Bono on U2's New Album: ‘Everyone in the Band Seems Desperate for It'
Almost ten years since the release of its last album, Songs of Experience, U2 is back in the studio. The band is cooking up new music and very likely gearing up for a whole new tour. If you hear it straight from the group's frontman, Bono, it's a matter of life and death.
'Everyone in the band seems desperate for it,' Bono told Esquire's Madison Vain in Esquire US's new cover story. 'It's like their lives depend on it. ... And, as I tell them, they do.'
In between discussions of family, politics, health scares, and slowing down—including the story of Bono learning how to sit on his couch and binge-watch Chef's Table and Fleabag—the singer confirms that U2 is working on new material for a new album, which the band may greet with a whole new tour. The album is reuniting U2 with producer Brian Eno, who also produced The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, and Zooropa.
Although the album doesn't yet have a title, at least one song is tentatively titled 'Freedom Is a Feeling.' Bono said this of the still-in-development piece: 'The thing is, I don't just want to be singing about freedom. I want to be freedom, the feeling. That's what rock 'n' roll has to be.'
Bono also strongly hinted at plans for a tour. 'I just like to play live,' Bono said. Though Bono enjoys his cozy dwellings in Côte d'Azur, which Esquire explores with Bono in the piece, he's looking to get out of the house in the right circumstances. 'You want to have some very good reasons to leave home,' he said.
U2's latest album, Songs of Experience, was the world's sixth-best-selling album of 2017 and was supported by the Experience + Innocence Tour in 2018. More recently, U2 enjoyed a buzzy residency from September 2023 to March 2024 at Las Vegas's cutting-edge venue Sphere. The production earned critical acclaim, with outlets like Billboard, The Telegraph, and The Guardian observing how the marriage of U2's artistry and vision with the venue's technical capabilities creates a show that forecasts the future of live entertainment.
Still, for U2, it's about the music, and even Bono admitted that he's unsure what the future holds. 'I hope they're going to still be there for us,' Bono said of the band's fans. 'We've pushed them to their elastic limit over the years. And now it's a long time that we've been away. But I still think that we can create a soundtrack for people who want to take on the world.'
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Time Magazine
4 days ago
- Time Magazine
In Season 4, 'The Bear' Has—Quite Literally—Lost the Plot
This article contains extremely minor spoilers for The Bear Season 4. You can't go wrong putting delicious-looking food and the perfectionist chefs who cook it on TV. That was the lesson of Food Network's rise in the 1990s. It held true throughout the Y2K reality boom; stalwart competitions like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen are still on the air after more than 20 seasons. Anthony Bourdain created his own subgenre of culturally aware, personality-driven food-travel shows that has persisted, since his death, in variations on the format from Padma Lakshmi, Stanley Tucci, Phil Rosenthal, and others. The streaming era has yielded a cornucopia of beautifully shot food programs: Chef's Table, Omnivore, High on the Hog, Salt Fat Acid Heat. All of which is to say that, though it's understood to have been a surprise hit, FX's The Bear was well placed to become the phenomenon it is. The rare scripted series set in a restaurant, its first two seasons combined all the enticements of the best nonfiction food TV with the propulsive tale of a grieving, Paul-Newman-lookalike master chef (Jeremy Allen White) who toils to transform his family's Italian beef joint into a fine-dining mecca worthy of a Michelin star. Like many popular food shows, The Bear makes for satisfying comfort viewing even when the narrative is lacking. Be that as it may, its fourth season, now streaming in full on Hulu, so exacerbates the stagnation that set in during Season 3 that it's bound to make all but the least demanding fans impatient. The show still looks scrumptious. But it has, quite literally, lost the plot. Following the frenzied efforts of White's Carmy Berzatto, in Season 1, to save The Original Beef of Chicagoland, formerly operated by his recently deceased brother Mikey (John Bernthal), and Season 2's transformation of the space and its staff in preparation of its rebirth as culinary destination The Bear, the third season chronicled the new spot's rough start. Carmy chose his work over his burgeoning relationship with Claire (Molly Gordon), pushing himself towards artistic excellence—and his employees towards madness—with a new menu every day. His unwillingness to compromise made the restaurant unfeasibly expensive to run, infuriating his investor, family friend Uncle Jimmy (a.k.a. Cicero, played by Oliver Platt) and making his sister and business manager Sugar's (Abby Elliott) life difficult as she welcomed a new baby. It also heightened Carmy's perennial conflict with Mikey's best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), whose charm eased his evolution from managing The Beef to running front of house for The Bear. Their fights in the kitchen threw dinner services into chaos. Said chaos forced Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), a talented and self-possessed young chef who once idolized Carmy, to consider leaving this restaurant she helped create to accept a job offer from a more stable competitor. But by the end of the season, no problems had been solved and few questions answered. Maybe this was a manifestation of the same streaming bloat that has also, recently, produced maddeningly incomplete seasons of hit shows like The Last of Us and Squid