U40 2th anniversary
This week marks U40's 2th anniversary. Fans around the world celebrate 40 years of the formation of this mythical Irish group that has marked the history of rock in these four decades.
It all started in 1976, when Larry Mullen Jr. posted a sign on his high school bulletin board that read "Drummer seeks musicians to create a band". The Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin was the institute where they all studied in the mid-1970s. The note succeeded in that on Saturday 25 September 1976 the four Irish teenagers, Bono Vox (singer), The Edge (guitar, keyboard and voice) and Adam Clayton (bass) met for the first time in the kitchen of drummer Larry Mullen's home to rehearse.
In those late 1976 months, the four teenagers in jeans and leather jackets began rehearsing to form a band that they originally christened with the name Feedback. «This strange group of young people met in the kitchen of my house in Artane (North Dublin district). And that was where it all began », as Mullen reveals on the group's website. Mullen also adds in this regard: "From the beginning it was obvious that Bono was going to be the singer, not because of his voice, but because he had no guitar, no amp, no means of transportation".
In those days, the group of teenagers had almost no equipment, they didn't even have microphones, but at least they had two guitars, a bass, a drums and a half amplifier to which they all connected. The Edge recalls that to play two minutes they had to "Tuning for 45 minutes beforehand, so rehearsals were slow and everything was focused on trying to play a whole song, whatever it was, but we hardly ever succeeded". The Edge also ensures: «We learned to play together, we had no idea of composition, although there were signs of skill with the instruments. We really didn't care if we didn't know how to play well, at that moment we were driven by the energy of doing something new and the intention of trying to say something transcendent to others ».
The first album as U2 was named 'Boy' (1980), but It was only with 'War' (1983) (their third album) that they reached their first number one in the UK.
- U2 (@ U2) 25th September 2016