Band on the Run

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After some patchy times and a couple near misses with record companies, McGuinness struck a deal with Island in 1980 that allowed an unusual amount of creative independence ("They had to accept the record without any question"), and the band released its first album, Boy. That same year, it paid its first visit to America, opening in Boston for a band of what Bono calls "some local renown. We started to play, and all the people started standing up, turning over the tables. The place was packed. Steam was dripping off the ceilings, and they wouldn't let us leave the stage. We had one, two, three encores. I just looked at Edge and said, 'Hey, wow, if this is America, I want some more! This is it!' " When the star attractions finally made it to the stage, the club was empty.

It would take U2 a couple more years and two more albums before it could compound that Boston frenzy worldwide and come up with the first song that could stand as its anthem. That was Sunday Bloody Sunday from 1983's War, a tune about the divisive heat and blind violence of modern Ireland that curried no favor on either side. War was U2's best work until The Joshua Tree; the year after its release, Island, detecting seismic vibrations, renegotiated the band's contract with McGuinness. "Now U2's in an absolutely unique position," he reports. "They own outright every song they ever wrote, and they always will."

The contract also made them flush, and that of course has further quickened the collective conscience. Bono has been flabbergasted to read that he and his wife Alison, another Mount Temple grad, live in a seaside castle near Dublin. "It's a little round tower," he laughs. "Three levels, three rooms." Domesticity presents its own problems. Although he, like the rest of the band, cherishes a bit of personal distance and privacy, Bono acknowledges, "My life is just a mess. When I am away, I'm not at home. When I'm home, I'm not at home. I come in when she is going out." Ali, who is studying politics at Dublin's University College, "is the dark eye," in the words of her admiring husband. "She will not be worn like a brooch. We have a stormy relationship because she is her own woman." While in Arizona, worried that she sounded a little depressed on the transatlantic phone, Bono asked his in- laws to "keep an eye on her. They must have rung her right away, because I got this phone call saying, 'I don't need a baby-sitter!' and she slammed down the phone." Ali made an unscheduled appearance in Arizona 48 hours later and stayed five days.