Dave Fanning 'first time play from U2' turns out not to be them

Music
17 Jan 14

There was excitement – then much head scratching last night among the U2 community when Dave Fanning announced on his 2fm show “I’m going to give you something now, a brand new, first time play which is from U2. This song here, will it be on the album? Just a blast! Brand new, ‘Invisible.’”

Instrumentally the tune that followed could have been U2 getting noisy and industrial again à la ‘Elevation’ but although the treated vocals were a bit Bono-esque, it definitely wasn’t Mr. Hewson.
“This song here it’s called ‘Invisible’, that’s brand new from U2. I’ll give you a blast again later,” Dave outro-ed, but the track was in fact a 2012 offering from St. Albans alt-rockers Dark Stares called ‘Bad Machine’.
The plot thickens with somebody putting up a ‘U2 New Single’ YouTube page, which quickly admits that it is in fact Dark Stares who apart from a tweeted, “Ah what?! We told Bono he couldn’t have our song. @U2#DidntCheckHisEmails” are keeping quiet for the time being.
Dave, a close friend and confidante of the band since the very early days, traditionally always gets the first play of U2 new tunes.
Calls have been made, so doubtless we’ll be able to unravel the mystery as the day unfolds!