Edge is with Bono and the Rams

13 April 2012

The Super Bowl will be a first for Bono and U2. "It'll be strange performing live at something where half the crowd will go home in tears," he said.

The band has been booked for the half-time show here, which is a good job because by then the game between the St Louis Rams and the New England Patriots could well be over as a contest, if the pundits are right.

U2 might well provide the only real entertainment of the night with the Rams favourites to beat the Patriots by 14 points. New Orleans is known as 'The Big Easy' and that's what the game is expected to produce . . . a big easy win for the Rams in the Louisiana Superdome.

Bono, The Edge and Co drew a massive media crowd from around the world to their pre-game press conference here on Wednesday, but the lead singer, wearing a custom-tailored Super Bowl jacket with the game's numerals, XXXVI, on the chest pocket and with his trademark wrap-around shades, refused to pick a winner when quizzed.

But he did promise that he would be singing live, and not to lips-sync like a lot of other acts at previous Super Bowls. He walked up to the press conference podium carrying an American football but when he was asked by a female reporter to throw it to her, American Football quarterback-style, he explained that he'd only played rugby in Ireland.

He had to scold his sniggering audience with "don't be so obvious," when he told them he had been "a hooker", but he threw the ball rugby-style and the lady dropped the pass.

U2 will be the first band or solo artist in 36 years to perform without a support act in the half-time extravaganza. The line-up of entertainers the NFL has put together is enough to eclipse the game itself. Paul McCartney, Barry Manilow and Mary J. Blige are among those singing in the pre-game show and Mariah Carey will perform the American national anthem - in front of 73,000 in the Superdome, 130 million viewers on American TV and 800 million watching worldwide in 166 countries.

New Orleans has a voodoo tradition but the Patriots have a hoodoo tradition here. Twice before they have played in Super Bowls in the city - and both times they have lost.

Marshall Faulk, the star running back of the Rams and the second most famous person from the tough back streets of New Orleans, after Fats Domino, is back in town to haunt them.

He is ranked fifth in the top 40 rushers in the NFL this season and helped sweep aside the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles in the play-offs on the road to the Super Bowl. If he continues to connect well with his quarterback Kurt Warner, already the NFL Most Valuable Player for the season, he can demolish the Patriots with his power running.

It's a dream return for the player who used to sell popcorn in the stands at the Superdome as a boy when the resident New Orleans Saints were at home.

Patriotism will also be on show on Sunday, with the events of 11 September on everyone's minds, but it won't be the year of the Patriots. The Rams won the Super Bowl two years ago but were disappointing the following season when Warner, MVP of that Super Bowl win, missed crucial games through injury. Now they are back to full strength.

That will give them more than an edge. But the real Edge will be alongside Bono, the best hooker in town and the real star of what may not be such a Beautiful Day for the Patriots.

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Edge is with Bono and the Rams

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