Bono At The New Yorker Festival—By PJ and Kelly

Bono At The New Yorker Festival (watercolor) by Kelly Eddington, 2022. Based on a reference photo by Beth Nabi. Thank you, Beth!

It’s Going to Be Alright

Some Thoughts After Seeing Bono at The New Yorker Festival

PJ DeGenaro

It’s been a long few years since we last saw U2. I won’t say much about the destabilizing and deeply sad stuff we’ve all been through, but I certainly never imagined myself waiting outside a venue with a KN95 looped around my wrist, digging through my wallet for a vaccination card.

Last March, I started a job that sometimes requires me to set up events and herd strangers like a border collie, just so I can give away a plaque and take a picture. Afterwards, I have to sit alone in my car for fifteen minutes before I can function again. “What HAPPENED to you?” says my mother, with the cadence of a Brooklyn-born MacPhisto. “You have TERRIBLE bags under your eyes.” I think she sometimes forgets how old I am. But basically, fam, I’ve been kinda tired.

So it was incredibly exciting when—with only a few minutes of panic—Achtoon Boss Kelly and I snagged tickets to see Bono at The New Yorker Festival. 

BONO! AFTER FOUR MISERABLE, GRUELING YEARS! BONO! 

I would need an outfit. Black of course, but with a pop of color. I envisioned a Shimmering Red Scarf. It would be October, and chilly. But I couldn’t find a Shimmering Red Scarf online, or at Target, or at Kohls. I finally found what I was looking for in a tiny shop in Provincetown, MA, where the proprietor rhapsodized over the new bivalent Covid vaccine while dealing with my credit card. “I had no effects at all from this one! You could punch me, just like this!” And he punched his own arm.

Some of us do this kind of pre-planning in the face of concerts (and interviews). We want to stand out in some way. We want to believe we might be seen by the small, beautiful, powerful, Irish gentleman whose voice has been our hope and anchor for all these years.

Of course, when Bono Day finally arrived, the weather in New York had turned unseasonably warm, and my Shimmering Red Scarf (with blue and black accents) ended up wadded in my handbag.

But it was wonderful to be in the city with statuesque goth-goddess Kelly again! New York is the city I’ve lived adjacent to, but not actually in, for my entire life. Sometime during the pandemic I lost the ability to hail a cab, but we eventually took our place in line on Central Park West. We were jittery from work, travel, and lack of sleep. Faced with the prospect of being in a smallish room with Bono, the man who brought us together and who binds us to so many others, we were too revved up to eat.

So we waited there with everyone who had the good fortune to be in New York that day: The “famous” fans who turn up everywhere, the fans who only make one show per tour, the fans who collect and catalog memorabilia, the fans who run their own websites, the fans with ONE and (RED) bracelets up and down their arms, the fans tugging at their shiny dresses, the fans in big t-shirts carefully preserved since 1992.

I thought of David Bowie, who sang so eloquently about impending apocalypse and everyone he had to see before the final curtain:

And all the fat, skinny people

And all the tall, short people

And all the nobody people

And all the somebody people…

I never thought I'd need so many people

And really, until the isolation of the last few years, I never did think I would need so many people! Especially the ones who return again and again to this band, U2, and to the bright, warm engine that keeps it running, Bono. 

My more sophisticated friends and relatives tried to prepare me for a letdown. “So someone’s gonna interview Bono for an hour, and then it’ll be over? That’s what you’re all excited about?” As if that wouldn’t be enough! But of course, that is not how it went down. Bono had a stage and an 811-seat venue at his disposal, and he used it. Yes, there was an interview, which was lovely but could have been a bit deeper. There was also poetry, comedy and music—three familiar songs, gorgeously rearranged, that got the whole place on its feet again and again. Maybe I can only speak for myself, but this felt to me like a bacchanal, a catharsis, a barbaric yawp in the face of trauma, grief, and turmoil.

And at the center of it all, Bono, who despite the best efforts of the paparazzi is still a very slight and fit figure of a man. He cut a gorgeous silhouette against the peachy stage-lighting, and his voice was deeper, more powerful, and more resonant than I’ve ever heard it. I get weary of the people who are always trying to predict the end—the last record, the last tour, the end of U2. It’s obvious that Bono, at least, has vast, untapped reserves of music in him. 

