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Was this the world's biggest rock star accepting his due at the biggest industry night of the year?

Or the final emergence of Bono, multi-purpose saint and martyr?

One could have been forgiven the confusion, watching the U2 frontman striding up to the podium at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday night to accept each of his band's four Grammys for their album All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Bono rambled, invoked God and his mother, overran his allotted time even talking over the orchestra and generally acted as though the night was all his. (It was not both Alicia Keys and the bluegrass musicians behind the soundtrack album O Brother, Where Art Thou?came away with more awards.)

"It is a gift, much more than it is a craft in our case," the 41-year-old musician turned activist said. "We depend on God walking through the room more than most. And God has walked through the room for us."

There's nothing unusual, of course, about rock stars being full of themselves at awards ceremonies. There is particularly nothing unusual about Bono behaving this way. His four Grammys capped a week in which he was hailed by Time magazine as a man with a mission to change the world, and Paul O'Neill, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, agreed to accompany him on a trip to Africa to examine possible debt relief for some of the world's poorest countries.

As the otherwise wildly flattering Time profile of him said, right at the top: "Bono is an egomaniac. He knows this and frequently apologises for it."

U2's album wafted over the Grammys ceremony with an almost spiritual presence. It has been regarded by the industry as a sort of balm for the wounded psyche of America in the wake of September 11.

The album, and in particular the song "Walk On," have taken on unintended symbolic meaning thanks to such lyrics as: "I know it aches/And your heart it breaks/And you can only take so much/Walk on."

For all his rambling, Bono clearly knew his audience, and took care to identify himself with the United States rather than characterise himself as a critic of its global policies. "I have to tell you, as outsiders, as guests of the nation, we've always loved coming here, but this year I've rediscovered my love for America the great idea as opposed to just the great country," he said. "It is a great idea, worth defending, worth taking around the world." This was clearly the voice of Bono the politician participant at the World Economic Forum, unofficial consultant to the Pope, and hobnobber with the great and good in major western governments. As he said as he interrupted guitarist, the Edge, while accepting their fourth award: "He's a guitar player. I do the talking."



© Irish Independent, 2002. All rights reserved.

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