Noel Gallagher on Bono: “He gets a lot of flack, but I fucking love him”
Noel Gallagher has reflected on his friendship with Bono, and recalled the time that he and Bruce Springsteen jokingly aggravated him by sending him a selfie.
The former Oasis member made the comments during a new interview with Shuffle (via Sunday World), ahead of his performance with High Flying Birds in Dublin on Saturday (August 26).
Leading onto the discussion about his friendship with the U2 singer, Gallagher began by reflecting upon his time meeting with another rock legend, Bruce Springsteen.
According to the musician, he met The Boss by chance while the two were both in Ibiza and ended up spending the afternoon together. “Bruce is an amazing dude and I was lucky enough to meet him a few years ago,” he told the outlet.
“I had lunch with him and his wife. There were a few of us, we were all out in Ibiza and we randomly bumped into each other and we all ended up spending the afternoon together…and he was an amazing, amazing guy,” he added. “I won’t say I was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, but I’ve definitely got the utmost respect for him. He was great, just like a kid into music.”
He continued, going on to say that they eventually decided to poke fun at Bono’s fear of missing out by sending him a photo of the moment.
“We were sat at this long table, we’d had a few bottles of wine and there’s food everywhere and we took a selfie with each other and [Springsteen] said, ‘Should we ruin Bono’s day?’ And we sent him the selfie,” Gallagher recalled.
“And, of course, Bono – you might not know this – has got a crippling fear of missing out. And his wife called me and said, ‘When you sent him that photograph he couldn’t handle the fact that you two were in Spain having the time of your life and he wasn’t there.
“Then Bono was asking, ‘What were you talking about? [So] I said, ‘We were fucking slagging you off!’”
Gallagher also described Bono as “one of his dearest friends”, and explained what it was like to go on tour with U2.
“He gets a lot of flack, but I fucking love him,” he said. “I’ve been on tour with him and, do you know what is amazing about U2? When a band gets to that level, usually your entire operation is run by Americans. U2’s operation is entirely run by Irish people, all of it. It’s like a mass exodus when they go on tour. It’s like there was a bigger exodus than there was during the Famine.”
“There’s fucking hundreds of them,” he added. “There’s about 300 Irish people on tour, it’s unbelievable.
“I’ll tell you what, I was on tour with them for the best part of a year and I have only just recovered. It was really great fun, they are really great people and I love them dearly.”
Gallagher’s next show with High Flying Birds will take place tomorrow (August 30), with a show in Hull. From there, the band will headline the Rock N Roll Circus in Sheffield on September 1, before continuing more UK shows later in the year. Find all remaining dates and any remaining tickets here.
In other Noel Gallagher news, last week the singer-songwriter and guitarist shared who he thinks would play in an Oasis reunion line-up if that day is to ever come.
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Liberty Dunworth
NME
