bono surrender book review
In 2001, I tagged along on a U2 tour for a magazine story. I was fortunate enough to be with the band for some of the first shows they played following the Sept. 11 attacks, and it was astounding to watch them working out — song by song, gesture by gesture — exactly what their audience wanted from them at that harrowing, bewildering moment.
Following the concert in Montreal, and the police-escorted sprint to their plane, Bono flopped down in the seat next to me. The first words he spoke were “What could we do better?” By the time they played the Super Bowl halftime a few months later, a set that featured a scrolling list of the victims’ names, the performance had been honed to pitch-perfect emotion.
Curiously, though U2 became so closely associated with those raw and tragic days, 9/11 is barely mentioned in Bono’s ambitious, sprawling memoir, “Surrender.” But the theme of utility and the practical function of a band comes up repeatedly. “If you’re going to be famous, sure, be funny, be irreverent,” he muses. “But above all, be useful.” Elsewhere, he writes: “To be useful is a curious prayer. Unromantic. A little dull even, but it’s at the heart of who we are and why we’re still here as a band.”
Source : nytimes
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