Bono came to London to deliver a show with pride – and unashamedly in the name of love. The man who has dominated arena rock across several continents for the best part of four decades chose “to forsake the stadium for the Palladium”, as he put it, to come on stage without his fellow members of U2 and “to be solo in Soho” – so that he might tell a quiet, unexpectedly intimate story of love and pain.
Even before he walked on – to be backed by a harp, cello and percussionist-cum-musical director – it was clear that this was to be no ordinary show. Among those watching, their phones placed in compulsory locked pouches to ensure a night of unbroken attention, were fellow musicians Noel Gallagher and Brian Eno; past and present comrades in aid and debt relief campaigns Bob Geldof, Richard Curtis and former Labour cabinet minister Douglas Alexander; and the man who managed U2 when they were barely out of their teens: Paul McGuinness.
