the most off-the-wall songs of all time. He had already helped invent post-rock, become a rock and roll alien, and pave the way for new recording techniques, so the craziest thing he could have done at that point was play up the pop star angle.
But even if he had a bright new suit on and shed the white facepaint, that wasn’t enough to take the edge off when Bono first heard him, saying, “David Bowie came over to me. And then we started walking together and I turned to ask him something, and I was wearing that ridiculous hat with the wide brim, and I nearly took his eye out. This is the Elvis of the UK: this is the man who, more than any other, set fire to my imagination. And to have a moment with this God-like genius and almost take his eye out with the brim of your hat, it wasn’t a great result.”
While Bowie managed to take it in stride when talking to the U2 frontman, Bono was far more interested in seeing where U2 could take their sound with his idol’s template. They had already started working with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno on records like The Joshua Tree, but going to Berlin and stripping everything down for Achtung Baby was a page ripped directly out of Bowie’s playbook when he began working on his Berlin trilogy back in the day.
So while first impressions can be tough in the music industry, it’s not like Bowie ever showed any hostility towards Bono for it by any stretch. He knew that these Irish lads had something that no one else did, and they would spend the rest of their career making the kinds of twists and turns that would make him proud.