Bono in a still from the film U2: An Cat Dubh. Photograph: IFI/Merry Doyle
There is hardly a
more scrutinised or well-documented band in the history of rock music
than U2 and footage, especially rare footage from the early years of the
band, is prized.
Taken in Sheriff Street, the footage was shot by Dublin filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle
on Saturday, July 17th, 1982, a month before singer Bono married Alison
Stewart. The band, at that point, were between their second album,
October, released in 1981, and War, which propelled them into the
mainstream in 1983.
Doyle filmed the band’s concert while making a documentary about the demolition of tenement housing in the Gardiner Street/Summerhill area and during the Inner City Looking On community festival.
U2’s appearance
had been kept secret, so only a small number of the 300 or so people who
saw them perform were followers of the band – the rest were locals. It
was a chaotic scene, with local youths clambering up on to the roof of
the community centre and grabbing at the band’s equipment.
Twice during the band’s
45-minute set a swarthy local man stumbled on stage looking to sing,
taking the microphone from Bono before a crew member recovered it. The
man wanted to sing a Chubby Checker song, Let’s Twist Again, so Bono
calmed the situation by singing it a-capella before the band started
into An Cat Dubh from their debut album, Boy.
Bono even managed
to fit in a brief homily about the underprivileged area before the band,
three of whom were born-again Christians, played Rejoice from the
October album – when the buildings around them come crumbling down, the
singer told the crowd, one word could save them: rejoice.
Mr Doyle included
45 seconds of the footage in his 1982 documentary Looking On, and a
short excerpt in his 1997 follow-up documentary Alive Alive O.
“It was an amazing gig. There was one journalist there, Bill Graham from Hot Press, who often wondered would they ever get back to [the level of] that gig on Sheriff Street.
“It really is the
beginning of the U2 sound. They are raw and they are rough and they are
dangerous. It was a great night. I was lucky to catch it.”
Collectors
Mr
Doyle said he kept the footage under lock and key since 1982. “A couple
of private collectors tried to buy it off me but because they can’t
control the music, the natural home for it is the U2 organisation,” he
said.
“Bono is aware of
the footage and loves it. Aside from the little fragment that was in the
actual film, it has not been shown before.”
The footage is being made available to the public online through the Irish Film Institute (IFI), which has digitised the material from Mr Doyle’s Loopline Collection.
The other
documentaries which are digitised include Alive Alive O, which examines a
time when street traders were coming under increased pressure from
legislators.
Essie’s Last
Stand, perhaps the most timely piece in the collection, examines an
elderly woman’s fight to stay in her home as it is earmarked for
development.
Also going live will be Loopline documentaries focusing on the life and career of artist Patrick Scott, architect James Gandon and sculptor John Henry Foley.
In addition there are 30-minute interviews with writers including Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Gore Vidal, Colm Tóibín and Doris Lessing.