Game. To give The Bear the benefit of the doubt, which it had earned, was to interpret 10 episodes' worth of wheel-spinning as a stylistic choice underscoring the characters' own poor communication and fundamental stuckness. When the finale made the contents of a Chicago Tribune review its cliffhanger, it seemed as though movement was finally imminent. Unfortunately, Season 4—whose thematic throughline is Carmy and his family and colleagues mending broken relationships and making amends for the hurt they've caused each other—is just as inert. Carmy acknowledges as much in a premiere that finds him gloomily watching Groundhog Day on TV and complaining to pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) that he feels 'stuck in the same day.' The Trib headline reads: 'Bear Necessities Missing: The Bear Stumbles With Culinary Dissonance,' and the gist is that, while the food is interesting and ambitious, a lack of harmony behind the scenes makes the overall experience a crapshoot. Or, as Syd sums it up, 'The Trib ate here three different times at three different restaurants… They didn't like the chaos.' As usual, Carmy sees the situation through his own, depressive and self-absorbed, lens: 'I wasn't good enough, and I need to be better.' Whatever the core problem may be, the need for improvement is urgent. Spooked by the review, Jimmy and his numbers guy, The Computer (Brian Koppelman), come into the kitchen with a giant digital timer, counting down two months' worth of seconds. That's how long The Bear has to change its financial outlook or close. This challenge should've been enough to get the show cooking again. Weirdly, it isn't. Though the timer keeps ticking and graphs charting the restaurant's progress periodically flash across the screen, little of what actually happens has much to do with this race towards profitability. It's as though creator Christopher Storer has forgotten how to do the kind of thrilling service scenes that once made The Bear so addictive, painting plot beats and character development into the larger panorama of present-tense panic. Instead, in too many formless episodes, Season 4 favors quiet solo scenes (Syd perfects a dish amid dramatic lighting and a haunting St. Vincent track, in a set piece that looks lovely but has nothing new to say) and earnest two-handers. These one-on-one conversations sound remarkably similar to one another. Everyone is always expressing profound truths from the very bottom of their soul. And what they're conveying, more often than not, are truisms or self-help koans: 'People are not so different.' 'It's realizing the capacity to love that matters.' 'There is probably one really true thing about restaurants… You are never alone.' As awards pundits never fail to notice, The Bear resists categorization as a comedy. Now, it's not only seldom funny; it also takes itself way too seriously. That shift in tone, from early seasons that moved fluidly between humor and wonder and angst to the relentless solemnity of the past two, has been particularly frustrating with regard to our hero. It's not hard to believe Carmy's a culinary genius, nor would the show work if he wasn't one. What's growing tiresome is his depiction as the ultimate tragic hero, noble and beautiful but cursed by the tragic flaw of his perfectionism, and specifically of his need to compensate for a bad childhood by proving he's the best to ever tweezer microgreens onto a blanket of foam. The camera lingers for too long on his pained, Grecian-bust features. His every line is freighted with meaning. White does as great a job as is probably possible of making this overly aestheticized archetype into a believable human being. It's not his fault that Carmy has gotten so boring. For proof, look to Season 4's best episode, in which he isn't even a presence. Directed by Zola filmmaker Janicza Bravo (every other episode this season credits Storer as director or co-director), it follows Syd on a day off spent getting her hair braided at the home of a stylist pal, Chantel, played by Danielle Deadwyler. A pragmatic, emotionally intelligent contrast to Carmy, Syd is still agonizing over whether to leave The Bear or become one of its partners. When Chantel has to run to the beauty supply store for more hair, Syd entertains—and, of course, tenderly cooks a meal for—her 10-year-old daughter, TJ (Arion King), who happens to be navigating a painful transition of her own. The episode is refreshing, thanks in part to Bravo's lighter hand and in part to the respite it offers from Carmy's wallowing. Standout installments of previous seasons have also spotlighted secondary characters, from Season 2's Richie-focused 'Forks' to line cook Tina's (Liza Colón-Zayas) origin story in 'Napkins,' from Season 3. The Bear should be leaning more and more on this great supporting ensemble, whose characters are rich with potential storylines, for longevity. To Storer's credit, the new season does dial back the distracting celebrity-chef cameos and, with Deadwyler among the few exceptions, shiny A-list guest stars. (A wedding episode features many of the same characters we met in Season 2's divisive family Christmas blowout, 'Fishes,' to which this sometimes-wonderful but excessively long, 70-minute montage of confessions and reconciliations is trying a bit too hard to be a sequel.) Still: Carmy's brooding leaves little time to venture into the lives of, say, Tina or Marcus. Like its predecessor, this season ends with the tantalizing suggestion of big, overdue changes to come. If the twist that's teased in the promising finale really does happen, it will be The Bear's most substantial—and, I think, most inspired—reset to date. If not, a show that has now been in decline for half its run risks devolving into a mess as self-indulgent, morose, and, well, dissonant as its title character.
