Viele Fans warten sehnsüchtig auf Mitschnitte von U2s Auftritt bei ihrer Aufnahme in die Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame Anfang dieser Woche (wir berichteten). Bis kommenden Montag werden sie sich wohl noch gedulden müssen, da dann der Auftritt im US-TV zu sehen sein wird. Bis dahin kann man sich die Wartezeit mit einem gut zweiminütigen Beitrag inklusive Bonos Champagner-Erguss (Quelle: BBC), verkürzen: HIER KLICKEN (Achtung: Real Player erforderlich) Unsere Kollegen von U2log.com bieten einen umfassenden Bericht über das Ereignis in einem kleinen Special an. Ihr findet es HIER. Die Rede, die Bruce Springsteen als Laudatio auf die Band hielt und die Acceptance Speeches der Band könnt Ihr HIER nachlesen.

Bruce Springsteens Induction Speech for U2 Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame 14.03.2005, Waldorf Astoria, New York City, NY "Uno, dos, tres, catorce. That translates as one, two, three, fourteen. That is the correct math for a rock and roll band. For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire. A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fueled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire, you want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out. It’s embarrassing to want so much and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens: the Sun Sessions, Highway 61, Sgt. Peppers, the Band, Robert Johnson, Exile on Main Street, Born to Run... whoops, I meant to leave that one out... uh... the Sex Pistols, Aretha Franklin, the Clash, James Brown; the proud and public enemies it takes a nation of millions to hold back. This is music meant to take on not only the powers that be but on a good day, the universe and God himself, if he was listening. It's man's accountability, and U2 belongs on this list. It was the early '80s. I went with Pete Townshend, who always wanted to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us, to a club in London. There they were: a young Bono (single-handedly pioneering the Irish mullet), the Edge (what kind of name was that?), Adam and Larry -- I was listening to the last band of whom I would be able to name all of its members. They had an exciting show and a big, beautiful sound. They lifted the roof. We met afterwards and they were nice young men. They were Irish. Irish. Now, this would play an enormous part in their success in the States. For what the English occasionally have the refined sensibilities to overcome, we Irish and Italians have no such problem. We come through the door fists and hearts first. 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. Now, they’re a real band; each member plays a vital part. I believe they actually practice some form of democracy -- toxic poison in a bands head. In Iraq, maybe. In rock, no. Yet, they survive. They have harnessed the time bomb that exists in the heart of every great rock and roll band that usually explodes, as we see regularly from this stage. But they seemed to have innately understood the primary rule of rock band job security: “Hey, asshole, the other guy is more important than you think he is!” They are both a step forward and direct descendants of the great bands who believed rock music could shake things up in the world, dared to have faith in their audience, who believed if they played their best it would bring out the best in you. They believed in pop stardom and the big time. Now this requires foolishness and a calculating mind. It also requires a deeply held faith in the work you're doing and in its powers to transform. U2 hungered for it all and built a sound, and they wrote the songs that demanded it. They’re keepers of some of the most beautiful sonic architecture in rock and roll. The Edge, the Edge, the Edge, the Edge. He is a rare and true guitar original and one of the subtlest guitar heroes of all time. He's dedicated to ensemble playing and he subsumes his guitar ego in the group. But do not be fooled. Take Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Pete Townshend -- guitarists who defined the sound of their band and their times. If you play like them, you sound like them. If you are playing those rhythmic two-note sustained fourths, drenched in echo, you are going to sound like the Edge, my son. Go back to the drawing board and chances are you won’t have much luck. There are only a handful of guitar stylists who can create a world with their instruments, and he's one of them. The Edge's guitar playing creates enormous space and vast landscapes. It is a thrilling and a heartbreaking sound that hangs over you like the unsettled sky. In the turf it stakes out, it is inherently spiritual, it is grace and it is a gift. Now, all of this has to be held down by something. The deep sureness of Adam Clayton's bass and the rhythms of Larry Mullen's elegant drumming hold the band down while propelling it forward. It's in U2's great rhythm section that the band finds its sexuality and its dangerousness. Listen to "Desire," she moves in "Mysterious Ways," the pulse of "With or Without You." Together Larry and Adam create the element that suggests the ecstatic possibilities of that other kingdom -- the one below the earth and below the belt -- that no great rock band can lay claim to the title without. Now, Adam always strikes me as the professorial one, the sophisticated member. He creates not only the musical but physical stability on his side of the stage. The tone and depth of his bass playing has allowed the band to move from rock to dance music and beyond. One of the first things I noticed about U2 was that underneath the guitar and the bass, they have these