the fly

May 29th, 2005

This weekend I saw the U2: Go Home DVD. It took me back to a specific day in my childhood when I heard U2 for the very first time. It was one afternoon after school when I was probably about 12 years old. My older brother, Hannes, was watching a video recording of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, which took place in Wembley Stadium. We couldn’t get enough of that video, especially the Metallica and Guns n’ Roses performances.

So anyway, on this particular afternoon, Hannes told me to watch the video with him, there was something cool he wanted to show me. Suddenly Cindy Crawford came on screen and announced that the transmission was going to cross over live via satellite to Las Vegas. I thought Cindy Crawford was pretty hot and thanked him for showing me this little snippet, but he said that was not what he wanted to show me. Cindy Crawford introduced the most mind blowing band in the world at that time. The band was U2 and they were in the middle of their ZOO TV world tour. The next thing, Bono was dancing around in his black leather fly suit and his black shades and cars were flying over the heads of U2 as they performed a song called “Until the End of the World”. It was a crazy performance, with bombs exploding on big screens and the Edge making the craziest guitar sounds I ever heard.

I probably watched that clip over a hundred times and I’ve been a die-hard U2 fans ever since. The performance was so cool, Bono made Cindy Crawford seem ordinary, and in the 90’s that was a pretty hard thing to do!


  1. Jané Pretorius wrote on May 30th, 2005 at 1:42 pm

    Ek onthou daardie video. Jy en Hannes het dit omtrent elke dag gekyk en ek was die enigste 7 jarige kiddie wat Metallica geken het. hehe

  2. Suzanne en Inge Geldenhuys/Odendaal wrote on May 31st, 2005 at 2:05 pm

    Hey hermie, baie cool site!! Jy neem darrem pragtige fototjie jong. We love you lots!

  3. hannes wrote on May 31st, 2005 at 5:05 pm

    If this doesn’t reflect a sincere sense of responsibility for my brother and sister, I don’t know what does

  4. michelle van niekerk wrote on June 8th, 2005 at 3:00 pm

    Ek moet bieg, jy het my hooked gekry op U2 en ek is sedert ‘n baie groot fan van hul!Ek is nou hoeka besig om kaarkies vir hul konsert in twickenham te probeer kry!
    dankie vir jou aandeel in my music opvoeding, haha

  5. Rian wrote on June 9th, 2005 at 3:53 am

    G’Day from a rainy and cold Perth, Western Australia, and my little cubicle-sized office – good to finally write here! I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with U2. Awesome band, but due to my own failings I always became pre-occupied with Pearl Jam and never got to the point of actually GETTING U2 albums! That changed sometime in the mid-90s with my first buy, Joshua Tree… and slowly grew to include Pop, All that you can’t leave behind, and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The last two records were disappointing and it left me wondering why I want to continue this desire to get to know them better. Well, on recommendation of the WEBMASTER here, I bought ACHTUNG BABY and was enlightened. Talk about old skool – made me realise why I love and respect this band. So I’m planning on “investing”, if you can call buying records that, in their back-catologue soon… finances permitting… to rediscover and rediscover again. Seeya.

  6. Thomas wrote on June 15th, 2005 at 12:05 am

    Ja en nou kos die U2 kaartjies 100 pond ‘n pop, anners was ek daar! moet nou settle vir Coldplay die 28ste, maar dis mos ook ok. O en ja Hermes, jou kiekies is glad nie bad nie…