Greg Carroll and U2: How a Whanganui roadie became the band’s stage manager

详细摘要

New Zealand will always hold a special place in U2’s story, thanks to Kiwi roadie and friend Greg Carroll. Ahead of the band’s new album Carnaval De Luz and world tour, Scott Kara…

U2 during a shoot for their latest album, Carnaval De Luz. Photo / Viviane Sassen

New Zealand will always hold a special place in U2’s story, thanks to Kiwi roadie and friend Greg Carroll. Ahead of the band’s new album Carnaval De Luz and world tour, Scott Kara explores the bond that has tied them to Aotearoa for more than four decades.

Greg Carroll spent just two years with U2 in the mid-80s, but the Māori boy from Whanganui left a lasting mark on the Irish band about to become the biggest act on the planet.

Carroll’s deep love of music, lively personality and work ethic, sharpened over years in New Zealand’s live music scene, landed him a job as a roadie on U2’s first New Zealand tour in 1984.

He would become U2’s stage manager, then the band’s personal manager, and one of lead singer Bono’s best friends.

Carroll connected U2 to New Zealand, but his untimely death in a motorcycle crash in Dublin in 1986 forged an enduring bond between the band and Aotearoa.

“It was like the death of a close family member,” reflected Bono in his 2022 memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.

In a New Zealand TV interview during the first tour, Bono described The Who and Jimi Hendrix as “wild dreamers who believed they could change the world through music”. Never shy of grand statements, he pondered how meeting a new person or visiting a new place can change you forever.

It turned out to be true. During the two years Carroll spent with U2, he became a friend, manager, wrangler and inspiration. His passing lent U2’s music a new emotional weight.

文章开头，摘自NZ Herald。如需阅读全文，请前往媒体网站。