Was Bono Being Self-Absorbed?

Immediately after the massacre in Paris, Bono, who with his bandmates in U2 had been due to give a concert in the city, described the atrocities as an "attack on music". This prompted a bit of a backlash on Twitter. "Yeah, right, Bono. It's all about you ..." But actually it is, isn't it? In the aftermath of any horror we relate it to ourselves and to our own experience and in our own, often trite way, try to offer sympathy and, where we can, solidarity.

For Bono, it's all about the band. For sports fans it's all about the crowd in the stadium. 

Joy as an Act of Defiance

December 1, 2015

NEW YORK (AP) - Bono says despite the deadly attacks in Paris last month he believes Paris will remain strong and he is hoping U2's concert there this week moves the audience.

People have the Power (yes they do)

Father Abraham, Speak to Your Sons

(CNN) -- On the morning of July 7, 2005, Islamic extremists detonated three bombs on trains and a bus across London, killing 52 people and wounding hundreds.

That night, U2 performed at a stadium in Berlin, where during "Sunday Bloody Sunday," frontman Bono donned a headband bearing the word "Coexist," designed to incorporate a Christian cross, a star of David and an Islamic crescent.

"Jesus, Jew, Mohammad, it's true. All sons of Abraham," he chanted, pointing to the symbols to plead for religious tolerance during a time of war -- a gesture Bono repeated throughout the tour. 

U2 was Rehearsing Near Paris Concert Hall

U2 were rehearsing at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris Friday night, less than three miles away from the Bataclan concert hall where the Eagles of Death Metal were playing, when they got word of the terrorist attack on the city.

"Our security locked it down pretty quickly and we got our team and our crew out of there safely," Bono told Irish DJ Dave Fanning in a radio interview Saturday. "We came to the back door of the hotel. Everyone congregated and watched the TV like everybody else in disbelief with what was happening."

Religion So We Can Love and Hate

Imagine No Relgion

Father Abraham . . . What have you Done?

Some graphitti was written up on a wall not too far from here
It says coexist
Jesus, Jew, Mohammed, it's true
Jesus, Jew, Mohammed, it's true
All sons of Abraham
Father Abraham, Father Abraham
Where are you now
Father Abraham, look what you've done
You've pitted your son against your son
Father, Father Abraham
No more, no more, no more
No more, no more, no more
No more, no more, no more
No more, no more