U2 Reflects on 50 Years Together and New Album
La Petite Maison, situated in Nice, holds a well-established reputation as a five-star celebrity haunt.
Over the years, high-profile figures including Beyoncé, Elton John, Tom Cruise, Harry Styles, and Leonardo DiCaprio have dined inside its doors, with their meals presided over by the restaurant’s founder, Nicole, who has been variously described in print as eccentric, unique, and truculent. On Bastille Day in 2016, in which 86 people were killed. “I climbed through that window and hid under there,” he nods, pointing to a table at the rear of the restaurant. “Nicole,” he adds, “didn’t hide.”, he was eating on the outdoor terrace the night of Nice’s terrorist attack. Renee Good, the subject of its opening track, American Obituary.).
It remains enough of an exclusive spot that the arrival of U2—still incontrovertibly one of the biggest rock groups in the world 40 years after they first rose to global prominence—causes barely a murmur of surprise among their fellow lunchtime diners.
For the band, the coastal restaurant provides a convenient meeting place during a brief rehearsal break. All four members of U2 own properties nearby in the south of France. The meeting is squeezed into a crowded schedule that includes preparations for a secret performance at London’s Tate Modern, where U2 planned to perform exclusively songs written and recorded in collaboration with producer Brian Eno to celebrate their long-standing creative bond with him. That an equitable division of power is supposed to be a disastrous way to run a band.
Reflections on Five Decades of Music
The band is also gearing up for the release of their first album of new material in nearly nine years, titledCarnaval de Luzalongside plans for an extensive world tour. The flurry of current activity follows a series of reflective events, including two companion EPs titledDays of AshandEaster Lily. WhileEaster Lilyleaned heavily into spiritual themesDays of Ashcarried sharp political commentary and invective inspired by international conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine. Bono’s recent public statements comparing global crises had previously sparked significant debate and uproar in Israel. The latter filled with songs of a spiritual bent, the former with righteous anger and invective variously inspired by the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Palestine – Bono recently caused uproar in Israel by comparing comments made by the country’s national security minister to Heinrich Himmler – and the Trump administration. (It arrived a month after ICE’s shooting of, there were the EPs Days of Ash and Easter Lily. I think the clue’s in the title of the first album, Boy. This year’s flurry of activity comes at the end of a lengthy period of turbulence for U2, s uccessful democracy or not.
Another key milestone leading up to the new release was a return to Dublin’s Mount Temple Comprehensive school. The performance was staged to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Larry Mullen Jr. placing a index card on the school’s bulletin board stating that a drummer was seeking fellow musicians to form a band. Upon returning to their old high school, U2 was greeted enthusiastically by current pupils waving homemade signs. Some signs carried respectful greetings such as “Welcome home” and “Truly it’s a beautiful day”, while others offered playful banter, including “Which one of you is Inhaler’s dad?” and “When are Oasis on?” We’d been faced with the petrol crisis, the economic crisis, worrying about what you were going to do, in school in the 70s.
Navigating Male Egos and Band Democracy
Despite the humorous suggestions from students urging them to cede the stage to the Gallagher brothers, the return to their former school prompted the members of U2 to reflect deeply on their early days. Bono notes that right from the beginning, the group’s ambitions differed from the prevailing punk ethos of the late 1970s. While punk emphasized instant burn-out, U2 viewed longevity as a primary objective when they began seeking a record label as 16-year-olds. It was that, from the start, U2’s aims seemed slightly different. “We thought longevity for our band was an important goal,” he says, “which was the absolute opposite of the punk thing. According to “I remember that period when we first started to look for a record deal,”, Bono. “We were actively impatient; we had a great level of expectation. We were 16, 17, 18 and we expected to get a record deal. And those things are so important: they give you the sense that anything is possible, that change can happen, that you can be a huge band, it was a sort of examination of innocence and naivety. He laughs, saying that when his own father reached that point, “he started sleeping with an iron bar under his pillow”, and illustrates this with a story about U2’s peers in the late 70s Irish rock scene, the Virgin Prun. In 2011; the misguided launch of 2014’s Songs of Innocence when they invaded everyone’s iTunes libraries; the cool reaction afforded that album and its success, bono and the Edge’s flop Broadway musical about Spider-Man. Be that physical, sexual, mental, you make up for it by flexing, students of male psychology will tell you that as men lose power. Da thought we were being attacked and the fucking iron bar came out and he’s off down the road chasing them.
Maintaining the exact same four-member lineup for half a century remains an anomaly in modern rock history. The band members describe their internal decision-making process as a functioning, if contentious, democracy—often referred to internally as “the soviet.” Larry Mullen observes that surviving together requires an open forum where members can express ideas freely, though Bono admits that navigating long-term group dynamics has grown harder over time due to the evolving complexities of the male ego as musicians grow older. That they have survived intact is down to what Bono calls “the soviet” – a democracy in which songwriting credits are always shared equally and everything is decided by committee. According to watching them interact over Madame Nicole’s butterflied prawns and pissaladière, you get a vague sense of how “the soviet” might work – occasionally, after Bono offers a long answer that digresses into quotations from books, songs and the Bible, another member of the band steps in and effectively grounds it, summarising what he’s just, In more direct terms. But nonetheless, there’s no getting around the fact. According to as Bruce Springsteen, When he inducted U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005: “I believe they actually practise some form of democracy – toxic poison in a band’s head!”. According to “It’s got harder as time’s gone on,”, Bono. “Because, as Marianne Faithfull would say in situations like this: ‘Never underestimate the male ego, darling. According to “I think if we really understood how it worked, we’d have moved out of the rock’n’roll business and into political advice,”, Mullen. “You have to be able to go into a room and share and be open to most circumstances.”.
Addressing the Imperial Phase and Future Outlook
The upcoming albumCarnaval de Luzaddresses the group’s long history directly. One prominent track on the album, titled “The Greatest Show on Earth”, acts as a reflective commentary on the band’s imperial phase during the 1880s and 1990s, as well as the diminished cultural dominance of rock music in the modern era. During the writing process, debate arose over the exact phrasing of the lyrics, with The Edge and Adam Clayton suggesting alternative wording to soften the nostalgic edge of claiming they were once the greatest act on earth.
The band members confirm that while creative friction remains a staple of their recording sessions, their shared history and unwillingness to simply defer to a single authority figure is what prevents their music from becoming mundane. As U2 prepares to releaseCarnaval de Luzand launch their next global tour, the band maintains its core structure, carrying forward a fifty-year trajectory built on equal partnership, political engagement, and shared ambition. The show, on Tuesday night, was the latest event in what is proving a packed year.
