Bono - 'We almost didn't make this tour'

(NME.com) -- BONO has revealed all to NME.COM about U2's fears that their VERTIGO world tour wouldn’t get off the ground.

The band kicked off the year-long jaunt in San Diego last week a month late, following the original date being delayed due to a family illness.

And Bono admitted that pre-match nerves on top of that had made that band “sick”. Coming off stage, he said: “It’s still a strange feeling. We were sick with the rehearsals for this tour. We weren’t getting lift-off. If you’d seen the rehearsal show, you wouldn’t believe we would get to San Diego.

“You take all these different elements and try to create something special. And when we got up there, we were lucky and we got it straight away. But, you know, this is a tour we didn’t even know was going to happen. There were many obstacles – there were personal problems and big things to get through so it’s amazing to me we got there at all. We didn’t have much time to rehearse but we wanted to play. I still saw a band with a lot to prove but I also saw a band the most comfortable they have ever been in their skin.”

Bono also explained why the Vertigo setlist included so many songs from the band’s debut ‘Boy’, such as ‘Electric Company’ and ‘An Cat Dubh’: “There is a strong link between those songs and the new album. The first was an ode to innocence and the new one is innocence regained. The first album is becoming a bit of a cult classic for bands like The Killers who talk about it. We thought it was time.”

U2’s world tour hits the UK in June, and Bono promised a few surprises. He said: “We’ll stick with it the way it is for the next few shows. We have other material to get working on. A few surprises to bring as the tour gets on. We tried a few things (on the first night) that didn’t always work. ‘Elevation’ went a bit south and we came off at the corners a few times with ‘The Fly’. You know, I wasn’t sure what we were before, if we were still a rock band. But when I was whacking the tambourine on ‘All Because Of You’, it felt like an old song, like we were back, like we were a rock band again. At times it was a political rally, at time it was a gospel tent, at times it was a Las Vegas show.”