U2 have paid tribute to the hundreds of “beautiful kids” killed at the Supernova music festival in Israel by altering the lyrics to one of their biggest hits at a concert in Las Vegas on Sunday.
During their performance at Sphere, where the Irish rock band are in the midst of a 25-show residency, frontman Bono reworded the lyrics to U2’s 1984 breakthrough song Pride (In the Name of Love), referring to those killed by Hamas fighters as “stars of David”.
Before launching into Pride (In the Name of Love), Bono said: “In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence.
“But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us … and those beautiful kids at that music festival.”
In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence…
— U2 (@U2) October 9, 2023
But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us… and those… pic.twitter.com/S1zfCMNtzz
On Saturday, Hamas fighters opened fire on the 3,500 revellers at the all-night electronic music festival, which coincided with the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot. The bodies of more than 260 festivalgoers have been recovered from the site close to the Re’im kibbutz near the border with Gaza.
During Pride’s instrumental interlude, Bono addressed the Las Vegas audience: “Sing for our brothers and sisters – who they themselves were singing at the Supernova Sukkot festival in Israel.
“We sing for those. Our people, our kind of people, music people. Playful, experimental people. Our kind of people. We sing for them.”
Bono then tweaked the song’s lyrics, singing: “Early morning, October 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky. Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.”
The original lyrics to the song, which is dedicated to US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, are: “Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life, they could not take your pride.”
Bono has a long history of changing U2 lyrics during concerts in response to current events and of using his platform to call for tolerance and coexistence.
The singer has spoken in the past of how shaken the band were after the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015 in which 130 people were killed, including 90 people at the Bataclan concert hall during an Eagles of Death Metal concert.
U2 had been due to play the AccorHotels Arena in Paris on 14 and 15 November. The band cancelled their gigs and rescheduled them for a few weeks later. Eagles of Death Metal were invited on to the stage during one of U2’s concerts to join in a rendition of Patti Smith’s People Have the Power.
“They were robbed of their stage three weeks ago and we would like to offer them ours tonight,” Bono said as he introduced the American rock band.
U2’s residency at the 18,000-seat Sphere in Las Vegas runs until 16 December. It involves a performance of every song off their 1991 album Achtung Baby, however the band also dip extensively into their four-decade-plus back catalogue.
