So… another festival. The dream rolls on.
Twenty-four hours earlier, we'd just finished another cracking night at The Pawn. It's a pretty small pub, but what it lacks in square footage it more than makes up for in its support of live music. It's one of those places where bands actually get to be bands, and it felt like the perfect warm-up for what was coming next. There was, however, one slight concern. My voice. We'd never done two gigs on consecutive nights before and, despite feeling in absolutely top condition at The Pawn — high notes flying out, pipes behaving themselves, Bono apparently still alive and well somewhere inside my throat — there was always that nagging thought: Will this still work tomorrow? We even left Bad out of the set just to be safe. No point heroically reaching for one of Bono's enormous notes on Friday night only to turn up at Musicfest on Saturday sounding like Marge Simpson gargling gravel.
Sensibility prevailed. For once.
Unfortunately, sleep didn't. Whether it was the adrenaline still fizzing around my body from The Pawn, the anticipation of the festival, or the completely unexplained throbbing pain that had suddenly developed in my big toe, I have no idea. But at 3am I was wide awake, swallowing painkillers and wondering how the hell a man can apparently injure a toe without remembering actually doing anything to it. Eventually, sometime after four, sleep arrived. Then 9am arrived. Five hours. Brilliant. But I opened the blinds…
Blue skies.
That'll do.
My gorgeous daughter Christina arrived with Finn, and that made this one feel a little more special. This was Christina's first proper opportunity to come and see what this mad U2 adventure her dad has embarked upon is actually all about. And Dad didn't want to disappoint his girl. Finn, meanwhile, has basically become part of the crew. He mucks in loading gear, helps roadie the band and, as it turns out, has a really natural eye for photography too. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising. I worked for years as a photographer and videographer, and my own dad was a photographer before me. Three generations. Different cameras. Same inability to walk past decent lighting without commenting on it.
If this band keeps growing, I already have plans for Finn. Summer touring. Merchandise stall. Photography. Road crew. At some point I'm going to have to discuss wages with him. I'm hoping exposure and a packet of Haribo will suffice for another couple of years.
On the drive to Uddingston, Finn mentioned something else. It was September 5th.
Freddie Mercury's birthday.
Now, our family are massive Queen fans, and Finn and I have particularly bonded over his love of the Queen albums. So immediately a little thought planted itself in my head. We're playing a festival. It's Freddie's birthday. Surely there has to be a moment to pay tribute to one of the greatest frontmen ever to walk onto a stage?
More on that later.
By the time we arrived at Musicfest, the place was already in full flow. Music from the different stages was rolling across the cricket ground, people were everywhere, and parking — as seems compulsory at festivals — involved driving around looking increasingly desperate while simultaneously trying to explain to someone in a hi-vis vest that you have a car full of equipment and are actually playing here. I'd deliberately resisted getting fully Bono-fied too early. There's only so many hours a grown man should reasonably spend wandering around Uddingston in tinted glasses and hairspray before questions start being asked.
But as stage time got closer, the transformation began. And so did that familiar feeling. The music echoing around the ground. The crowd building. The nervous energy. That strange mixture of wanting the clock to slow down and speed up at exactly the same time. We caught bits of the other acts on the Tribute Stage — the ABBA girls, Jumbo Gibson firing through fantastic recreations of Beatles classics, George Michael, then The Jam tribute. And suddenly… we were next.
I'd become so caught up chatting to old pals that I'd almost forgotten I was supposed to be somewhere. Then the phone rang. Dave Clayton.
"Where the hell are ye, Bono? We need your presence!"
Ah. Yes. The small matter of headlining the stage.
SHOWTIME.
We'd originally been told we had forty minutes. The schedule had stretched a little by then, but as the final band of the night we looked at our nine-song set and collectively arrived at the mature, professional decision: Sod it. We're playing them all. The setup was frantic. Barely any soundcheck. Gear on. Plug in. Check something vaguely resembling a signal is coming out. Go.
There was already a great crowd gathered in front of us. The stage was considerably smaller than the monster we'd experienced at Tribfest, but the Uddingston audience looked ready to find out what all the fuss was about with these new kids on the tribute block. Just before going on, I ducked into the little tent beside the stage for one final vocal warm-up. Right. Let's test the pipes. I went for it…
"Sundaaaaay Bloody Sundaaaaay…"
Nothing. Well… not nothing. What emerged sounded like a goose being strangled through a car exhaust.
SHIT.
Twenty-four hours earlier I'd been hitting notes for fun. Now Bono had apparently left the building and been replaced by an asthmatic farm animal. Water. More water. Cough. Clear throat. Try again. Eventually I managed to break through into the falsetto. There it was. Thank Christ.
