drummer
Drummer in the City
New York loves U2, and U2 love New York. A Bono sighting in the Big Apple is a rather common occurrence these days. An Edge or Adam Clayton sighting isn’t completely unheard of either. A Larry Mullen sighting, however, is a rare thing because, despite his pretty-boy looks, Larry has the magical ability to move among common-looking people without getting noticed often — which is why we took note of a sighting of the U2 drummer in the city posted at Gawker.com. We can only imagine what Larry was doing in Soho (uhh…shopping?), but we do suspect that he noted the large photo of his friend Bono in the window of the Morrison Hotel Gallery on Prince Street, where there is an exhibition of rock photography by Neal Preston taking place through June 2nd.
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.
Waiter ‘rants’ about Larry Mullen
A New York waiter mentions Larry Mullen on his blog ‘Waiter Rant‘.
Nothing but good about the drummer, he’s characterised as ‘unassuming, polite and a good tipper’.
Staff at this waiter’s bistro are under strict policy to treat celebs as everyone else. Weblogger Waiter can’t help but think the policy is a ‘pain in the ass’ sometimes, as he and his co-worker are ‘HUGE U2 fans’:
“So the next time Larry comes in can we ask him to get Bono to front us a loan?” Arlene asks mischievously.
“Be nice.” I agree
“Yeah.”
“If we were a Third World country.”.
“I’ll settle for tickets.” Arlene says.
“Me too.”
Read the full story at Waiter Rant.
Gratuitous Nudity Included!
U2Swisshome.com‘s got their grubby little hands on a copy of the limited edition “Best of” release and have scanned the booklet for us all to see.
… and isn’t that appropriate. It’s Larry’s birthday. Happy birthday, you fit, muscled, hunk of a drummer.