Or maybe he just conjures it from another source, like water from a stone. I have no problem believing that.

Toward the end of the evening, when New Yorker editor David Remnick wondered why our fandom has remained so devoted after 40 years, Bono would not hazard a guess. He only said that he was grateful for us.

Well, from mid-morning of that day until I dropped her off at LaGuardia on Sunday morning, Kelly and I talked. About everything. But time after time, we came back around to Bono, whom we love and revere so much that we have to disguise it with humor.

In my youth, I had brief dalliances with other bands. But at any point, if you asked me to name my favorite band, I’d say “U2” without hesitation. And here is the conclusion I reached after trying to fit four years of talk into a single weekend.

I stick with U2 because U2 will not let me go. They will not leave me alone. “You can run from love, and if it’s really love it will find you and catch you by the heel.” That simple line from an underappreciated song is the essence of U2. They don’t let you go. Sometimes they run ahead for a bit and wait for you to catch up, sometimes they have to catch up to you. But they will always meet you where you are, so they can lean close and whisper in your ear:

“Here is a song about what just happened, or what is happening, or what is about to happen once you turn the next corner. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be fucked up. But then it’s going to be alright. It’s going to be alright.”

I’m not sure David Remnick would understand, but he could have asked any one of us and I’ll bet he’d have heard something similar. 

It was just such a joy to be with all of you again.

Aged With A Hint Of Sweetness

Some More Thoughts After Seeing Bono at The New Yorker Festival

Kelly Eddington

If you were on the 10:53 train from Grand Central Station to White Plains ten nights ago (ten!), among the dozing or phone-entranced passengers, you might have noticed two women deep in conversation. They said things like “transcendent” and “elevating the form of the book tour” and “he surprised us, and just try surprising a U2 fan these days.”

Those women were, of course, PJ and me, the entire staff of this website, and we were in the middle of what really needs to become a semi-annual company retreat. I would like to thank PJ for already describing the retreat’s centerpiece—Bono’s appearance at the New Yorker Festival. 

The two of us were reeling.

I couldn’t get over the freakish power of his voice as it resonated in that acoustically perfect space. You know how sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll be so close to the U2 stage that you’ll hear the real-life sound of Larry’s drums booming atop the amplified version that’s blasting throughout the arena? From my spot in the fifth row at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, which was so tiny I kept saying it was half an Apollo, I could actually hear Bono’s voice over his microphone.

We didn’t even know he was going to be singing at all.

It was the kind of surprise that makes you clutch your best friend’s forearm as you both repeat, “What is happening?” And even though this was A Serious Book Thing, everyone I could see rose to their feet and sang to, with, and for him during those three songs. The beauty of the music (cello and a cascade of zeroes and ones) was spare, and while it made us feel the absence of the rest of the band, its purity underlined just how much this man brings to the table.

He sang “With Or Without You” for the [checks] 845th time and somehow made it revelatory, and the vulnerability in his voice brought PJ and me to tears. He sang, “And I miss you when you’re not around,” and he meant it, and so did we.

These and other incoherent thoughts poured out of me as I sat, dazzled and dehydrated, on a train during Hour 21 of being awake.

“It was Bono concentrate. It was a Bono infusion.”

“That’s it. That’s exactly it.”

I could barely remember waking up at 2:30 a.m. for the wee-hours drive to the St. Louis airport with my beloved and long-suffering husband. The day had been filled with travel indignities that made me ask myself all kinds of tough questions. Then, much later, PJ and I grappled with how mildly demeaning it can be to stand in line for someone who doesn’t know you, someone you are [cringe] a fan of and you’re [double-cringe] over fifty years old. We waited on the sidewalk for hours marked by the unrequited love we feel for this band.

But at least we were with 809 other people who got it. All of us were talking a mile a minute, thrilled to finally speak The Language Of U2 after years of only thinking and typing it.

