A friend of ours, who happens to also be a friend of yer man’s, had the good pleasure of visiting with Bono after the Liberty Medal award ceremony on Thursday night. Kevin O’Donoghue of A2C Consulting shared a couple photos with us, and said we could share them with you. Enjoy!
Kevin puts an American Flag pin on Bono’s lapel
Kevin & Bono - peace!
Thanks for the pix, Kevin!
@U2 staffer Phil Romans is covering the Liberty Medal Ceremony this evening, and we’ll be giving you updates from Phil in Philly…
8:00 p.m.: Bono has finished his remarks. He begins by saying he is the “Fidel Castro of speechifying.” In a surprising move, he’s created new “bono-isms” this evening such as: “I’m not exactly what you call house trained, or White House trained.” (Bono’s full remarks will be posted shortly.) Other news Bono shared - the rest of the U2ers are in the studio this evening and have chosen not to fire Bono for, yet again, not being with them. Bono said the band understands that Philadelphia is an important city for the band.
There were *many* empty seats at the start of the ceremony. The event organizers brought some of the general admission fans who were standing farthest in back and let them sit in the areas where it looked pretty sparse.
Prior to receiving the medal, former President Bush gave remarks. He described Bono as one of the “brightest points of light.” He also brought some levity and humor to the occasion by suggesting that Bono change his look. He suggested that a pair of shades he wore on a recent trip to Indonesia would be a good choice in shaking up his image. (Those shades were not exactly the best fashion statement - big, black, and well, really ugly.)
Other remarks came from the Mayor of Philadelphia, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the President and CEO of the National Constitution Museum, and the former Finance Minister of Nigeria and fellow DATA Policy Board member Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Her remarks were quite inspiring as she shared the success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign in Nigeria, as well as the attitude Bono and DATA have - to support Africans supporting themselves. There was also a video introduction narrated by George Clooney with interviews by Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Barbara Pelosi, DATA’s Jamie Drummond,
6:00 p.m.: There are alot of people wearing (RED) and ONE T-shirts in the audience. There are three main viewing areas - the seats are towards the front, then about 85 yards away is the media stage (where Phil is); behind the media stage is the first of two General Admission standing areas. Across the street from the first GA area is the 2nd GA area outside the Independence Hall Visitor’s Center. Former President George H.W. Bush is “in the house” and because of that, security is very tight for the event.
DATA’s Jamie Drummond came to speak with the media. Phil asked him “How important is Bono to DATA?” Jamie’s reply was that he wanted other people to help out Bono…Bono carries too much of the load for DATA and he’d like to see the load be shifted away from Bono and more towards others. (Phil recorded the whole Q&A time and we’ll have that audio in our next Podcast).
We’ll have photos and more news as Phil’s able to give it to us.
The BBC Radio 4 programme PM interviewed Bono yesterday about his experiences with the recently deceased tenor Pavarotti. You can listen again here:
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link on the right that says ‘Full list of programmes available to listen again.’ All the programmes available will then come up in alphabetical order. Scroll down to the P section and click the ‘listen’ link under ‘PM.’ The show is an hour long, so you’ll have to fast-forward to get to Bono’s segment, which starts at 00:45:40. Be quick though, as it’ll only be on the server until 12:00 pm today (EST).
I’m not sure if Empire magazine has much circulation outside of the UK, but seeing as it’s the most widely read film magazine in Britain, the fact that it has given Across the Universe a good rating must surely mean something. The full review, which mentions Bono’s appearance, can be found here:
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135154
I’m very enthusiastic about this film; afterall, how much better can you get than a combination of Bono and Beatles songs?
Just flipping through the latest edition of Vanity Fair, and caught a brief U2 mention in the Fairground section of the magazine. There’s a full-page photo of Bono kissing the hand of Italian acress Claudia Cardinale, as well as a small black and white photo on the opposite page of the entire band along with Daniel Lanois. They were attending the Vanity Fair celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007.
Others in attendance at the shindig: Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Allen, Roberto Cavalli, Barry Diller, Marie-Chantal and Prince Pavlos of Greece, Diane von Furstenberg, and Minnie Driver (as well as many others).
The channel SkyArts did a programme last week about the support slots that the Scottish band Franz Ferdinand did with U2 during their South American leg of the Vertigo tour. U2 spoke/were spoken about in four different segments, which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp5uxACIqB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswUyZpyMX4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7reSIurCanE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeaXkrFnGew
The videos were taken on my camera phone, so I’m sorry that the picture quality is so appalling. The sound quality isn’t too bad though. You can hear what they’re saying at any rate, which I guess is what matters….
