U2 Surprise Their Old High School, Then Take Over Grafton Street for 50th Anniversary

U2 marked 50 years as a band by going back to where it started. On September 25, the group popped into Mount Temple Comprehensive in Dublin and played a surprise seven-song set for 1,000 students and staff. Bono opened with“We’ve escaped the lab. How’s the experiment working for you?”The set included the live debut of new single“Silencio,”and for fans watching the footage, the headline moment was Larry Mullen Jr. on drums, his first live performance since neck and back surgery in 2023.

That same night, the band staged a second surprise show from the balcony of Bewley’s Cafe on Grafton Street, drawing a street-full of Dubliners in minutes. Bono paused to pay tribute to the late Glen Hansard, the musician who spent years busking those same cobblestones:“One man who will never be silenced, silencioed, never could, never would was Glen Hansard. He was the king busker, king of Grafton Street.”

The anniversary sets also came with news fans have been waiting for. U2’s new album“Carnaval De Luz”arrives November 13 and features Dolly Parton’s last recorded vocal on a song called“Torn.”It’s a fitting cap on a week that started in a hallway where four teenagers once rehearsed and ended on a balcony above the buskers. Which song from the surprise shows would you have wanted to be in the room for?