U2 at Croke Park: ‘What’s Irish for 14, Larry?’

Bono is serious. For their second performance of ‘Vertigo’ of the night, he walks over to the drum kit to ask Larry Mullen how to say 14 ‘as Gaeilge’.

Misunderstanding, Larry shouts: ‘A h-aon’! (‘one’) Bono asks again and this time the drummer gets it right: ‘Ceathar déag’. Three times he tells Bono how to say it.

‘A h-aon, a dhà, a trì, a ceatharmmmmmfrgh!’

Close enough. With an apology to the venue’s local neighbours because the show ran 10 minutes past the 11pm curfew, the band tear up the song something wicked. (They might as well skip the first time they play it at the start of the show.) The place is alight, and all around us kids’ faces are in ecstasy. Croke Park sings along as they have done all night.

The European leg of the Vertigo Tour has officially got lift off. While the first two shows in Brussels and Gelsenkirchen left us a little indifferent and having missed the reportedly better gigs in the U.K., Croke Park I has it all. Drive, energy, emotion and fun – this time the boys were truly back in town.

There were, as expected, few real surprises in the setlist (Wild Horses, With or Without You, I Will Follow), but the passion, the Irish banter (Bono mentioned the Irish poet John Keats when he noticed a banner in the audience that said ‘see you in Rome’) and various ‘new’ snippets like Thin Lizzy’s ‘Jailbreak’ and an improvisational ‘Northside in the Rain’ well made up for that. Talking about the rain… Bono sang some lines of it, twice during the show.

‘Oh, you look so beautiful tonight,’ Bono told the Croke Park audience. Absolutely gorgeous, yes.

Bono and Edge Team Up With Jobs

Bono and The Edge were in San Jose, California, today to help Apple announce:

• A special 20GB black U2 iPod that will retail for $349US featuring all four band members’ signatures.
• A digital box set of all of U2′s albums as well as over 25 rare and unreleased tracks. The box set will retail for $149US. U2.com says that those tracks will include material from Hasta La Vista, Baby! and Melon, the Propaganda-only fan club CDs. The total is said to be “over 400 tracks” — which is a lot more than just all the albums. Hopefully there’ll be more on this soon.
• The iTunes music store is now available in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, in addition to the UK, US, Germany and France. (No Ireland?)
• A iPod Photo for sharing your iPhoto library with friends and family who aren’t already sick of your photos. Price: $499US (40GB); $599US (60GB).
• Bono on CNBC, discussing the release: “Music and technology have always been neighbours. Today they moved into the same house.”

Update:Watch the video stream of the event.