Right lads…
Here we go.
Vertigo exploded out of the blocks and immediately the crowd responded. Whatever nerves had been there disappeared within seconds. Then Sunday Bloody Sunday. And this time, thankfully, Sunday Bloody Sunday actually came out of my mouth. You could see faces in the audience changing as the band hit the power and drive of it. That little look of surprise that says: Oh… these guys are actually pretty bloody good.
Then came New Year's Day.
And disaster.
Because we don't have a live keyboard player, New Year's Day relies on a backing track for the piano and additional parts. Except on this particular New Year's Day… there was no backing track. Nothing in our monitors. Nothing out front. It had simply vanished. And there is a very peculiar moment that happens when something goes badly wrong onstage. Your body is still performing. Your face is hopefully still saying ROCK STAR. But somewhere behind your eyes, a tiny man is running around screaming:
"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!"
The sound engineer initially seemed blissfully unaware that a fairly important chunk of U2 had disappeared. Then Dave Clayton calmly did what Dave does. Still playing the bassline, he marched across the stage, got the engineer's attention and somehow communicated the problem while continuing to play. Marty Mullen kept everything moving and then called me perfectly back into the song at exactly the right moment. Backing track restored. Engines restarted.
The U2.V2 juggernaut was back on the rails.
And from there we flew. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. One. With or Without You. A thousand voices coming back at us. Those moments are becoming my favourite part of all of this. You stop hearing yourself for a second and hear them instead. A crowd of complete strangers singing songs that have meant something to people for decades. For a few minutes, you get to stand right in the middle of it.
And it's magic.
Eventually we reached Pride. The finale. The band driving toward the finish line, the audience with us, another festival almost successfully negotiated… when I noticed a security guy frantically trying to communicate with us from the side of the stage. He looked concerned. Very concerned. Urgent hand signals. Trying to get Dave's attention. At this point I'm thinking: Is somebody hurt? Do we need to stop? Has something happened in the crowd?
I'm singing live, so there's absolutely bugger all I can do about it. Dave moves over. There's a hurried conversation while the rest of us keep hammering out the ending of Pride. The song finishes. Big ending. Crowd erupts. Applause rises. And I finally discover the urgent message that simply could not wait another thirty seconds.
"Can you give a shout-out to the Bouncy Castle guy over there? He's retiring after today."
……
Of course. Naturally. Why wouldn't you interrupt the dramatic finale of a U2 show for breaking news from the inflatable leisure industry?
And because my brain was still operating at approximately 9,000rpm, I immediately did it. The audience had barely started giving us our final applause when Bono effectively announced: "THANK YOU UDDINGSTON! AND LET'S HEAR IT FOR… THE RETIRING BOUNCY CASTLE GUY!"
Applause successfully murdered. Rock-and-roll climax replaced by workplace presentation. Somewhere, I like to imagine a single tear rolling down the cheek of a man slowly deflating a Paw Patrol inflatable for the final time.
You genuinely couldn't write it.
But that's live music. And you have to laugh.
Our job was done. Once again, the feedback afterwards was fantastic. Happy faces, lovely comments, people who had never seen us before telling us how much they enjoyed it. Another show. Another crowd won over. Another festival scalp for U2.V2. Another little step along this completely unexpected road we seem to be travelling.
But there was still one moment I haven't mentioned.
Freddie.
I hadn't forgotten.
Queen at Live Aid remains, for me, one of the greatest rock performances ever committed to film. Period. The band were phenomenal, of course, but Freddie Mercury was operating on another level. It wasn't simply the voice or the songs. It was his connection with that enormous audience. The confidence. The theatre. The sheer audacity of one man standing in front of Wembley Stadium and somehow making tens of thousands of people feel as though they were part of his show.
And then there was that moment. No lyrics. No band. Just Freddie and the crowd.
So on Freddie Mercury's birthday, standing on a festival stage in Uddingston, Scotland, dressed as Bono while fronting a U2 tribute band… I thought:
Fuck it.
It has to be done.
"AAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOO……"
And back it came.
"AAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOO……"
And a thousand people answered.
For a few ridiculous, glorious seconds, U2.V2 became Queen. Uddingston became Wembley. And this ageing pretend Bono from Cardonald got to stand there grinning like an idiot while a festival crowd played along.
It wasn't Live Aid. It wasn't Freddie. And it certainly wasn't Wembley.
But bloody hell…
it was fun.
Happy Birthday, Freddie. Thanks for lending us your crowd for a minute.
And congratulations to the Bouncy Castle guy on his retirement.
Another festival. Another story.
The dream rolls on.