A 'Friday' night to remember: Celebrity-filled Carnegie Hall bash the concert of 2009

After all, they’re about the same age and same height, they come from the same town and they’re fascinated by the same kind of music. For decades now they’ve dared each other on in search of exciting new musical directions, and the results are well known.

Friday brought that torch song singing European influence to Bono, and he in turn brought it to U2. “You become the people you hang around, so yeah, I would have opened doors after the 1980s when they had finished (the U2 album) ‘Rattle and Hum,’” Friday said.

“Bill Graham, a very clever journalist for Hot Press, Ireland’s rock magazine, once said, ‘One day U2 will turn into the Virgin Prunes.’ And they nearly did around (the U2 album) “Achtung Baby.” We were always far more extreme. You never know, I might turn into U2 eventually.”

But on Sunday night it quickly became clear that sharing a taste in music is where the similarities between the two men end. Friday is really Lucifer to Bono’s Gabriel; he’s the difficult one, the bad son, and he’s as intriguing as that sounds. When he takes to the stage he’s also the one you can’t take your eyes off, and even the mighty U2 have learned to pay him his due.

The concert began with Friday singing his haunting ballad “Apologia.” An atmospheric late night track that conjures up the glory years of the Berlin cabaret, it was perfectly suited to Friday’s voice and to his artistic vision for the night -- to turn Carnegie Hall into Dublin’s Baggot Inn, CBGB’s and a European speakeasy between the world wars.

No sooner had the opening song ended but he was joined onstage by Bono and The Edge, who lifted the roof off the place with the first notes of Friday’s “I Want to Live.”

“When we were kids, we grew up in the same streets and we had these grandiose ideas, we lived surreal lives in our imagination,” Bono told the crowd. “Gavin always talked to me about playing Carnegie Hall. I barely knew what that was at the time. But tonight Gavin’s living that dream.”

Asked if it was true that on Bono’s 33rd birthday Friday sent him a packet containing nails, a hammer and wood with a note marked “DIY,” Friday told the Irish Voice that it was. “It was during the Zooropa tour and I was out on the road with them. He didn’t get up on the cross, though,” Friday laughed.

Next up Friday was joined onstage by Anthony Hegarty from Anthony and the Johnsons. “You must have some Irish in you with a name like that,” quipped Friday.

“Somewhere I guess,” Hegarty shrugged.

“Well you’re a beautiful man,” Friday continued.

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Nster.com