“U2 ARE now very close to irrelevance”, Bono admitted at the world premiere of a new documentary film about the band at the Toronto International Film Festival.
“We’ve been on the edge of irrelevance for the last 20 years but we’ve always managed to dodge it” he said yesterday, before speculating about the band’s future as a working four-piece.
“Sure we could go on playing the big music in big places but we need to matter in the small places – we need to keep affecting people. We need to get to that place if we are to survive”.
The band may have had the most successful tour in the history of music with their just finished 360° tour but sales of the No Line On The Horizonalbum were disappointing.
Bono also talked about his “meglomania” and admitted that the other three band members did have difficulties with his behaviour.
The documentary From The Sky Downchronicles the making of U2's hugely successful 1991 album Achtung Baby. It will not get a general cinema release and will only be available on deluxe editions of the 20th anniversary reissues of Achtung Babywhich are released on October 28th.
Both Bono and The Edge made a red carpet appearance before the screening of the film at the opening night gala of the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday. Its director Davis Guggenheim – acclaimed for his work on Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth– said he had been "very surprised" to have been given "complete access to the group's archives", given that U2 are notoriously controlling of their image and presentation. Piers Handling, director and chief executive officer of the festival, said: "Davis Guggenheim's fascinating account of this world-renowned band is the perfect film to kick off our 11-day celebration of artists, stories and voices from around the world."
