U2 mark 50 years together with concert at school where it all began
Around 30 students from a local music education programme joined on violins, viola and harps for the rendition of 'One'.
U2 marked 50 years as a band on Friday by returning to the school where they started playing together as teenagers and delighted current students with a concert.
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The 22-time Grammy-Award-winning band formed in September 1976 after Larry Mullen Jr. pinned a handwritten note reading "Drummer Seeks Musicians To Form Band" on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in north Dublin.
Mullen, Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton on Friday sought to replicate one of their early shows when they played on the roof of the school's boiler room in 1978, the start of a journey that would carve their place in rock history.
Hundreds of students, some holding hand-drawn posters saying "It's A Beautiful Day No School", finished class early and packed the school yard, where they screamed throughout the 35-minute set alongside their similarly enthusiastic teachers.
"Is that the science lab?" said Bono, dressed all in black, as he arrived on stage and pointed to a building in the distance where some teachers watched out of windows and recorded the scene on their phones.
Fans also gathered to listen outside the school gates after word of the secret show spread.
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After arriving on stage as Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' blared from the speakers, the band launched into a seven-song set that spanned 'I Will Follow' and 'Out Of Control' from their 1980 debut 'Boy' to 'Vertigo', a UK No. 1 single 24 years later.
Around 30 students from a local music education programme joined on violins, viola and harps for the rendition of 'One'.
U2, whose most renowned albums include 'The Joshua Tree' and 'Achtung Baby', announced this week the release of their 16th album 'Carnaval De Luz' on November 13.
The new album features a duet between Bono and Dolly Parton.
The Irish rocker and the late country music star sing together on Torn, which is described as a song about broken family ties.
The country music track was co-written by the band, Parton and Snow Patrol star Johnny McDaid.
Parton died in August at the age of 80 following a “brief battle with cancer”.
Carnaval De Luz is the band’s first album of new material since Songs Of Surrender (2017). Its first single, Street Of Dreams, was released in July.
The record is said to be a collection of 12 songs exploring themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom and endurance “in the face of dark, encroaching forces”.
Speaking about the album, Bono said: “Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your rose-tinted naivety… oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors.
“There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance!
“Because in the near distance just outside our carnival of light there are all kinds of creatures… the same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters.
“So we make the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier.
“We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be.”
The Edge said: “It’s a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs — and features the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording. Just saying.”
Carnaval De Luz will be released on November 13.