Kansas City Music Blog

Brian Rice

Mike Jackson's Bono and Tony Trevino's Edge want to Rattle & Hum at Irish Fest.

While the real U2 enjoys a maelstrom of attention around its latest release, No Line on the Horizon (which, in my opinion, has both genuinely awesome songs and some real cheez), Dan Regan, president of Kansas City's beloved annual Irish Fest (which, in my opinion, is fabulous) is polling readers of his Tir Na Blog as to whether he should book a U2 tribute band for this year's Fest.

His hilariously worded poll:

The past two years, a U2 cover band has played at Irish Fest on Friday night to big crowds. Should Irish Fest continue that trend in 2009?

Choice 1: NO! Cover bands are fine for bar gigs and frat parties but they don't belong at a world class festival.

Choice 2: YES! Good, fun music is a great idea any time, especially to kick off the fest. Who cares who's playing it?

Choice 3: I couldn't care less. I'll be at the other stage anyway.

Choice 4: I have no problem with cover bands. But not another U2 copy. Where's the Thin Lizzy tribute?

Wow. I gotta say, all of those sound like good arguments. But to one local U2 tribute, there's only one answer.

Kansas City U2 tribute Rattle and Hum is running a campaign of its own -- to get people to vote yes on Question U2, and, of course, to recommend them for the spot.

R&HKC just posted the following MySpace bulletin. It's an interesting insight into the struggles involved in aspiring to have Edge like Bono.

The past two years the KC Irish Fest has welcomed a U2 tribute band from New York called 2U to perform, but have not settled on having them back this year, or having a U2 tribute at all.

With all respect to 2U, Rattle had campaigned to be on that slot each of the past two years, and while we didn't get selected, we would very much appreciate it if all of you out there will go to kcirishfest dot blogspot dot com (myspace won't allow this html link so you'll need to type it in) and vote YES in an online poll as to whether the KC Irish Fest should have a U2 tribute this year.
And if you really really love us, you'll leave a comment highly recommending that the Kansas City Irish Fest feature Kansas City's own U2 tribute, Rattle and Hum :)

According to the poll, there are five days left to vote (that would be Sunday or Monday at the latest), so please don't delay! And also, if you do choose to leave a comment on their blog, please be professional, polite and respectful. We have fans who felt very strongly about 2U being the U2 tribute the past two years and not Rattle, but we want to be careful that we don't actually alienate the good people at the KC Irish Fest, or our fellow U2 compatriots in 2U.

By the way, how's that poll doing? As of this writing it's gotten 78 (up about 20 since yesterday, I noticed) total votes, with the results panning out...

1. No: 11 votes (14%)
2. Yes: 59 (75%)
3. Don't care: 3 (3%)
4. Thin Lizzy: 5 (6%)

I count myself proudly among that 6%. Really, though, Rattle & Hum is dead-on proficient, as is 2U. I caught 2U last year, in fact, and I remember them putting on a fine show, even though the crowd at their stage, the second stage, was tiny (see question 3).

But now it's your turn. You have five days left.