The Greatest Band of Our Time

I’ve just read a great post that reminds me once again why I love U2.

I purchased the latest project, No Line on the Horizon, as soon as it was available and Seth is right – they have not strayed from the heart of the message.

I’ve never heard anyone express it as well as The Boss himself during U2′s induction into The Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. He described the band like this:

U2, with the dark, chiming sound of heaven at their command — which, of course, is the sound of unrequited love and longing, their greatest theme — their search for God intact. This was a band that wanted to lay claim to not only this world but had their eyes on the next one, too.

and describes its frontman, Bono, as

one of the greatest and most endearingly naked messianic complexes in rock and roll.

and then adds

God bless you, man! It takes one to know one, of course.

He calls the guitar work of The Edge

inherently spiritual

and speaks of the message of faith in the band’s music

You see, every good Irish and Italian-Irish front man knows that before James Brown there was Jesus. So hold the McDonald arches on the stage set, boys, we are not ironists. We are creations of the heart and of the earth and of the stations of the cross — there’s no getting out of it.

Now Bono’s voice often sounds like it’s shouting not over top of the band but from deep within it. “Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image.” He delivers all of this with great drama and an occasional smirk that says, “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” He’s one of the great front men of the past twenty years. He is also one of the only musicians to devote his personal faith and the ideals of his band into the real world in a way that remains true to rock’s earliest implications of freedom and connection and the possibility of something better.

I’ve chosen a few quotes I think express the spirit of the speech, but taken out of context they don’t do justice to the original speech. You should read it for yourself