very modern rhythms going on. Rather than a straight 2 and 4, Larry often plays with a lot of syncopation, and that connects the band to modern dance textures. The drums often sounded high and tight and he was swinging down there, and this gave the band a unique profile and allowed their rock textures to soar above on a bed of his rhythm. Now Larry, of course, besides being an incredible drummer, bears the burden of being the band's requisite "good-looking member," something we somehow overlooked in the E Street Band. We have to settle for "charismatic." Girls love on Larry Mullen. I have a female assistant that would like to sit on Larry’s drum stool. A male one, too. We all have our crosses to bear. Bono, where do I begin? Jeans designer, soon-to-be World Bank operator, just plain operator, seller of the Brooklyn Bridge -- oh hold up, he played under the Brooklyn Bridge, that's right. Soon-to-be mastermind operator of the Bono Burger franchise, where more than one million stories will be told by a crazy Irishman. Now I realize that it’s a dirty job and somebody has to do it. But don't quit your day job yet, my friend, you're pretty good at it. And a sound this big needs somebody to ride herd over it, and ride herd over it he does. His voice, big-hearted and open, thoroughly decent no matter how hard he tries. Now he's a great frontman. Against the odds, he is not your mom's standard skinny, ex-junkie archetype. He has the physique of a rugby player... well, an ex-rugby player. Shamen, shyster, one of the greatest and most endearingly naked messianic complexes in rock and roll. God bless you, man! It takes one to know one, of course. 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. He is gifted with an operatic voice and a beautiful falsetto rare among strong rock singers. But most important, his is a voice shot through with self-doubt. That's what makes that big sound work. It is this element of Bono's talent, along with his beautiful lyric writing, that gives the often-celestial music of U2 its fragility and its realness. It is the questioning, the constant questioning in Bono's voice, where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us. 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 20 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. Now the band's beautiful songwriting -- "Pride (In The Name of Love)," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For," "One," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Beautiful Day" -- reminds us of the stakes that the band always plays for. It's an incredible songbook. In their music, you hear the spirituality as home and as quest. How do you find God unless he's in your heart, in your desire, in your feet? I believe this is a big part of what's kept their band together all of these years. See, bands get formed by accident, but they don’t survive by accident. It takes will, intent, a sense of shared purpose and a tolerance for your friends' fallibilities and they of yours. And that only evens the odds. U2 has not only evened the odds but they've beaten them by continuing to do their finest work and remaining at the top of their game and the charts for 25 years. I feel a great affinity for these guys as people as well as musicians. Well, there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things: I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie-wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys! Oh my God! They sold out! Now, what I know about the iPod is this: it is a device that plays music. Of course, their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator of Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily, smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But, I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. You can see my problem. Woe is me. So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau (or as I refer to him, "the American Paul McGuinness"), and I say, "Did you see that iPod thing?" and he says, "Yes." And he says, "And I hear they didn’t take any money." And I said, "They didn’t take any money?" and he says, "No." I said, "Smart, wily Irish guys. Anybody – anybody – can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money... that’s smart. That’s wily." I say, "Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: a red, white and blue iPod signed by Bruce 'The Boss' Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don’t take it!" At any rate, after that evening for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son's room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys." Bono's Acceptance Speech Born in the USA, my arse! That man was born on the northside of Dublin! Irish. His mother was Irish, the poetry, the gift of the gab. Isn't it obvious? In fact, I think he's tall for an Irishman. It's an Irish occasion this evening. Paddy Sledge... you know, the O'Jays - they're a tribe from the west of Ireland. This is a bit of an Irish wedding. I mean, it is. