This month’s Irish News article reflects back on the U2 - Ash concert which took place in the face of the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement and which I was lucky to be involved in organising with Tim Attwood and David Kerr. The BBC’s Stu Bailie has a lovely post on his blog about the concert and its impact on the volatile electorate of the time. It was a great event but also a professional achievement for three young men with a lifetime ahead of them. We picked the slogan for the backdrop because it summed up how we thought our generation felt about the agreement. It was time to “Make Your Own History”. Jonathan Powell omits to mention the concert in his recent book yet it created the image which is most reproduced of that time. The British and Irish governments played no part is the amazing coming together that night. That’s what made it special and I guess why he thinks it unimportant.
This is a slightly expanded version of what appears in today’s papers as space did not allow for everything to be included.
THE DAY U2 CAME TO TOWN
Northern Ireland is not the place from which you expect an interesting case study in political communications to emerge, yet a decade ago during the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, PR took centre stage.
Generally speaking, political campaigning here is divided along community lines. Press coverage of electoral campaigns has tended to focus on the constitutional question and not bread and butter issues.
What’s all this got to do with Public Relations? Well during the campaign for the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement all this changed. I was the SDLP’s Director of Communications at the time. The party was the driving political force behind the talks and was ready to seize its opportunity on Good Friday. Sinn Fein was on the fence. The DUP had walked out and the UUP had suffered damaging walkouts. Of the big four parties representing over 90% of the electorate, only the SDLP was ready to start campaigning unambiguously for a Yes vote on the referendum on May 22nd.
A group of business and community leaders launched a non partisan Yes campaign at the end of April. Despite this and a very energetic campaign from the SDLP, the first month was dominated by negative stories and setbacks. On April 24th, three UUP MPs joined Ian Paisley to say ‘no’. They were joined on May Day by the Orange Order. Trimble got the support of the Ulster Unionist Council during the last week of April but the coverage and regular opinion polls pointed to the possibility that a majority of the unionist community might reject the agreement.
Things took a distinct turn for the worse at the Sinn Fein Ard Feis on May 10th when the party’s decision to call for a yes vote was drowned out by the parading of the notorious Balcombe Street Gang on stage with Gerry Adams. This was the penalty kick the No campaign had been waiting for, and the mood particularly amongst middle class unionists, began to shift. This being Northern Ireland, you can’t have one stupid action without another, and four days later Michael Stone and comrades were paraded in front of a jubilant crowd at the Ulster Hall. In less then a week the symbolic image of agreement had become one of convicted paramilitaries being paraded as heroes. With friends like these who needed enemies.
A positive image was needed to knock these of the front pages and give people something positive to vote for. It also needed to have serious news value: a picture of Hume and Trimble plus celebrity of choice would not be enough.
On the 13th of May the SDLP invited senior figures from the arts world to publicly support the Agreement. After the event Tim Attwood and I were discussing our dilemma with the film director, Jim Sheridan. Tim mentioned that we had a commitment from Bono to come up and campaign and I pointed out that a simple walk down Royal Avenue would not do. We needed to create an image capable of capturing everyone’s imagination and which symbolised the new beginning. A coffee later and Jim was on the phone to Bono telling him he needed to talk to the rest of the band and come to play a gig. That evening, Tim got a call back from Bono to say they would come and could do the 19th.
When we told David Kerr, the UUP Press Officer of our plan that night he thought we were pulling his leg. The next day David Trimble agreed to be part of the concert alongside Hume. We also invited Ash, a band from Downpatrick, to bring some local flavour and provide balance to the bill.
We decided to leak the story of the gig out gradually to maximise impact. First we would confirm Bono was coming to campaign, next day that other members of the band would be joining him, that Trimble and Hume would campaign together for the first time, that the Waterfront Hall had been booked and finally on the eve of the concert that U2 supported by Ash were going to give an impromptu concert calling for a Yes vote. This guaranteed us four days of front page news before the event and began to shift the agenda away from the RDS and Ulster Hall images.
None of us knew anything about organising a gig much less for the biggest rock and roll band in the world. Cue Eamon McCann, an old college friend of Tim and his brother Alex and a local promoter in Belfast. To this day I am not sure how Eamon did it but in five short days he booked the Waterfront Hall and made it ready for the most historic gig it would ever host.
Next problem was filling the hall. We were worried about it being hijacked if we simply threw open the doors and there was no time to run competitions. Hume always said the agreement was about the future generations so we took our lead from the great man himself and decided to offer tickets to sixth formers across the North. Teams in the SDLP and UUP Head Quarters worked flat out for three days. Gerry Cosgrove, Catherine Matthews, Ronan McCay, Eilis Haughey, Orla Cosgrove and the UUP team played a huge part in making the gig happen by ensuring we had an audience. In the end we were not just turning away fans looking for tickets but a major band also. Late on the the eve of the concert word reached us that the Corrs would like to come and play. Tim and I agreed this could back fire politically and unbalance the bill which was just right with U2 and Ash. That was what our heads said. Every other part of our bodies wanted the best looking and pretty good sounding band in Europe to walk into our lives, even if only for a few hours. Even David, a committed unionist, was equally unhappy at the prospect of letting them down.
All that remained was to choreograph the image everyone needed. Time was against us and we could not be sure of the quality of the pictures inside the Waterfront Hall so we arranged a ‘door step’ press conference on plaza on the way in. Hume, Trimble, U2 and Ash lined up in front of eighty nine TV cameras and gave a straight up comment. The pictures were good but we had to do better. Bono wanted to bring the men on stage and he eventually talked them in to it; one coming on from each side. He never told them he was going to grab their arms and raise them in a sign of unity. That was as spontaneous as it looked and we had our image. I was standing behind one of the big loud speakers stage right. Hume left my side and strolled out in front of the 2000 crowd. A wall of sound hit him. This was a very special moment and even John, who had addressed presidents and parliaments the world over as well as countless rallies was momentarily stunned by the reception.
Tim Wheeler and Ash did County Down proud that night. After the gig we adjourned to the ‘green room’ for a few jars with the two bands. I got lost in conversation with the Edge whose mother had taught me in primary school. The ladies swarmed Bono like bees to honey and Bono swarmed Hume like a little boy with his hero. We all watched the ten o’clock news. Hume and Trimble knew they had done a good days work and the lads headed back to Dublin with their place in the peace process secure. Before they left I asked Bono if he would he sign my tie. I had read about a tie Teddy Kennedy has on his wall which was signed by the brothers the night Jack was elected president. He wrote BONO and in the middle of the first O made the time on the clock. Under he wrote ‘this is the time’ 19-5-1998, Larry, the Edge and Adam signed above. It’s framed now and on my wall. A little bit of history for my kids.
The referendum was passed on the 22nd of April 1998. Academics reckon that concert was good for 5%. All I know is we had a new picture for the front pages. In the end we got one for the history books.
