February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Eileen Murphy
Sad news for the U2 camp this week. As they opened the UK leg of their “Elevation” tour in Manchester last Saturday night, lead singer Bono revealed that his father was near death.
Bono performed a solo rendition of “Kite,” from the new album, dedicating the song to his critically ill dad, 75-year-old Bobby Hewson. Hewson, a former postal worker, is believed to be suffering from end-stage cancer.
“‘This is a song for my father, who has only a few days to live,” the visibly shaken singer told the capacity crowd.
“This is for him, the tough old fella.”
“Kite” is one of the band’s most beautiful songs, with heart-wrenching lyrics, including:
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I want you to know
That you don’t need me anymore
I want you to know
You don’t need anyone, anything at all
Who’s to say where the wind will take you
Who’s to know what it is will break you
I don’t know which way the wind will blow
Who’s to know when the time has come around
Don’t wanna see you cry
I know that this is not goodbye.
Bono also mentioned his father while singing the album’s title track, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”
“I wrote this for my kids,” he said, “but now I feel like he wrote it for me.”
Immediately after the show, Bono, 41, boarded a chartered jet and flew to Dublin to join his brother Norman, 47, in a vigil at his father’s hospital bedside.
A band insider said, “Bono realizes his dad is about to die and wants to be with him when he slips away.
“He doesn’t want to let the fans down and is doing the shows and then hopping straight on a plane.”
The band has four more shows scheduled in London this week before returning home to Ireland for the Slane gigs.
“It’s a very emotional time for him — but the show must go on,” said the source.
During the Manchester show, Bono did his bit to promote a peaceful resolution to the escalating conflict in Northern Ireland.
“Our prayer is that this week brave people will make brave decisions,” he said.
“Do not let this little island across the little channel go back to war, but instead live in peace.”
Surprisingly, the band played “Sunday Bloody Sunday” during the Manchester show. Those with long memories will recall that the band had declared, after the 1987 bombing in Enniskillen, that they would never again perform SBS in Britain. Anyone needing a refresher course as to why should dust off their “Rattle and Hum” video (doesn’t everyone own a copy?) and check out Bono’s impassioned “Eff the revolution” speech.
This being entertainment and all, there were a few light moments during the show, as Bono led the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to lead guitarist The Edge, who turned 40 over the weekend. We suppose one of the advantages (and disadvantages) of being famous is that everyone remembers your birthday. Or, as the Supremes once observed, “There’s nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.”
In more U2 news, we hear that the band’s Australian fans have begun circulating a petition to convince the boys to bring their current show to the land down under. Of course, we beat them to the punch long ago, having started a petition urging U2 to play a private concert in our living room. We’ll see who prevails.
How do you keep’em on the ‘Farm’?
If Irish hottie Colin Farrell has any trouble believing his recent incredible career success, we’d like to state, just for the record, that we are we are extremely — one might say, embarrassingly — available to do administer the necessary pinch. Yes, yes, we know, he just got married to some pretty little British actress, but really, we saw him first. Where was she when he was just another Irish actor toiling on “BallyK?” Hmm? Hmmm?
OK, we’re over our little snit. And we’re ready to tell you that Colin has just signed on to costar with Hollywood heavyweight Al Pacino in “The Farm,” a spy thriller that starts filming in November.
Mumba: Popular girl
In a world where actresses and supermodels take great pains to reveal their childhood angst — oy, the tears we’ve shed over Julianna Margulies and her youthful “flounder lips” nickname — it’s refreshing to hear that some famous people had nice, happy wonder years.
Take, for example, Irish pop star Samantha Mumba. The 18-year-old singer, whose mother is Irish and whose father is black, says that she never got teased by other kids about her mixed race heritage.
“My brother wasn’t exactly bullied, but he got some slagging from his schoolmates,” she revealed to the Sunday World.
Her friends were cooler, she said.
“I never got that. The girls I was at school with loved my hair because it was curly.
“They could play with it at break time,” laughed Sam.
Life couldn’t be better for the native of Dublin’s Dundrum neighborhood. In addition to a promising pop career — Westlife, Boyzone, et. al., please note: she’s made it in America! — Samantha has a Steven Spielberg movie under her belt, and she’s just signed on with the Ford Modeling Agency. Ronan, you might want to take notes.
