Getting lost in No.10 all part of Bono's gig

WHEN asked to recall some of his life's stranger moments, Bono doesn't have to think too long before nominating a tipsy night at 10 Downing Street.
The U2 frontman and activist had already held meetings with the then prime minister, Tony Blair, but they were often stuffy and earnest. So it was decided that dinner and drinks at No 10 could break the ice.
The night went well and Bono indulged in "a few" glasses of wine. At midnight, Blair asked to be excused to take an emergency phone call. Bono was politely asked to let himself out.
"So I'm wandering through No 10 and I got lost," the singer recalls. "It's a labyrinth. I'm walking into rooms, looking at pictures on the wall of David Lloyd George, who divided Ireland under threat of war."
He ended up in the basement before a guard confronted him.
"I thought how far have two countries come when the Irish rock star can wander through No 10 unaccompanied," he says. "I should have taken a portrait of Lloyd!"
On the songwriting front, Bono says an important part of his role is understanding the world his songs occupy and, if he can, attempting to help shape those issues.
"All artists deal with what the Germans call the zeitgeist," he says. "You may want to ignore it, but you want to know what it is."
He has studied economics at Harvard ("to try and understand debt cancellation") and invested in the tech company Palm ("because smartphones were going to change the world").
"That may not have succeeded, but I know more now than probably any other artist about that," he says.
It's a fine line. When U2 were in Russia for their first concert eight weeks ago, Bono had a 90-minute meeting with the President, Dmitry Medvedev.
The next day, the concert became mired in political controversy when the Kremlin used heavy-handed tactics against Amnesty and Greenpeace volunteers.
At the concert, U2 brought Yuri Shevchuk, a singer and Russian dissident, on stage.
"You have to do both," Bono says. "You have to be able to speak with the government and also those who are the enemy of the government. That's our gig."
Bono has an unparalleled ability to parlay his profile into helping causes. But how does he counter the "St Bono" caricature?
"Generally it's more 'rock star/arsehole'," he says. "It's, 'Oh, that's Bono, he's the rockstar/arsehole'. I haven't heard 'saint' for many years.
"I don't think I have a pious bone in my body. A caricature's quite far removed from my life with my family and friends. I must have helped it happen by doing some stupid stuff over the years . . . But I'm a much more pragmatic person; I just like getting things done."

source : http://www.smh.com.au/ by Andrew Murfett