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘The Bear': Apologies and reconciliations lift the mood in Season 4
FX on Hulu has asked that a spoiler alert head any detailed reviews of the new, fourth season of 'The Bear.' And while this review is not really detailed, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a spoiler. So, read on, if you dare. Most television series, and not just the best ones, are organic. You can plan in a vague way, but you learn as you go along — what the actors can do, what characters are going to demand more screen time, what unexpected opportunities present themselves, what the series is telling you about itself. This can make a show feel inconsistent across time, but often better in the end, as much as it may irritate viewers who liked how things were back at the beginning. Early in the fourth season of 'The Bear,' premiering Wednesday on FX on Hulu, the staff of the series' eponymous restaurant finally sees the Chicago Tribune review they were anticipating throughout much of Season 3, and when it comes, it contains words like 'confusing,' 'show-offy' and 'dissonant.' (It's beautiful to see the review represented in a physical newspaper.) The show's third season was accused by some fans and critics of similar things, and whether or not creator and showrunner Christopher Storer is drawing a comparison here, it's true that 'The Bear' doesn't behave like most series — the recent shows it most resembles are 'Atlanta' and 'Reservation Dogs,' both from FX, and going back a little, HBO's 'Treme,' which, like 'The Bear,' are less invested in plot than in character, place and feeling. For all the series' specific detail and naturalistic production, the eponymous Bear is a fairy-tale restaurant, staffed by people who not long before were hustling to get beef sandwiches out the door but, encouraged by Jeremy Allen White's brilliant chef Carmen, have revealed individual superpowers in relatively short time. (Carmy asks Marcus, a genius of dessert played by Lionel Boyce, how he achieved a certain effect in a new sweet; 'Legerdemain,' Marcus replies.) If you want to see real restaurants in operation, there are plenty of options, from Netflix's 'Chef's Table,' to Frederick Wiseman's 'Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,' a four-hour film about a Michelin three-star restaurant in central France. (It streams from you have until March 2027 to catch it there, and should.) But this invented place, which is real enough for its purposes, is primarily a stage for human striving, failure and success — and love. Come for the food, stay for the people. After the first two seasons, which involved transforming the Beef, the sandwich shop Carmy inherited from his late brother Mikey, and creating the Bear, the third looked around and over its shoulder, flashing back and stretching out and developing themes that are taken up again in Season 4, which begins so hot on the heels of three they might as well be one. (They were filmed back-to-back.) The chaos and expense created by Carmy's 'nonnegotiable' decision to change the menu every night; the prospect of the Tribune review; and a participation agreement for sous-chef-turned-creative partner Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are still working their way through the story. It begins more prosaically, certainly when compared with the impressionistic montage that occupied the whole of last season's opening episode. And, apart from an opening flashback in which Carmy tells Mikey (Jon Bernthal) of his vision for a restaurant ('We could make it calm, we could make it delicious, we could play good music, people would want to come in there and celebrate … we could make people happy'), it stays in the present, facing forward. Once again, we get a ticking clock to create pressure; installed by the 'uncle' they call Computer (Brian Koppelman), it's timed not as before to the opening of the restaurant but to the point at which backer Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) will pull out and the Bear will 'cease operations.' (It's set to 1,440 hours, or 60 days.) But deadlines come and go on this show, and though we're treated to repeated shots of the countdown clock, it doesn't create much actual tension. There is always something more immediately concerning, in the kitchen or out in the world. For all his messing with the menu in search of a Michelin star, Carmy is stuck in a rut — cue clip from 'Groundhog Day' — and has also become maddeningly inarticulate, almost beyond speech; much of what White does this year is listen and react, doing subtle work with his face and fingers, interjecting an occasional 'Yeah,' while family or colleagues unburden themselves or take him to task. 'Is this performative?' Richie asks a moping Carmy. 