It can be difficult to be objective when you go to a charity gig because it is very easy to get caught up in the emotion of the evening. Don’t get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with that but part of the evening for me was to cast my eye over U2-2 with a view for them to appear at one of our events so no pressure.



Before the band took to the stage there was the opportunity for the organiser of the event Ciara Lawrence Jones to welcome everyone and give an insight into the works of the charity and areas that not everyone would be aware of their involvement in. Ciara also was keen to share personal information in that in her early life there was discrimination due to her learning disabilities but that she had overcome all of that to achieve so much including being happily married.



Ciara signed off by introducing U2-2 (an apt choice as she is the cousin of The Edge) and as AJ said on the website on the day of the gig would they move in Mysterious Ways? Well I don’t know about that but from the moment they took to the stage they certainly held the attention of those in attendance. For a start they certainly had more than a passing resemblance to the real thing (ok try and ignore the The Edge had become left-handed) and it was clear that they meant business.



With the crowd already warmed up with the first two tracks “Bono” was quick to latch on to the lyrics of the next track namely 'Even Better Than the Real Thing' by motioning to each member of the band as he repeated the lyric – no one in the crowd appeared to disagree with the sentiment. Next up was 'Mysterious Ways' which AJ had eluded too and the noise from the crowd moved up a notch. The set was moving along nicely before organiser Ciara was invited on to the stage to duet with Bono to the anthem 'I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For' – to say the roof came off is an understatement and it was thoroughly deserved. With the crowd fully engaged by now they were not going to slacken the pace and three heavyweight tracks followed in 'Vertigo', 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and 'Beautiful Day' soon to be joined by 'I Will Follow'. If that wasn’t enough we still had 'Streets Have No Name' and 'With Or Without You' to come. Brilliant evening and not just because of the quality of the band.



I don’t want to get involved in the politics of Tribute Bands v Originals Bands but I will say that I believe there is room for both and instead of arguing for one or the other it would seem appropriate to embrace both sides – live music is struggling these days so let’s use all quality acts Originals, Covers and Tributes to help keep music venues open.



This was a great night, with a great band for a great cause – end of!!!



Wrinkly