Waiting by the wall

The Bangkok Post November 27 1988

‘If you go down the quays and turn right you can’t miss it. There’s a pub on the corner. Just follow the girls.’

Those were my directions to Windmill Lane Studios on a very windy, rainy day in Dublin. The studios have become synonymous with the Irish rock band U2 and latterly with such rising novae as Hothouse Flowers.

Both these groups and many British bands have recorded albums in this very unassuming street in a run-down warehouse area just off the River Liffey’s last sweep to the sea - bestselling albums such as ‘War’, ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ and ‘The Joshua Tree’. Windmill Lane Studios has become a kind of shrine to the band, a meeting point for fans from all over the world who have made it number one place of worship on their Irish tour. There’s always a scattering of hopefuls, mostly girls, hanging out in the alcoves, waiting on a glimpse of Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry.

‘It’s kinda like a second home,’ says Yvonne Sullivan from Rush, County Dublin. ‘We get up in the morning and go down to windmill Lane. There’s nothin’ else to do. I’ve been here every day this summer, rain or shine.’

Yvonne is a sweet, vivacious 17 and Rush is 17 miles away. She’s part of a gang called ‘The Unforgettable Five’, who spend 365 days in the year hanging out round the studios, spraying the already over-written walls with graffiti, sending in birthday cards to ‘the lads’, and generally keeping the fire of adulation alive.

Yvonne once waited all night for Bono at Dublin Airport and in the morning gave him Smarties and a birthday card.

‘Bono always says, ‘I don’t like you waiting in the rain,’’ Yvonne relates, ‘he cares for his fans. He says we should go out and get a job and if he didn’t see us except once in a while he’d be delighted.’

The charismatic light twinkles in her eyes as she quotes from her idol. And her ambition?

'To be Bono’s wife.’ The fact that he is already married doesn’t get in the way of the fantasy. The previous day there had been a busload of American tourists, a class of 20 French students, several Italians, a German family, all lining up to write their messages on The Wall.

Teenagers arrive from all over Europe and America, sometimes camping overnight in the alleys, hoping against hope for a look, a glimpse, a touch and perhaps at the very most a stray autograph. The watchman in his graffiti-covered booth at the entrance to the shrine has a jaundiced geriatric look. He should be minding stones for the Corporation, a cushy number, instead of this puberty policing. Every now and then a fan tries to inch a little closer towards the inner sanctum, only to be rebuffed. The watchman is taking no nonsense.

Kirsten Wogler (17) from Stuttgart in West Germany was spending her day as she had spent every other day of her five-week holiday in Ireland: holding up The Wall. Her last night in Ireland will be spent there. For her pains she’s managed to see Larry five times. Five times! It’s almost a miracle. But was it worth it?

‘It was worth it,’ she says. ‘U2 changed me, they opened my eyes to the world.’

Her eyes are indeed a wonderful clear blue. Band member Larry Mullen must have been entranced. The receptionist at the Studios reports getting calls from all over the world, from parents this time, asking her to pop outside to the street and have a look around for their children, to tell them to come home.

It’s a boring business this pop religiosity, especially when you don’t have the tenacious flame licking away at your teenage heart. A bad shower comes down in Windmill Lane. The conversation gets a little tedious. I bait them a bit with my Sixties revivalism. Ever heard of Hermann Hesse? Herman’s Hermits? Santayana? The unforgettable profundities of the hippy era?

Debbie Tier (15) from Dublin has a good line on commitment:

‘U2 have changed my life. They make you think about things. Before I was into U2, I was not aware of things that went on around the world, like San Salvador and Northern Ireland. I’m joining Amnesty International because of Bono.’

Amnesty International will love her, I’m sure. She looks out at the long expanse of spray-painted wall with a cute wistfulness. It must be the fire again. There’s a kind of mental auto-combustion that goes on, a little smouldering away at the brain cells, when these fans wax lyrical on their fave rockers. Maybe Ireland needs a beauty queen or two, just for distraction.

I’m thinking of a good pub round the corner called The Ship, one of the 834 pubs in Dublin, with beef sandwiches and lashings of mustard and a half pint of Guinness. But Debbie is feeling expansive:

‘You might as well drop school. I come down here straight after school every day even in the rain.’

I inform Debbie that when not knocking around lanes off the river in the Dublin rain, I usually teach English. You know, like nouns and verbs and business letter writing? In Thailand?

‘Why don’t you teach U2’s lyrics? Their lyrics are real poetry.’

This gives me pause. Yvonne chips in:

‘When I’m feeling sad and Bono talks to me I feel better.’

Thank you Yvonne.

And what’s your ambition, Debbie dear?

‘To be The Edge’s wife.’

Eventually the rain stops and someone with long hair and jeans appears from the gates of the inner sanctum, sauntering out to the street. Could it be? No ... never. ‘The lads’ are thousands of miles away in sunny California making a movie, as everyone knows. But sometimes they do sneak back. There is a rush of damp teenagery girls, all applicates and plastic jewellery, giddy as fillies, towards the apparition.

He’s a bit of a throwback really. Long Jesus hair. Tight jeans over the kind of cheap sneakers you get in Chatuchak Park. It transpires he’s an engineer ‘who once was a roadie for the lads’ - a real back burner in the business. I adopt a reverential posture. Lots of smiles from the girls, snippets of info from the ex-roadie. Everybody’s on friendly terms. The day has been worth it: the holy of holies has given up its message from the gods in the form of this microphone adjustor with his sheaf of material.

The rain eases off and we shake down our damp plumage. Debbie still feels the need to add to the world’s wisdom:

‘U2’s music is the bread of life and it never goes stale,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you lose faith. But you know it’s going to be worth it in the end. You do say ‘Bono, you pig’ when he doesn’t show up. You do crack up the odd time. But you just get addicted to the place. I could have got a job for the summer – I just couldn’t be bothered. I’d rather hear Bono preach to me ... Bono inspires us all.’

They go on with their gold spray painting, pseudo-oracular in the manner of U2’s lyrics, the windy Biblical sermon from the mount. Everything begins to sound the same after a while. There is nothing new under the sun in the no-man’s land of adolescence. ‘We’ll always love them,’ says Debbie, unstoppable, devotional, delectable Debbie. ‘Our parents felt the same way about the Beatles.’