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is giving an Irish wedding. Beautiful girls, beautiful frocks, fights in the bathroom, managers and clients arguing, lawyers with bloody noses. It's an Irish wedding. It's a great occasion. I even like it when it gets dirty, and I've seen it get really dirty over the years here. That's what rock and roll is: the sound of revenge. So make your enemies interesting, I would say, ladies and gentlemen. But not tonight. When I - when we - look out into the audience, we don't see any enemies; we just see friends. And this country has taken this band into its bosom all the way from the very beginning. It's an amazing thing. Early on, there was a great friend, an Irish friend. Chris Blackwell. What an incredible man he was to have looking after you. And could you imagine your second album - the difficult second album - it's about God? On the record, everyone was tearing their hair out. Chris Blackwell wasn't. It's okay. It's Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. It's Bob Dylan. It's kind of a tradition. We can get through this. I think about what Frank Barsalona said earlier about long-term vision, because without Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydel and that kind of long-term vision - and Chris Blackwell - there would be no U2 after that second album. We wouldn't have the songs. No "Beautiful Day," no "Sunday Bloody Sunday," no "Unforgettable Fire," no "One," no "Where the Streets Have No Name," no "With or Without You." And that's the thing I want to take away from tonight. I would like to ask the music business to look at itself, to ask itself some hard questions because there would be no U2 the way things are right now. That's a fact. Only friends out there. Rolling Stone still places us on the cover of the magazine. Thank you very much, Jann (Wenner). MTV and VH 1 still play our videos. College radio still believes in our band and makes our band believe in ourselves. It's an amazing place to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame feeling like this - feeling like you just put out your first album. It's a nice feeling - a very, very special feeling. And I see around friends and people that we've worked with for a long time, and generally I don't do the big 'thank yous' speeches just because they're boring. Why stop the tradition of a lifetime? It's too many people in the room to thank, but I'd like to thank the really gorgeous women that have worked for us for a long time because they're fun to thank. Beautiful, gorgeous women that run Principle Management. Ellen Darst, thank you very much. Sheila Roche, thank you very much. Ann-Louise Kelly, thank you very much. Keryn Kaplan, thank you very much. Regine Moylett, thank you very much. Beautiful, sexy, sometimes Irish, sometimes American women, thank you. Lots of bodyguards around here. No bigger bodyguards than Jimmy and Doug. Jimmy Iovine and Doug Morris have continued in the tradition of Chris Blackwell, which is letting us get away with pretty much everything we want. So I want to thank them very much. I'm trying to think of what else to add. The biggest bodyguard of all has got to be our manager, Paul McGuinness, sitting right there. He's the reason why no one in this band has "slave" scrawled on their face. Paul McGuinness, thank you very much. I won't go on, but just three Kodak moments over 25 years that I'd like to share with you. One: it's 1976, Larry Mullen's kitchen. It's about the size of the drum riser he uses now. It's a big, bright red - scarlet, really - Japanese kit, and he's sitting behind it in his kitchen. And he's playing, and the ground shakes and the sky opens up, like Bruce was saying earlier. And it still does, but now I know why. I know why - because Larry Mullen cannot tell a lie. His brutal honesty is something that we need in this band. Second Kodak moment: I think it's 1982, New Haven, I believe. Things are not going very well. There's a punk rock band onstage trying to play Bach. A fight breaks out. It's between the band. It's very, very messy. Now you look at this guitar genius. You look at this Zen-like master that is The Edge, and you hear those brittle, icy notes. And you might be forgiven for not realizing that you cannot play like that unless you have a rage inside you. In fact, I had forgotten that on that particular night, and he tried to break my nose. I learnt a very great lesson: do not pick a fight with somebody who, for a living, lives off hand-to-eye coordination. Dangerous, dangerous man, The Edge. Third Kodak moment: 1987, somewhere in the south. We'd been campaigning for Dr. King - for his birthday to be a national holiday. In Arizona they're saying 'no,' and we'd been campaigning very, very hard for Dr. King. Some people don't like it. Some people get very annoyed. Some people want to kill the singer. Some people are taken very seriously by the FBI. They tell us that we shouldn't play the gig because tonight his life is at risk and must not go on the stage. The singer laughs. The singer pffts, you know. Of course, we're playing the gig! Of course, we go on stage! And I'm standing there singing "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and got to the third verse. I close my eyes. I know I'm excited about meeting my maker - but maybe not tonight. I don't really want to meet my maker tonight. I closed my eyes and when I look up, I see Adam Clayton standing in front of me, holding his bass like only Adam Clayton can hold his bass. And, yeah, there's people in this room who tell you they'll take a bullet for you, but Adam Clayton would have taken a bullet for me - and I guess that's what it's like to be in a truly great rock and roll band. Edge's Acceptance Speech I am, in the end, the technology guy of U2, which, really, all it means is that I can fix the printer - but I don't tell them that. Above all else, what U2 have tried to avoid over the last 25 years is not being completely crap. But next on the list down from that was to avoid being typical and predictable and ordinary, because it's so very hard to avoid the cliches - everyone else's, of course, but most of all your own. It's so hard to keep things fresh and not to become a parody of yourself. If you've ever seen that movie "Spinal Tap", you'll know