Sweet and sour view of goody-goody U2

'For several weeks in the summer of 1993, the video screens of U2’s Zooropa European tour displayed the image of Bill Carter, an American filmmaker working in Sarajevo. At the time, Sarajevo was, without question, the most dangerous city in the world. Carter’s journalistic mission was to set up a reliable media broadcast to greater Europe. This proved difficult on a number of fronts. TV stations were bombed on a regular basis, and, across the continent, mainstream media outlets had already dropped the story. Offstage, the city of Sarajevo disintegrated. Yet onstage, on video screens set up in football stadiums, Bill Carter and his comrades suddenly appeared, reporting on that day’s events to thousands of Europeans who had come to see U2 perform. Carter, pale and shell-shocked, stood beside Bosnian mothers who wept and cursed a Europe that had abandoned them. Carter spoke to Bono, and Bono spoke his encouragement back to Carter and whoever else had braved Snipers’ Alley to speak to a packed stadium in a neighbouring country. We’re here, said Bono. So are we, said the Bosnians, don’t forget. Fans left the show exhilarated and shaken, and the press went nuts. In Sarajevo, U2 were heroes. But, in the music and political papers of every major European city, the band was vilified for turning Sarajevo’s pain into what amounted to a special effect. “Beyond bad taste,” wrote London’s New Musical Express. “Faced with the horrific description of the situation in Sarajevo, Bono was reduced to a stumbling incoherence that was probably the result of genuine concern, but came across as bog-standard celeb banality.”' Full essay here.