Watching Glastonbury at the weekend was a Twitter-hater’s paradise. Lie back, pull the tab on a can, eat crap food, fart, pull another tab, tweet, fart, tweet and then the main course… U2.
Now, I like U2 and there are some great songs (most of which are on Achtung Baby) and I regret not seeing them when they supported Stiff Little Fingers at the Rainbow, but they really think they’re a little bit deus ex machina.
I mean, one of them has slept with Naomi Campbell, I believe from Irish sources one of them has slept with Louis Walsh, one of them plays guitar insanely well and the singer’s parents probably believe he IS the Pope.
In other words, they’ve had big existences, they’ve done more than most and the Twitter-haters don’t do much more than sit at home having mini-Glastonburys trying to forget where their lives went to… their glittering futures some way behind them.
But, even so, what a twat Bono is. I tried to be equanamious, I tried to like the songs I used to love, but when the Mork-lookalike tried to curry favour by singing Jerusalem as if he was King Druid, instead of King Catholic, I felt William Blake’s ghost scuttle through me whispering ‘I’m going to tear that little twat’s head off’.
Then the inevitable post-gig interview. Bono talking s-l-o-w-l-y because he’s so i-m-p-o-r-t-a-n-t and the talking heads of his band shrugging as if they were Pink Floyd and he was the equally annoying Roger Waters. It made me want to cuddle Coldplay’s Chris Martin who apparently really was on acid during his post-gig chat.
So, I have a Bono story. Seven years ago I went to the Colombe D’Or, a restaurant in the South of France. Very posh, we went there to thank a friend for staying in her villa. Oh, look, there’s Rod Stewart, who came in with a blonde and sat on the best table on the terrace.
A few minutes later Bono came in with David Geffen and a builder, and sat down on a nearby, and nondescript, table. All we could hear was him talking about how he had broken New York, blah-blah. Then Rod Stewart got up to leave. Bono jumped up, waving and shouting ‘Rod, Rod, hey, man’.
To which Rod Stewart looked at him, briefly nodded and ignored the hand that Bono had offered. I nearly choked on my pommes de terre dauphinoise. Rod Stewart was cooler than Bono, way cooler.
So, as the people of Pilton count up their Glastonbury groats and festival-goers return to their safe Shoreditch offices and Bono dreams of white smoke and the Vatican, I now know I will never buy another U2 record and I won’t even bother tweeting about what an idiot Bono is.
But what I will do is buy and watch as much of Janelle Monáe as I can. An utter star who has more CURRENT talent than U2, who nailed Glastonbury, while Bono was looking around for the nearest cross to nail himself to. Twat.
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
