Not here to do anything but what I think is right. My heart tells me we're not put here to hurt anybody. My mind tells me we've become

corrupt."

Jerry got into concert security twelve years ago, when he was running a limousine service. One night someone attacked a celebrity who was renting one of his cars and the star's bodyguard froze. Jerry stepped in and handled the situation. The star fired his own man on the spot and insisted Jerry come to work for him. Since then he's provided security for a string of big names, none of whom he wants listed on the record, except for the heavy metal band Slayer, who have asked Jerry to use their name. That band's crowd included skinheads, neo-Nazis, the worst of the worst. His first night with them, Jerry told the crowd that he was not there to challenge their beliefs or change them—he was only there to make sure they all had a good time and forgot their troubles for a couple of hours. So in that spirit he was going to hand out tags. He wanted them to tag their weapons and pass them in to be checked. After the show was over they could pick them up again. He collected 300 knives and 56 handguns.

"We're gonna win in the end," Jerry says. "I promise you, we are gonna win."

The small car bearing Bono and the Principle women drives up to the hotel and they see the mob throbbing outside the door. Bono asks who the hell could be staying here that's drawn such a crowd. After a couple of days of Italian country living, Bono has divorced himself from his rock star persona. Then the throng spots him in the car watching them and charges. "Oh, no!" he says. He'd forgotten he was famous, a danger­ous thing to do. The U2 security squad comes tearing out of the hotel and cuts through the fans like a hot phalanx through Macedonians. They haul Bono from the car and carry him across the sidewalk and into the hotel as if they were the Green Bay Packers and he were a football.

At 2 a.m. everyone's settled in and had a shower, and U2 congregates on a high piazza from which they can look down on the crowd, who are finally dispersing, and drink wine. There's Edge and Aislinn, Larry and Ann, Adam and Naomi, Ned and Maurice, Christy, Chanty—a Dublin friend of Edge's— Sheila, Eileen, Dennis, and Bono.

Naomi decides she's going to get some food and goes off to find the

[292]

Hotel kitchen. Officially it's shut down, but she implies that if she can get at a stove she'll whip up something herself. Maybe that's a threat designed to stir sleeping chefs to action, maybe it's sincere. I don't know, I don't care. Everyone here is just enjoying the moon and the night and the company. After a while, though, Adam begins to wonder where his fiancee's gone. Christy (who often seems to act as Naomi's conscience—or at least social governor) says she'll go check. She comes back a few minutes later with news that Naomi is in the middle of a full-pitched screaming battle downstairs.

Adam looks half concerned. "Is she fighting with anyone employed by me?"

"No," Christy says. "She's fighting with the chef."

"Oh." Adam relaxes. "That's fine."

Naomi Campbell is a difficult fit in U2's world. She is one of the most famous women in Britain and well recognized everywhere else. She is celebrated for being imperial, acting like a diva, causing a ruckus. Adam says one of the things that first made him think highly of her, before they met, was when she got headlines for belting a paparazzo at Heathrow who pursued her for a picture after an overnight flight. Adam got a kick out of that. And you know, the fashion world is so insulting, the models are treated so much like meat, that a big mouth and a thick skin can be as useful to a model as are all the other physical attributes on which she depends.

But U2's organization functions in a completely different way. It is by far the most considerate operation of its size I have ever seen in the rock world. The sort of back stabbing and dirty fighting that is routine in most comparable outfits is almost absent. Most of the people who work with U2, including the band members, really don't have a clue how unusual it is. The Principles are often hugging and holding hands and having earnest discussions about subjects personal and universal. Even the tensions and fights tend to be like the arguments in a family. Of course, those who've known nothing else don't always see it that way. One of the Principles might get his feelings hurt and think, "Boy, beneath this tranquil surface the U2 organization is a snake pit!" But the only people who could believe that are people who've never worked or traveled with other bands—or for that matter spent much time at a record company, promoter's office, or rock magazine. Compared to such

[293]

⇐ Предыдущая78798081828384858687Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: