See U2’s 50th-Anniversary Performance at Their Old High School

Fifty years ago this week, Larry Mullen Jr pinned a message to a noticeboard at Dublin’s Mount Temple High School that famously read “drummer seeks musicians.” To mark that anniversary, U2 returned to that very school this afternoon to perform a special career-spanning gig in the playground. With an audience that included current students and even the band’s religious education teacher, Sophie Shirley, the band entered shortly after 2 p.m., to the appropriate strains of Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.”

After opening with “I Will Follow,” U2 went straight into a run of hits, including “Vertigo,” “Beautiful Day,” and even a particularly early track, 1979’s “Out Of Control,” from their debut EP U2 3.

Bono hailed Mullen Jr for his role as “the man who pinned the note on the noticeboard” and Adam Clayton was jokingly introduced as “the streaker of the green corridor.”

The school also played host to the first live performance of their new single “Silencio,” from recently announced album Carnaval De Luz. An emotional performance of “One” saw the band joined by a group of teenage harpists, violinists, and viola players who had learned their craft via the Music Generation program, which the band co-funds.

Speaking to Rolling Stone UK earlier this week, the Edge admitted it had been an “amazing” experience to go back and see the school earlier in the week before the performance took place.

That sentiment was shared by Bono today as he thanked the school for providing the group’s formative education and paid tribute to the Reverend Jack Heaslip, who worked at the school before becoming the group’s chaplain and spiritual advisor on tour. “He travelled the world with us,” he said, before paying tribute to other previous teachers in attendance.

Addressing the students, he added: “Thanks for showing up. I suppose you’d nowhere else to go.”
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It comes as U2 prepare to unveil Carnaval de Luz, their first album of new songs in nine years, on November 13. The 12-track album, produced by Garret “Jacknife” Lee, who’s been working with U2 since 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, closes with “Torn,” featuring the final vocal performance from Dolly Parton, who died last month.

It’s an extraordinary collection of songs,” bassist Adam Clayton tells Rolling Stone UK in interviews for an upcoming feature, “and it’s the culmination of the work that everyone has been doing for 50 years.” 

This story was originally published on Rolling Stone UK.