Irish rock group U2 is preparing for the release of Carnaval de Luz, their first studio album of original material in nearly nine years, accompanied by an upcoming world tour as the band marks half a century together. The group recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posting a notice on the bulletin board of Dublin’s Mount Temple Comprehensive school asking for musicians to form a band. Returning to perform at their old school, U2 was greeted by current students holding signs that ranged from supportive messages like "Welcome home" and "Truly it’s a beautiful day" to playful taunts such as "Which one of you is Inhaler’s dad?" and "When are Oasis on?".
Reflecting on their origins during the 1970s punk movement, bassist Adam Clayton noted that while many teenagers formed groups at the time, U2 stood out by intentionally aiming for longevity amid economic and petrol crises. U2 remains rare among major rock acts for maintaining its original four-person lineup—Bono, The Edge, Clayton, and Mullen—for five decades. Bono attributes their collective survival to an internal democratic governance structure he refers to as "the soviet," where all songwriting credits and band decisions are shared equally by committee. Bono admitted that maintaining this dynamic becomes more challenging over time as male egos flex power, recalling how his own father once chased members of the 1970s Irish band Virgin Prunes down the street with an iron bar after they played an art prank on the family car using hankies, powder, and eggs.
The milestone comes after a turbulent decade for the band, including the flop of Bono and The Edge’s 2011 Broadway musical about Spider-Man, public backlash over the automatic iTunes download of their 2014 album Songs of Innocence, and cool receptions for both that record and its successor, Songs of Experience. Bono also endured major physical trauma, including a severe 2014 bicycle crash that required extensive facial surgery and open-heart surgery two years later. Despite those challenges, U2 achieved massive commercial success during their Innocence + Experience and Joshua Tree tours, which combined to gross $543 million. More recently, during their 2023-24 residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, the group performed without Mullen while he recovered from career-threatening neck surgery. Guitarist The Edge affirmed that U2 consists strictly of its four core members, explaining that had Mullen been unable to return, any continued music-making would have operated as a distinct "U2 part two" rather than the original band.
Scheduled for release on November 13 through Island Records, Carnaval de Luz features guest appearances and artistic choices that reflect a turn toward community and joy. The tracklist includes a duet with country music legend Dolly Parton, representing the final studio recording completed by the ailing singer, whom Bono described as "the last thing all Americans agreed on" while comparing her vocal ability to Pakistani Qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Another track, "The Mirror Maker (Rosalía)," honors Spanish singer Rosalía with falsetto vocals imitating her operatic style. Clayton noted that the track does not explicitly put her name in the song title itself, unlike past works such as "Johnny Cash: The Wanderer."
The tone of the new album departs from the anger of U2's recent EPs like Days of Ash, leaning instead into defiant hope. A lyric in the song "Superficiality" declares that "the news can’t break us," a sentiment Bono characterized as taking the fiddle off Nero to play a better tune rather than idly watching Rome burn. Regarding contemporary global politics, Bono—a veteran activist who in the early 00s famously talked Republican Senator Jesse Helms into supporting funding to combat AIDS, and who also lobbied President George W. Bush on debt relief and worked with corporate executives for Product Red—noted his absence from the White House under Donald Trump's second administration. In 2025, the Trump administration disrupted global AIDS funding programs that Bono had spent decades supporting.
Addressing these political developments, Mullen expressed shock and dismay over reduced funding for HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. Bono remarked that the current political landscape feels fundamentally different from past right-wing administrations, describing the shift as having a "fascistic" atmosphere that demands a whole new strategy. Paraphrasing David Bowie, Bono added that society is dealing with a distinct environment requiring a new response. He also recalled conversations with Nobel Prize-winning artificial intelligence researcher Demis Hassabis, who warned that humanity faces critical danger unless there is an exponential shift in global cooperation to tackle major threats like climate change. Despite these warnings, Bono remains convinced that rock music still plays a vital role in bringing people together, describing their coming tour as a "no-holds-barred fight for a great night out."
Internal debates continued over specific track lyrics, such as the song "The Greatest Show on Earth," which functions as a eulogy for U2’s imperial phase in the 80s and 90s. In the track, Bono wrote the line "We were once the greatest show on earth." The line raised concerns within the group, leading The Edge to suggest changing it to "we could still be the greatest show on earth" and Clayton proposing "I think we’re the greatest show on earth." Bono ultimately overrode the internal committee to keep his original lyric, stating that confronting what might have been provides hope. The Edge joked that while he occasionally dreams of his bandmates simply doing as they are told, complete compliance would likely result in a terrible album. U2’s world tour is scheduled to begin on February 23 at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, followed by three concert dates at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, 18-22 June.
The group reflected on these major career developments during a meeting at La Petite Maison in Nice, France, a celebrity haunt where the arrival of U2—still incontrovertibly one of the biggest bands in the world 40 years after they could first reasonably have called themselves such—causes barely a murmur of interest among fellow diners. The restaurant is owned by founder Nicole and regularly visited by stars including Beyoncé, Elton John, Tom Cruise, Harry Styles, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Bono, a frequent visitor to the restaurant, recounted hiding under a rear table inside the building during the 2016 Bastille Day terrorist attack that killed 86 people along the seafront, noting that Nicole herself refused to take cover.
Impertinent calls for them to cede the stage to the Gallaghers notwithstanding, the gig at their old school has made U2’s members think about their early days. It wasn’t so strange that they formed a band, muses Adam Clayton – it was, after all, the punk era, and plenty of other teenagers had the same idea. It was that, from the start, U2’s aims seemed slightly different. “We thought longevity for our band was an important goal,” he says, “which was the absolute opposite of the punk thing. In school in the 70s, we’d been faced with the petrol crisis, the economic crisis, worrying about what you were going to do. I think we thought: if we’ve got this thing, let’s just do it for as long as we can.”
That time, he says, he overrode the objections of the soviet and got his own way. But it happens a lot less than you’d think, and perhaps that’s for the best. “I genuinely fantasise that one day these lads will actually just do what they’re told, but at this point, I’m giving up on that fantasy,” the Edges smiles, as U2 head for the rehearsal room. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen. And thank God, because if they started doing what they’re told, there’d be an absolutely shite album.”
