U2-3 / ‘ANOTHER DAY’ TOUR
1979-1980
It was three years after they first formed a garage band as schoolmates in Mount Temple Comprehensive, but Bono, Edge, Larry and Adam were still only in their late teens when U2 embarked on their very first official tour in support of their debut EP, Three.
Their international ambitions were evident even then. The 25-date U2-3 Tour kicked off their UK campaign in the Moonlight Club in London on December 1, 1979, and the tour ran through five eventful months up to a blistering show in the legendary environs of the Downtown Kampus in Cork, on May 17, 1980 – the day after the release of their next single ’11 O’Clock Tick Tock’. With their first Hot Press front cover already under their belts in October 1979, when they arrived in the English capital they were interviewed by the Record Mirror. In a curious prediction of the Facebook mantra “Move Fast and Break Things”, the then 19-year-old Bono said that he hoped to “take everything and break everything. I want people in London to see and hear the band. I want to replace the bands in the charts now, because I think we’re better.” It was a manifesto of sorts. However, as a relatively unknown act, the vast majority of their UK shows were poorly attended. On December 4, having been billed as ‘The U2s’, they played to just nine paying punters at the Hope & Anchor in Islington. The following night, this time mistakenly billed as ‘V2’, they played the Rock Garden in Covent Garden to a throng of about twenty diehards. In an extravagant gesture the circumstances hardly warranted, manager Paul McGuinness bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate the fact that their audience had broken double figures.

The Irish ‘leg’ of the tour, involving a number of forays, went a lot better, and included shows in Queen’s University, Belfast; Dublin’s National Stadium; and later Galway’s Seapoint Ballroom and Sligo’s Blue Lagoon. Unfortunately, their gig in Ballina’s Town Hall on May 10th (Bono’s 20th birthday) – which they opened with upcoming single ’11 O’Clock Tick Tock’ – erupted in violence when a gang of thugs attacked U2’s roadies. As reported by Eilish Ward in Hot Press, U2 gave as good as they got, but a chair was broken over Bono’s back and Adam’s glasses were smashed. The incident ultimately resulted in a court case, which saw the local yobs being fined the princely sum of £9.50 each for public affray.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Out Of Control’

11 O’CLOCK TICK TOCK TOUR

1980

The crucial gig over the previous six months had taken place at the National Stadium in Dublin. It was a brave but strategic move by the band to play Ireland’s biggest venue of the time and they more than half filled it. They had successfully wooed Island Records head of A&R Nick Stewart to the show and he decided on the night to sign the band.

Following on from the Three EP and debut single ‘Another Day’, the first product of the band’s relationship with Island was ‘11 O’Clock Tick Tock’, released on May 16, 1980. The track was produced by Mancunian Martin Hannett, an in-demand figure at the time following his critically acclaimed work with Joy Division. Island Records had been considering him to produce U2’s yet-to-be-recorded debut album, Boy, but the personal chemistry wasn’t good and the band were unhappy with his work (feeling that he had imposed his distinctive production ambience upon their sound).

The 27-date tour saw the band playing 20 fresh UK shows. Most of these were in London, but they also played gigs in Manchester, Bristol, Brighton, Leeds, Dudley, Sheffield and Birmingham, beginning to sow the seeds for future stardom by winning fans on the ground to the cause. The UK leg kicked off with a return to the Hope & Anchor on May 22. Thankfully, there was a bigger turnout for their second show at that venue. Word was slowly starting to spread.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ’11 O’Clock Tick Tock’

BOY TOUR

1980-1981

Produced by Steve Lillywhite and recorded from July to September 1980 in Dublin’s Windmill Lane Studios, U2’s debut album Boy was released to largely positive reviews on October 20, 1980.

“It rushes your senses,” Declan Lynch said in Hot Press. “It’s so sharp every song seems like it’s been lying under the tree all year and at Christmas it’s taken out of its box and shown to everybody, open-mouthed.”

Kicking off in General Wolfe’s in Coventry on September 6, the 157-date Boy Tour began six weeks before the album hit the record stores. Their set-list varied each night, with all of the songs from the album being performed, with the curious exception of the memorable, poetic ‘Shadows And Tall Trees’.

The vast majority of the Boy Tour dates were in the UK, but U2 also made tentative forays into mainland Europe, playing in Holland, France and Belgium. Having been signed to the influential US agency Premier Talent, run by Frank Barsalona, the four Dubliners played their debut American gig at The Ritz in New York on December 6, 1980. However, the band themselves recall a show a week later in The Paradise in Boston as being the one that truly launched them in the US. Speaking to Maureen Forry of the Boston Irish Reporter in 2004, Bono said, “I love New York. I do. I love New York. But the truth of it is, our band broke out through Boston… I have a very special feeling about this city.”

Throughout the tour – which culminated with a show at the University of Manchester on February 1, 1981 – Bono would include snippets of other artists’ songs and Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send In The Clowns’ was often tagged onto the end of ‘The Electric Co’. This habit proved expensive a few years later, when Sondheim sued them for using the song without permission on their Under A Blood Red Sky: U2 Live At Red Rocks video and live album. U2 were forced to pay him $50,000 in an out-of-court settlement. They dropped the song from all future pressings.

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘I Will Follow’

OCTOBER TOUR

1981-1982

Coming out less than a year after Boy, and produced once again by Steve Lillywhite, U2’s sophomore album October was released on October 12, 1981. A very different beast from their debut, it featured spiritual and religious themes inspired by Bono, Edge and Larry’s membership in a Christian group called the ‘Shalom Fellowship’ (something which almost threatened to split the band as they began to question the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle).

The album received mixed reviews and, second cut ‘Gloria’ aside, attracted very limited airplay. The October Tour followed a similar pattern to their Boy Tour and consisted of 102 shows, played in five legs – three in Europe and two in North America. The first leg opened with a show in Slane Castle supporting Thin Lizzy in August 1981 – at which In Tua Nua’s Vinnie Kilduff featured on uileann pipes – and, 33 shows later, ended in Berlin’s Metropol on November 4. They crossed the Atlantic and played 23 gigs in America before returning for another string of European dates. In stark contrast to many of their punk predecessors and their contemporaries alike, their commitment to building their audience in the USA was underlined when they returned for a lengthier US jaunt, before finishing with nine European shows.

While their international reputation was growing, Ireland was still their biggest market by far. Hot Press’ Neil McCormick (an old Mount Temple contemporary of the band) reviewed their homecoming show in the RDS on January 26, 1982. “Four thousand people welcoming home U2, four thousand and most of them younger than me (I’m only 20!). U2 now belong to them, or rather with them. Because not only are they the only major Southern Irish success story since The Boomtown Rats, they are young. Young in the sense of being much more the same age as their audience, they are our contemporaries, and more, still more, this youth is at the core of their identity; they take it and build it to epic proportions. It’s not a matter of understanding their audience, there is no great insight involved here; it is that they are part of their audience, by birth, by sensibility, by commitment.”

SONG OF THE TOUR: ‘Gloria’