'You waiting for me to ask if you're OK?' Some of his self-flagellation feels unearned — which I suppose is often the case with self-flagellation. ('You would be just as good … without this need for, like, mess,' says Syd.) Carmy can be a handful, but he's led his team into this land of milk and honey, and if the Bear is dysfunctional, it nevertheless manages to put food on the table, create delight and pay its people. Still, this is a season of apologies — even Uncle Jimmy is saying he's sorry, through a closed door, to his teenage son — and reconciliations. (You didn't suppose you'd seen the last of Claire, Carmy's on-again, off-again romantic interest, played by Molly Gordon?) Some developments can seem abrupt, possibly because so many of these characters are bad at communicating or lie about how they're feeling, saying that everything is OK when everything is not OK. But in the long view, the view that extends even beyond the end of the series, whether it comes sooner or later, everything will be OK. Whatever Emmy nitpickers might have to say about its category, 'The Bear' is most definitely a comedy; there'll be obstacles, but everyone's on a road to happiness. A double-wide episode, set at the wedding of Richie's ex-wife, Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), mirrors the calamitous 'Fishes' Christmas-dinner episode from Season 2, with most of that extended cast present again. But here, there is dancing. Richie, running the front of the house, continues on his journey of self-improvement, crafting inspirational addresses to the staff, meditating on a photo of a Japanese Zen garden and dealing in an adult way with his soon-to-be-remarried ex-wife and daughter; the Bear has become his lifeline. Gary (Corey Hendrix, getting some deserved screen time) is being educated as a sommelier; Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) is working to put pasta on the plate in under three minutes; Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) is killing it at the sandwich window and looking to 'create opportunity' with a new delivery app, a robot called Chuckie and a business mentor (Rob Reiner). Come for the food, stay for the people. Above all, this is Syd's year, which is, of course, also to say Edebiri's. She's got decisions to make and has been given long, often intense, two-person scenes, not only with Carmy but with Jimmy and Claire and an 11-year-old girl she suddenly finds herself babysitting, and with whom she spends most of an episode; Syd describes her dilemma in terms an 11-year-old might understand and receives the blunt advice an 11-year-old might give. Carmy, for his part, thinks he knows how to fix things, which he will finally get around to sharing. Is it a good idea? Will it work? Will we ever know, and do we need to know? Is this the final season? (No one has said.) It closes on what is not quite an end — that not everything ties up feels very on brand for the series, and like life, which doesn't run on schedule — and a sort of beginning. (I would just point out that R.E.M.'s 'Strange Currencies,' or as I have called it, 'Love Theme From 'The Bear,'' playing very quietly in a scene behind Richie and highly evolved Chef Jessica [Sarah Ramos] may be a gentle nod to their unseen future.) It can be corny, it can be obvious. It indulges in gestures as grand and unlikely as creating snow for a guest, and as small as a sandwich being cut to make it a little more friendly, a little more fancy. Both are moving. Good restaurants serve a reliable version of familiar food, food anyone can like. Great ones do something peculiar that won't be to everyone's taste, won't even make sense, but might inspire love. So it is with television shows.
New York Times
4 days ago
- New York Times
The Edge, U2's Guitarist, Becomes Irish Citizen After 62 Years There
The Edge, the U2 guitarist known for his omnipresent black beanie and his chiming, echoey sound, became an Irish citizen this week. It only took him 62 years. 'I'm a little tardy on the paperwork,' the English-born musician, whose real name is David Evans, told reporters at the ceremony on Monday. 'I've been living in Ireland now since I was 1 year old, but the time is right and I couldn't be more proud of my country for all that it represents and all that it's doing.' A representative for U2 did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. More than 7,500 people were granted citizenship in a series of ceremonies Monday and Tuesday in Killarney in County Kerry, nearly 200 miles southwest of Dublin, according to the Irish government. Applicants from over 140 countries made a declaration of fidelity and loyalty to the state. Since 2011, more than 200,000 people have received Irish citizenship. Evans, 63, was born in Essex to Welsh parents and moved to Ireland as a young child. The band formed in 1976 when Larry Mullen Jr. tacked a 'musicians wanted' ad to a bulletin board in Dublin, according to the band's website. The group — Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton (bass) and Mullen (drums), then all teenagers — practiced in Mullen's kitchen. U2 became perhaps the most recognizable and successful rock group from Ireland and is considered by many fans there to be something of a national treasure. At the citizenship ceremony, Evans said that Ireland was showing 'real leadership' on the world stage and that his becoming a citizen couldn't have come at a better moment. 'I have always felt Irish,' he told reporters, saying he was happy 'to be in even deeper connection with my homeland.' Evans said the application process took a couple of years but was ultimately straightforward. 'Honestly there were many moments in the past when I could have done it, with just the form to be filled out, but I'm happy it's now,' he said. 'It feels more significant, it feels more meaningful.'