how easy it is to parody what we all do. The first time I ever saw it, I didn't laugh, I wept. I wept because I recognized so many of those scenes. I don't think I'm alone amongst all of us here in that and, you know, we're all guilty of taking ourselves and our work way too seriously. We have all gone to hang out in a hotel lobby like we were doing something really important. But the reason we're all here tonight is that, in spite of all the cliches that do exist, you know, rock and roll when it is great, it is amazing. It changes your life. It changed our lives. Witness for instance, tonight, the O'Jays, Percy Sledge, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, BB King, the Pretenders - I mean, amazing, really magic stuff. You can break it down, uou can study it all you want, but you cannot just dial it up. It doesn't work like that. As far as U2 goes, I've stopped trying to figure out how - or, more importantly - when our best moments are going to come along. But I think that's why we're still awake. That's why we're still paying attention, and we know in the end, you see, we know that it is magic. And so we end up waiting around like if we all, sometimes, like actors in some Beckett play. Just like they did in that "Spinal Tap" movie - in the lobby - waiting around, waiting for some magic to happen. We've done a lot of that over the years, I have to say. I've done a lot of waiting with Bono, with Adam and Larry and Paul for those moments to come along. And we've had some brilliant people with us during those times: Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Jimmy Iovine, Nelly Hooper, our great engineers, Principle Management team that Bono's talked about, Flood. Our show collaborators who've been with us from the beginning: Willie Williams, all his team, our road crew - fantastic people - Joe O'Herlihy, Bucky, Jake, Dallas, Fraser (who isn't here), Stuart... incredible people who we couldn't have hoped of going through the past 25 years without. And tonight it feels like it's just about half over the room has been along with us on that journey. So I just want to say thank you to my family for being so patient, my dad for showing me showing me how, the rest of the band particularly, and tonight, you know, for all of you, for this evening. And most of all for just making space for me as we all waited together for something magic to happen. Thank you. Larry's Acceptance Speech I promise I'll be brief. Thanks for this tonight. We really appreciate it. It's very special. I feel like we've cut the line or jumped the queue along the way, someplace along the way and never got out of my kitchen in Artane, Dublin. Had it not been for people like the Sex Pistols, Television, Roxy Music, Patti Smith - these people are in our rock and roll hall of fame. Thank you. Adam’s Acceptance Speech I feel base-less. Okay, yesterday it was my 45th birthday. That's a fine age to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That means 25 years ago, we released our first recording. That means 29 years ago, we all met and formed our band. Thirty years ago, I got my first bass guitar or, as I thought, the guitar with only four strings. I had no idea what a bass was. I had not heard of Duck Dunn, Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle, or Bootsy Collins. I just knew that I had a weapon and a shield to take on the world. When we all got together in Larry's kitchen, we didn't know about the great traditions of American music, we didn't know the blues or soul or R&B or country - but we did know that together we had a chance to change the world by making a noise. This was punk and it saved my ass. We needed someone to get us gigs and to pay for demos. We met Paul McGuinness and he became our manager. Next we needed a record deal. We were turned down by many people until Nick Stewart offered us a deal at Island Records. This was the start of a long relationship with Island. Many people along the way helped us develop and grow. We made three records with Steve Lillywhite, came to America where Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydel were our U.S. agents. They introduced us to a network of promoters: Barry Fey, Bill Graham, and Ronnie Delsner. Ellen Darst and Keryn Kaplan ran our U.S. office. They taught us how radio and promotion worked. As we were learning all this stuff about the music business, we were also learning about American music and the kind of artists that are honored here by the Hall of Fame: John Lee Hooker, BB King, Hank Williams, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan. Now our generation is being inducted, and our time has come to join those that we did not know 25 years ago. I hope that in 25 years, when this room is full of hip-hop and pop artists, that they will enjoy joining the diverse list of talent that the Hall of Fame recognizes. It took many people to get this band here tonight, and I would like to thank some of them personally: Paul McGuinness, Ann-Louise Kelly, Ellen Darst, Keryn Kaplan, Sheila Roche, Regine Moylett, Barbara Galavan, Susan Hunter, Trevor Bowen, Gavin Friday, Chris Blackwell, Anton Corbijn, Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Jimmy Iovine, Doug Morris, Arthur Fogel and Michael Powell, Dennis Sheehan, Joe O'Herlihy, Willie Williams, Sharon Blackson, Dallas, Sammy, Stu and Terry. But in the end, the people who really got me here tonight - and who I must thank for everything I have - are Ali, Anne, Morleigh, Suzie, Larry, Edge and Bono. I would really like to thank Bruce for what he said and I, fortunately, can remember the names of everyone in the band as well.