U2 performs tribute to ‘great storyteller’ Anthony Bourdain

U2 paid tribute to the late Anthony Bourdain at the band’s intimate concert at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, on Monday, June 11.

“We lost a lot of very inspiring, useful people and gained a few useless people,” frontman Bono told the audience, according to videos shared on social media. “It’s hard, though, to lose a friend, to lose a mate, and this band has been through that. Music lost some great people who gave up on their own life, and that makes it kinda harder.”

In addition to Bourdain, the singer alluded to the 2017 suicides of fellow musicians Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, as well as fashion designer Kate Spade, who took her own life on June 5.

“And now this great storyteller, who I’m sure had stories he had to tell us,” Bono, 58, continued. “For Anthony Bourdain and his friends and family, this is a song inspired by a great, great, great friend of ours. His name is Michael Hutchence.”

The Grammy-winning band then launched into their 2001 single “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” which Bono cowrote with his bandmate The Edge in honor of Hutchence. The INXS lead singer died by suicide in 1997.

Bourdain was found unresponsive in his hotel room in France on Friday, June 8. He was 61. French authorities later confirmed to the Associated Press that the Parts Unknown host died from suicide by hanging. Results from a toxicology test are pending.

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).