Copenhagen, Denmark – In an interview with the Sunday Times before U2’s show in Copenhagen, Bono, Edge and Larry all suggested that the eXPERIENCE & iNNOCENCE tour may be U2’s last. Bono stated: “I can’t do as much as I used to. On previous tours I could meet a hundred lawmakers in between shows and now I know I can’t do that. This tour is particularly demanding. Whether you have a face-off with your own mortality or somebody close to you does, you are going to get to a point in your life where you ask questions about where you’re going.”
Asked if that was a euphemism for this being U2’s last tour, he replied: “I don’t know. I don’t take anything for granted.“
Larry Mullen, after indicating that he needs an hour of physical therapy before and another hour after each show, stated “We’ll finish this and then there will be time to decide what we want to do next. I’d like to take a really long holiday…I assume there’ll be another album. I don’t know that anybody needs another U2 record or tour anytime soon. People could do with taking a break from us and vice versa.”
Edge indicated that his main concern was Bono’s fragile health condition. “These days, we try to save his voice. He has a good range. His top note would be a B these days, but he has hit C, which is what a top tenor would hit, and is very, very high. An opera singer would hit that maybe once a night..He has a very ambivalent attitude to his physical self. He doesn’t naturally take responsibility for his physical wellbeing. Which is fine in your twenties, but you get to a certain point … It is a difficult shift for him. If you spend too much time thinking you are old and past it, you probably can’t do it any more.”
After a well-publicized series of health incidents in recent years, including a 2011 back injury that required extensive surgery, a 2014 cycling accident that left Bono with permanent arm injuries and an unknown “brush with mortality” in 2016, Bono has struggled to hit the highest notes in recent shows, and had to stop a show abruptly in Berlin after his voice left him during Beautiful Day.
