U2 apparently decided that announcing a new album wasn’t quite enough of a way to celebrate 50 years as a band. One day after revealing Carnaval de Luz, its first new album in nine years, the Dublin legends spent today (Sept. 25) marking the occasion with two surprise hometown performances — first at the school where its four members formed, then from a balcony overlooking Grafton Street.
The day began at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, where the band returned to the exact schoolyard where it first performed more than five decades ago. The occasion marked 50 years since a teenage Larry Mullen Jr. famously pinned a handwritten notice to the school bulletin board reading, “Drummer Seeks Musicians To Form Band.”
Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Mullen played for roughly 1,000 students and staff, turning the anniversary into something considerably more entertaining than your average school assembly. The set opened with “I Will Follow” (for the first time since 2019) and “Vertigo,” followed by “Beautiful Day” and U2’s very first single, “Out of Control,” aired for the first time in eight years. The band also previewed the new era with “Silencio,” from Carnaval de Luz, before bringing out 32 student musicians from Music Generation — one representing each county on the island of Ireland — for “One.”
And then, apparently, decided they weren’t done. Shortly afterward, U2 materialized on the balcony of Bewley’s on Grafton Street, sending a packed crowd below into predictable levels of Dublin chaos. The set stretched across the band’s catalog, including “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “With or Without You.”
A particularly poignant detour came during an Edge-sung cover of “Falling Slowly,” famously written and performed by the late Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová for Once. Hansard died in a July motorcycle accident and had a deep connection to Grafton Street, including the city’s annual Christmas Eve charity busk. The set concluded with an impromptu version of “40” sung by the audience after the closing “Vertigo,” with Edge chipping in on bass and Clayton handling guitar.
Carnaval de Luz is due Nov. 13 from Interscope.