The David Cook “ISHFWILF” cover got me thinking - what do you think is the best U2 song covered by another musician? My vote - Mary J. Blige’s version of “One.” A close second is Cook’s cover. I feel that in both of these cases, the cover version matched, if not surpassed, Bono’s vocals on the song.

Out of all the covers out there of U2 songs, who do you think offered the best cover?

No, it’s not really named for the band (and as far as I know doesn’t play U2 songs exclusively along the trip), but there is a new subway line extension in Vienna that has been created to move the city more rapidly to the Ernst Happel football stadium.

If you’re a football fan who is interested in the upcoming championships, you’ll want to read more here.

If you’re like me (hoping to visit Vienna), you’ll want to ride that line someday just to get the ticket that surely reads “U2.”

In my opinion, these are some of the worst one-line lyrics in U2’s discography (in no order)

1) I’ll do the maximum time for you tonight (Love You Like Mad)
2) The air is heavy, heavy like a truck (Electrical Storm)
3) Grace, it’s the name for a girl (Grace)

What other one-line lyrics would you add to this list?

…you were able to book talent for your local college campus now using the prices of yesteryear! We sort of know that U2 rakes in a guaranteed amount of rediculous moohlah with any concert performance. Thinking back to the War tour, how cheap do you think it would have been for colleges to book U2 for their spring weekend concert? Exactly!

I was reminded of this as I was going through my basement (yes - I’m still going through my basement) and I stumbled upon a notebook from a college entertainment booking conference I attended in 1992. The showcase comedians for the conference were George Lopez, Dave Chappelle, and Jon Stewart. If you wanted to book, say, Jon Stewart - back then, it would have been a cool $1250. Dave Chappelle - $1000, and George Lopez was $1500 plus travel. Forget about getting them at that bargain basement price now!

To all of the college student event planners out there - remember you have the finger on the pulse of who’s who with up-and-coming acts. Enjoy the raw talent and pricing now because you won’t be able to afford them a few years from now.

April is National Poetry Month here in the U.S. Yeah, it’s still April for about 48 more hours. T. S. Eliot’s opening lines from “The Wasteland” are

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

That’s one main reason for why the fourth month of the year got picked. Shakespeare was born and died in April too, with both of those calender dates being within a week of each other.

I was enjoying some poetry the other day from Achtung Baby. Lately, I’ve been thinking this album showcases some of Bono’s finer poetic moments:

She wears my love like a see-through dress
Her lips say one thing
Her movements something else
Oh love like a screaming flower
Love dying every hour love

Or,

I dreamed that I saw Dali
With a supermarket trolley
He was tryin’ to throw his arms around a girl
He took an open-top beetle
Through the eye of a needle
He was tryin’ to throw his arms around the world

So, speaking of Shakespeare . . . what do you think are some of the better lines of poetry to have left Bono’s pen? Maybe a couplet comes to mind; or more? Maybe it rhymes, or it doesn’t?

And happy last hours of National Poetry Month!

Following on from Cara’s post about the Clarence, here’s the story of why Dublin is one of my favorite cities on the planet.

In 2001, my partner and I went to Dublin for a few days. We stayed at the Clarence, drank in the Octagon, and ate an enormous meal one night in the restaurant (where the sommelier learned we were from America and wanted to extol the virtues of a wine called Marilyn Merlot. I am not making this up.) We were celebrating our anniversary, and after a dinner with perhaps more wine than was strictly necessary, we went down the street to the Kitchen, U2’s nightclub.

We were both 40 at the time. Temple Bar was full of Beautiful Young People. The Kitchen had the usual red velvet rope guarded by large, hiply-dressed men. And I remember turning to my sweetie and saying, Oh, yeesh, what if they don’t let us in? I have been given the arched-eyebrow treatment by some of the gatekeepers of clubs in New York (who had to let me in because I was On The List, and it just about killed them because I totally skewed their demographic). I really didn’t want this to happen at the Kitchen.

So we approached the rope, and one Large Well-Dressed Man smiled and said, Ladies, are you coming in? And held the rope aside for us.

I love that man.

We went in and explored, and ended up at the far end of the club (through several rooms, across at least one dance floor). There was a bar in the back, and we found a table, and we had some Guinness, and talked… and before we knew it, it was about 3 AM and the place was heaving with people. They were literally standing packed like sardines around our table and others.

And my partner walks with a cane.

So, you can picture it — 40-year-old women, one using a cane, who have had a fair amount to drink and now have to make their way through about a million Young Dancing Drinking People without being trampled in the rush to claim our table.

And here’s what happened: We stood up. A man of about 21 or so said, Ladies, are you going out? And when we said yes, he proceeded to walk in front of us, politely tapping people on the shoulder and saying, Make way, please, make way. And everyone smiled and made way. We never even got jostled, never mind trampled. He walked us all the way to the entrance, and I was so amazed and grateful for the grace of the moment that I kissed him on the cheek and told him I’d never forget him. And I never have.

I’m glad I got to go to the Kitchen. But more than that, I’m glad I found out that Dublin is a city of such kind and lovely people.