U2 Origin Story (1976-1980)

You thought you knew U2's origin story? Well, did you know no one actually responded to Larry Mullen's post about wanting to start a band on the Mt Temple bulletin board? Or, did you know that the band once had a flutist and two female backing vocalists onstage? Or that they scored their first TV appearance by fooling the RTE booker into thinking they wrote the Ramones' "Glad to See You Go"? Or that the trace elements of Zoo TV's embrace of Dada and surrealism actually dates back to when Bono and Gavin Friday studied mime in 1979 and that theatricality became a big part of U2's stage show at the time? Or, that after every record label in the UK gave U2 a hard pass on all 4 demos they'd done from 1978-1980, they pulled off one of the great cons ever which finally got them signed to Island Records? We've got the stories behind the stories in this deep dive into the U2 Origin Story.