And my beautiful sister in all of this was with me: an Actual Poet with the best hair in the fandom! While PJ and I are in constant communication online, the last occasion when we were in the same time zone was 2018. That’s the equivalent of all four years of high school and half of eighth grade—a devastating fact. 

But anyway, nothing mattered once we were in that cozy venue, and Bono was standing mere feet from us on a low stage. He’d finished the performance segment of the evening, and while he could have repeated it four times and we would have walked away more than happy, he sat down to chat with David Remnick under Barbara Walters-style lighting.

Most of the stories David asked Bono to tell were greatest hits that longtime fans could recite along with him, chapter and verse. His early-days anecdotes have become beloved fairy tales to us by now, and Bono told them in a voice that wrapped itself around us like the security blanket we still need. His responses were witty and patient, and he smiled as if his ideas had only just occurred to him. At one point he told the story behind “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and sang those three words. I was shocked anew at the magnitude of the voice that lives coiled up inside him, waiting to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.

He struggled for the right word only once, and as he gazed into the middle distance searching for it, his left hand became animated. Maybe that hand can’t work the fretboard of a guitar anymore, but it plays a valuable supporting role when he sings or speaks. It seems like an extension of his brain as his fingertips stroke the invisible images that exist about a foot away from his face. Or maybe that hand is merely a comforting little companion he turns to when he’s under pressure to deliver. It certainly took numerous trips down his cheek en route to the base of his neck as he spoke. Whatever that hand is doing for him, it’s hypnotic to watch, and I found my own left hand mimicking its movements.

I thought he’d look at the audience more, but he was deeply focused on the interview. His chair was apparently comfortable and the right size for him, so he did not squirm as much as he usually does, unfortunately. So from my vantage point, the rest of the night became a meditation on The Profile, on Bono as Art Object.

And oh can I ever do that.

The forehead, the nose, the jaw, the hair (sleek and swept back from his face and a little messy near his neck), the reliably all-black uniform, the left leg crossed over the right leg, the boots, the frames of his glasses gleaming under the spotlight, the wry grin: all of these things were burned onto my retinas while he charmed the audience with his basketful of polished anecdotes. PJ and I happen to enjoy the way Bono connects ideas with a luxuriously drawn-out Annnnnnnnnndt, which is the audio equivalent of a shoulder massage, if you ask us. Annnnnnnnnndt we shot each other knowing looks the first time he did this. 

After spending the past year grappling with a series of self-portraits, I’ve learned a lot about myself, and self-portraits speak to me more than any other kind of painting. 

Less than a year after I began my life as a full-time artist, I saw an exquisite self-portrait by Albrecht Durer in Madrid’s Prado museum. It’s a painting I’ve loved since I was a teenager, and it shows Durer as a beautiful and confident young man at the top of his game. The small painting was situated in a corner formed by two free-standing gallery walls. Happening upon it in real life was like randomly encountering David Bowie, and he was gazing at me with quiet intensity. The artist seemed to say, I think you understand what I'm trying to do. 

Durer was Joshua Tree Bono from 500 years ago in that self-portrait, and like Bono, Durer was criticized for seeming arrogant. But at that time in their lives, I think both men were realizing I can fucking do this. I have this thing inside of me and it’s finally coming out the way I want it to. And you get it. You understand what I’m trying to do. And you could read that all over their faces.

What is a memoir if not a written self-portrait?

During our weekend-long conversation about everything, PJ and I returned to this question again and again: What is it about Bono? 

There’s always been a warm glow surrounding him. He’s absorbed so much love from so many people. But he’s been away from that for a few years and has written a book. What has he learned about himself after this intense period of introspection? Has he changed?

The man we saw ten (ten!) nights ago made me feel that yes, he has changed, and this is what I thought as I listened to him describe his band, his family, and his evolution: 

Somebody’s done it. Somebody’s achieved self-actualization. Somebody’s reached the top of the mountain at last, and he has had a good look around. We might never get there, but somebody’s gonna tell us about it, and maybe we can try.

As PJ and I sat at her kitchen table, we snacked on the Dubliner cheese she bought on a whim because what could have been more appropriate? Its label said, Aged with a hint of sweetness.

“That’s it. That’s exactly it.”