Shane’s ready for his close-up
Shane MacGowan fans who are dying for a glimpse of their idol will want to catch a documentary by Irish filmmaker Sarah Share. The film, “If I Should Fall from Grace,” chronicles MacGowan’s early days on London’s punk scene, his sudden rise to stardom with The Pogues, the band’s acrimonious breakup, his post-Pogues career and his love of Irish traditional music.
Share spent months with the singer in England and Ireland, and while it was probably very educational, we have to say, better her than us — the last journalist who got too close to the ex-Pogues frontman wound up trading punches with the cranky genius. But we’re getting off the subject.
Share told the Sunday World that she thinks that she’s captured Shane’s “great warmth and beauty” on film. But it wasn’t easy.
“It was hard work,” she said.
“You could ask him anything but you wouldn’t necessarily get a straight answer.
“I would hang around his house for hours waiting for him,” she recalled. “When I stopped trying to control him it started to work.”
One of the more interesting insights in the film is MacGowan’s bitterness towards one-time best bud, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor. Concerned about her pal’s drug use, O’Connor staged a one-woman intervention by reporting his addiction to the local police. Shane, as one can imagine, was underwhelmed.
“She seems to think she did whatever she did with the best intentions,” snarled MacGowan.
“But I don’t give a [bad word] what her intentions were.
“She had no right to. It’s my life. I’m a [very bad word] adult.”
Ronan bares his teeth at rumors
Maybe it’s the gloomy weather, or a dose of melancholy, or just a touch of the boogie-woogie flu, but we’re starting to feel a little sorry for Ronan Keating. It’s not easy to spare sympathy for someone who’s young, handsome, rich and — hey, stop poking us with sharp sticks! — OK, talented, but really, the boy’s been getting it from all sides lately.
First, As we told you last week, former Boyzone mate Shane Lynch took time out from plucking his left eyebrow to announce that he’d like to give Ronan a kick where the sun don’t shine. Now, Ronan’s miffed at his former manager for giving him a shot, as it were, in the other end. He’s annoyed at pop svengali Louis Walsh for telling the world that he (Ronan, that is) spent a pile of cash — _20,000 — on new set of biters to please his American record company.
“It’s true all right,” Walsh told MTV recently. “But I don’t know if Ronan was upset by the remark or not.”
Ronan, like anyone who’s ever had a dentist poking at his pearlies, was feeling a little sensitive.
“I went to the dentist like everybody else does,” sniffed the singer. “[I wanted] to have a checkup and get my teeth sorted out. But that’s about it. I haven’t made any changes.”
Smile when you say that, Ro.
Pierce, Keely share the joy
The nicest celebrity news we’ve heard this week was about newlyweds Pierce Brosnan and Keely Shay-Smith, who tied the knot at Ashford Castle last weekend.
Following their sumptuous wedding reception, the kind-hearted pair sent their flowers and lots of wedding cake to local nursing homes, so that the residents could share in their happiness.
“It really made our day,” the matron at one home told the Sunday World. Which proves that Pierce has more than just a “Goldeneye” — he has a golden heart, too.
Ed flips his wig for Christy
Supermodel and bride-to-be Christy Turlington probably thought she’d be the fashionable one in the family when she agreed to marry actor/director Ed Burns. So boy, was she in for a surprise when she saw her honey’s new haircut.
The New York Daily news reports that when Burns posed for the September issue of W magazine, he talked the on-set hairstylist into giving him a Mohawk. For those of our readers who missed the late 1970s and early ’80s, a Mohawk haircut leaves the head shaved except for a spiky strip right down the center. Pink dye and safety pins through the cheek are optional.
The News reports that Burns sported the look for just one day — to “shock” his fiancTe. But it’s all in good fun.
“[Christy and I] are like two people who are in this sort of weird life but stayed normal,” Burns said. In fact, he said, it was love at first sight — for him, at any rate.
“A month after I met her, I told my brother, ‘I guarantee I end up marrying this girl,’ ” the actor said.
“Of course, she still thought I was a complete freak at that point.”
And remember, kids: that was without the Mohawk.