U2 Beautiful Day. On this day, December 9th, in the year 2000, U2 made their first appearance on Saturday Night Live. As much as they are viewed as a commercial band today, that was not always the case. In fact, U2 was a band that started by Larry Mullen, Jr, the band’s drummer at age fourteen. He had posted a flier at his school looking for guys to start a band. The other three members that are still with the band showed-up along with a few other guys who either chose not to stick with the group or faded away. Their first meeting and rehearsal was in his kitchen. It was not till four years later that they received their first recording contract and were not very successful.
U2 Beautiful Day Music Video
An interesting note about the band. After their second album, The Edge, Bono and Mullen joined a Christian rock band named “Shalom Fellowship” and U2 almost broke-up over the spiritual direction of the band, long before U2 Beautiful Day.
U2 Beautiful Day is the first track from their 2000 album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and it was released as the album’s lead single. It was a commercial success, helping launch the album to multi-platinum status, and is one of U2’s biggest hits to date. Like many tracks from All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2 Beautiful Day harkens back to the group’s past sound. The tone of The Edge‘s guitar was a subject of debate amongst the band members, as they disagreed on whether he should use a sound similar to that from their early career in the 1980s. Lead vocalist Bono explained that the upbeat track is about losing everything but still finding joy in what one has.
U2 Beautiful Day received positive reviews, and it became their fourth number-one single in the UK and their first number-one in the Netherlands. The song peaked at number 21 in the United States, the band’s highest position since “Discothèque” in 1997. In2001, the song won three Grammy Awards for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The group has played U2 Beautiful Day at every one of their concerts since the song’s 2001 live debut on the Elevation Tour.