U2 The Video Archives 2021-2022 VOLUME XXXI

Description

1. My Life on MTV 06/23/21: U2 is profiled. The history of the band viewed through the prism of MTV. Included is a profile of the band’s history as well as rare live performances in addition to extremely rare in studio interviews with Bono from MTV global archival footage dating back to 1981, the channel’s first broadcast year also included is an assortment of clips of various music videos throughout the years. Contains many clips of segments, interviews, documentaries and LIVE performances that aired on MTV and can be found in their entirety on the various “Video Archives” of U2 here on this website In other “Volumes”.
2. TODAY 11/23/21: Opening, four individual; teasers about Bono being on the show later in the program. Interview with Bono entitles One on “One” with Bono. He discusses not only the future of U2 but how singing has helped him therapeutically throughout the years. Also there’s talk about his first acting role as the voice of a character in the new animation film “Sing 2”. Bono was interviewed by Jenna, it’s her birthday and Bono was kind enough to get the Wagner High School marching band to perform happy birthday to her while she’s interviewing Bono in New York Central Park; a really moving moment.
3. Hoda and Jenna 11/23/21: Opening, scenes from Janice celebration with Bono in Central Park and Janice reaction about the surprise and how it affected her.
4. The Ellen DeGeneres Show 12/14/21: Opening interview with Bono and his costar Scarlett Johansson for the upcoming animation film “Sing 2”
5. CBS Sunday Morning 10/30/22: Opening with teaser then the actual segment. In more than four decades as U2’s frontman, Bono has been leading one of the world’s biggest rock bands across the world’s biggest stages. But this stage (if you can call it that), in the schoolyard at Mount Temple Comprehensive in North Dublin, would be their first. Mounting the stage with “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell, Bono recalled, “Yeah, I mean, most people were looking the other way, if they had ears. But wow, did it feel good to be here!” It was 1978. The boys who weren’t quite yet on their way to superstardom – Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., and Adam Clayton – were called The Hype. The name didn’t stick, but Bono already had the vague sense they might live up to it.  O’Donnell asked, “Do you remember that feeling of being on stage here?” “I remember this feeling of, ‘I can do this,'” he said. “It’s the thing. It’s when you find the thing.” Born Paul David Hewson, he was dubbed Bono by his childhood best friend, and he found “the thing” early on. It wasn’t obvious, even to his high school music teacher. “I remember one moment where he says, ‘I’m going to get you people who can play an instrument to write a piece of music,'” Bono said. “But you didn’t know how to play an instrument?” “No, so I was in a different part of the class. But I remember that feeling, you know, because I knew I could do this. I know I don’t know how to play an instrument, sir! But I have these melodies in my head, and I have words and I have things I want to say.”  U2 formed after 14-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. posted an ad on a school bulletin board: “Drummer seeks musicians to form band.”  “How casually our destiny arrives,” Bono writes in his new memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” published this Tuesday by Knopf. The idea of how the band started was “preposterous,” he said, “but there was magic, you know, that’s all we had. And of course, there was a desperation to make something of our lives.” “In those early days of the band, did any of you have an idea of superstardom?”  “That would be me!” he laughed. “It’s so embarrassing! Trying to break it down sometimes when I look at the absurdity of my life …. We own some kind of feeling. We own our own tone. So, there’s something there.” With that tone – that singular sound – U2 rose to the height of success – the only band in history with #1 albums on the Billboard 200 in four consecutive decades, starting in the 1980s with “The Joshua Tree.” It was a long way from Cedarwood Road, where Bono grew up. While we visited with the family that lives in his childhood home (“It’s never our place, it’s always, ‘Was that Bono’s house?'” laughed Mrs. Ryan), a crowd gathered outside to see the local boy who made good. As part of our tour of Bono’s Dublin, we stopped for a pint at Finnegan’s of Dalkey for a rare interview with Bono’s wife of 40 years, Ali Hewson. O’Donnell asked, “So, you call him Bono? Not Paul?” “Pretty much – I call him a lot things!” Ali laughed. “And Paul is not one of them!” Bono added. When asked what she thought reading “Surrender,” Ali replied, “I was very nervous about what was going to go in that book. But I think he’s an incredible writer. It just seems to be anything he turns his hand to, he can do, which is very annoying most of the time!” O’Donnell asked, “Which one of you first saw what U2 might become?” “I don’t think either of us really saw it,” Ali said. “I mean, there was a huge amount of confidence when you’re a teenager, I suppose.”  “Front is another word for that,” Bono said. “Frontman. Yeah. Probably more front than substance … and faith.” Faith not only in himself, and not only his band. “You talk about faith a lot; are you religious?” O’Donnell asked. “I don’t know. I’m like a stray dog. I go to a Catholic church. I’d be in a synagogue. If somebody said right now here, ‘Would you give your life to Jesus?’ I’d be, ‘Me!’ And I’m not one of those that turns over the picture of the pope before they do anything funky. I take God with me wherever I’m going. And so, God has seen me in a bit of a state, I’m sure.” Early on, U2’s involvement in a Christian group led to questioning whether they could be a band and be believers. Bono said, “What purpose can music – what’s the purpose? The world is, you know, in flames. What are we doing here? At that moment Edge started work on a song called ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday.’ And that’s what unlocked it for him. And that kind of unlocked it for us, because we realized that our songs can speak into a situation and perhaps be useful.” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was a condemnation of the bloodshed in Ireland at the time. And, Bono said, although it was tested, they didn’t lose their faith. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve grown up out of that, that was a bit mad.’ It was a bit mad. But actually, the scriptures, the sacred texts are still very important to me and very important to the band.” Which might explain his decades’ long fight against poverty, his meetings with popes and presidents, lobbying heads of state around the world, much of it through the work of his organization, One. “Our motivation is very much justice,” he said. “We cancelled $130 billion worth of debt. An extra 54 million children went to school. That’s a big thing in my life. Particularly with fighting AIDS, that, for me, outside of my family, our music, is the thing that I’m most proud of in my life, even as a tiny part, a catalyst.” Whether it’s music, or politics or activism, for Bono the frontman it comes down to the same thing: “In anything, I was always looking for the top line melody.” “Describe what you mean when you say top line melodies?” asked O’Donnell. “It’s the thing in the room that rises above the noise and the chatter,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m a songwriter. I’m looking for the clear thought in most things that I do. But the best stories win. The best melodies are the ones that you hear around the corner and you go, ‘What’s that?’ Top line melody.” O’Donnell said, “I mean, we got to end there, I mean that – “ “For fuck’s sake.”  That’s so good. Don’t use me saying that!” “Get this woman a drink!” Bono laughed.
6. Late show with Stephen Colbert 11/03/22: Bono is the guest for the entire hour and performs live as well as being interviewed. Bono took over The Late Show Thursday as the U2 frontman spent the entirety of the episode on Stephen Colbert’s couch, only getting up to perform a special rendition of “With or Without You” with spoken word notes from his new memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. “This is not exactly rock n’ roll, but this is my new book, and if you let me just tell you a story of how we got to this song, that would be great. Are you up for that?” Bono asked the crowd.Bono then launched into a three-minute spoken word piece that told the origins and set the mood before segueing into a “special arrangement” of The Joshua Tree classic. Prior to the performance, Bono — making his lone late-night appearance on the promotional trail for Surrender — sat down with Colbert for a three-part interview where the singer discussed his just-published book and the history of U2, revealing that he met his bandmates and his future wife during the same eventful week in high school. “Yeah, it was a big week,” Bono said. All without commercials.
7. The Graham Norton show season 30 episode five 10/28/22: Bono and Taylor Swift open the show and Bono is interviewed throughout the entire duration of the program. Graham trades quips with Bono, Taylor Swift, Eddie Redmayne, Alex Scott and Lady Blackbird. Graham Norton brought up the idea of the stars working together when they both appeared on the same episode of The Graham Norton Show in the U.K. Bono was promoting his new book, Surrender, while Swift was invited to the show to speak about her new album, Midnights. “Have you worked together?” Norton asked the pair. “Not yet,” Swift replied, but added: “We’re gonna talk about it later.” Swift might have been teasing the audience — but based on the U2 frontman’s enthusiasm for her work, the potential idea might not be completely out of the question. “I’m a Swiftie,” Bono announced. Touched by that statement, Swift put her hand to her heart. This whole show (minus opening monologue by Graham) includes Bono throughout the entire program is without commercials.