During a Las Vegas show, Bono altered the lyrics to one of their biggest hits to pay tribute to the victims of the Hamas attack at a music festival last weekend.
ADVERTISEMENTCelebrated Irish rockers U2 paid tribute to the slaughtered victims of the Supernova music festival in Israel during one of their shows at Sphere in Las Vegas, where the band is in the midst of a 25-show residency.
U2 played their 1984 hit “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and dedicated it to the hundreds of music fans who were killed, referring to them as “stars of David” in rewritten lyrics.
“Sing for our brothers and sisters — who they themselves were singing at the Supernova Sukkot festival in Israel,” Bono said. “We sing for those. Our people, our kind of people, music people. Playful, experimental people. Our kind of people. We sing for them.”
Bono continued: “In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence… But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us… and those beautiful kids at that music festival.”
Bono changed the first verse of the song to refer to the massacre in Israel instead of the death of Martin Luther King Jr.
“Early morning, Oct. 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky,” he sang. “Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.”
The original lyrics to the song, which is dedicated to the US civil rights leader, are: “Early morning, April 4, a shot rings out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life, they could not take your pride.”
The attack on music fans by Hamas took place at the Supernova festival on Saturday 7 October. The all-night electronic music festival, which coincided with the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, was held in the desert in southern Israel, three miles from the border of the Gaza Strip.
As of time of writing, more than 260 bodies have been recovered from the festival scene, according to the rescue agency Zaka, with more still missing. About 3,500 people were attending the festival.
