More than 30 years after they formed, U2 can still make some noise. Earlier this year, the Irish rockers said that they wouldn’t play a single song from the iconic Joshua Tree album on their 2018 tour. Instead, the European leg of the tour—which kicks off on Friday (Aug. 31) in Berlin—will feature a heavy dose of that most rockin’ of geopolitical constructs: the European Union.
At least, that’s according to frontman Bono, who is promoting the tour by writing a love letter to the EU in a German newspaper. How else was the band going to explain the waving of a massive EU flag on stage during the tour’s first concert? (Yes, the band plans to wave a massive EU flag on stage during the tour’s first concert.)
Writing in German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bono says that the flag-waving is one of the band’s “more provocative ideas” for its upcoming tour dates. Talk of the EU today often “sparks a kitchen-table screaming match,” he adds.
“Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling,” he writes. (In German, for reference, that’s ”Europa ist eine Idee, die zum Gefühl werden muss.”) Berlin, are you ready to rock?!