Bono's Acceptance Speech Born in the USA, my arse! That man was born on the northside of Dublin! Irish. His mother was Irish, the poetry, the gift of the gab. Isn't it obvious? In fact, I think he's tall for an Irishman. It's an Irish occasion this evening. Paddy Sledge...you know, the O'Jays -- they're a tribe from the west of Ireland. This is a bit of an Irish wedding. I mean, it is. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is giving an Irish wedding. Beautiful girls, beautiful frocks, fights in the bathroom, managers and clients arguing, lawyers with bloody noses. It's an Irish wedding. It's a great occasion. I even like it when it gets dirty, and I've seen it get really dirty over the years here. That's what rock and roll is: the sound of revenge. So make your enemies interesting, I would say, ladies and gentlemen. But not tonight. When I -- when we -- look out into the audience, we don't see any enemies; we just see friends. And this country has taken this band into its bosom all the way from the very beginning. It's an amazing thing. Early on, there was a great friend, an Irish friend. Chris Blackwell. What an incredible man he was to have looking after you. And could you imagine your second album -- the difficult second album -- it's about God? On the record, everyone was tearing their hair out. Chris Blackwell wasn't. It's okay. It's Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. It's Bob Dylan. It's kind of a tradition. We can get through this. I think about what Frank Barsalona said earlier about long-term vision, because without Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydel and that kind of long-term vision -- [and] Chris Blackwell -- there would be no U2 after that second album. We wouldn't have the songs. No "Beautiful Day," no "Sunday Bloody Sunday," no "Unforgettable Fire," no "One," no "Where the Streets Have No Name," no "With or Without You." And that's the thing I want to take away from tonight. I would like to ask the music business to look at itself, to ask itself some hard questions because there would be no U2 the way things are right now. That's a fact. Only friends out there. Rolling Stone still places us on the cover of the magazine. Thank you very much, Jann [Wenner]. MTV and VH1 still play our videos. College radio still believes in our band and makes our band believe in ourselves. It's an amazing place to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame feeling like this -- feeling like you just put out your first album. It's a nice feeling -- a very, very special feeling. And I see around friends and people that we've worked with for a long time, and generally I don't do the big 'thank yous' speeches just because they're boring. Why stop the tradition of a lifetime? It's too many people in the room to thank, but I'd like to thank the really gorgeous women that have worked for us for a long time because they're fun to thank. Beautiful, gorgeous women that run Principle Management. Ellen Darst, thank you very much. Sheila Roche, thank you very much. Ann-Louise Kelly, thank you very much. Keryn Kaplan, thank you very much. Regine Moylett, thank you very much. Beautiful, sexy, sometimes Irish, sometimes American women, thank you. Lots of bodyguards around here. No bigger bodyguards than Jimmy and Doug. Jimmy Iovine and Doug Morris have continued in the tradition of Chris Blackwell, which is letting us get away with pretty much everything we want. So I want to thank them very much. I'm trying to think of what else to add. The biggest bodyguard of all has got to be our manager, Paul McGuinness, sitting right there. He's the reason why no one in this band has "slave" scrawled on their face. Paul McGuinness, thank you very much. I won't go on, but just three Kodak moments over 25 years that I'd like to share with you. One: it's 1976, Larry Mullen's kitchen. It's about the size of the drum riser he uses now. It's a big, bright red - - scarlet, really -- Japanese kit, and he's sitting behind it in his kitchen. And he's playing, and the ground shakes and the sky opens up, like Bruce was saying earlier. And it still does, but now I know why. I know why -- because Larry Mullen cannot tell a lie. His brutal honesty is something that we need in this band. Second Kodak moment: I think it's 1982, New Haven, I believe. Things are not going very well. There's a punk rock band onstage trying to play Bach. A fight breaks out. It's between the band. It's very, very messy. Now you look at this guitar genius. You look at this Zen-like master that is The Edge, and you hear those brittle, icy notes. And you might be forgiven for not realizing that you cannot play like that unless you have a rage inside you. In fact, I had forgotten that on that particular night, and he tried to break my nose. I learnt a very great lesson: do not pick a fight with somebody who, for a living, lives off hand-to-eye coordination. Dangerous, dangerous man, The Edge. Third Kodak moment: 1987, somewhere in the south. We'd been campaigning for Dr. King -- for his birthday to be a national holiday. In Arizona they're saying 'no,' and we'd been campaigning very, very hard for Dr. King. Some people don't like it. Some people get very annoyed. Some people want to kill the singer. Some people are taken very seriously by the FBI. They tell us that we shouldn't play the gig because tonight his life is at risk and must not go on the stage. The singer laughs. The singer pffts, you know. Of course, we're playing the gig! Of course, we go on stage! And I'm standing there singing "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and got to the third verse. I close my eyes. I know I'm excited about meeting my maker -- but maybe not tonight. I don't really want to meet my maker tonight. I closed my eyes and when I look up, I see Adam Clayton standing in front of me, holding his bass like only Adam Clayton can hold his bass. And, yeah, there's people in this room who tell you they'll take a bullet for you, but Adam Clayton would have taken a bullet for me -- and I guess that's what it's like to be in a truly great rock and roll band.