The Dublin Legend Ronnie Drew was given homage by the firmament of musicians last week. The stars that came to sing the praises of Ronnie and his legacy included the rock band U2, Shane Mac Gowan, Andrea Corr, Sinead O’ Connor, etc. All these stars gave a fitting tribute to the music supremo of Irish music industry. The leader and the star singer from U2, Bono, described Ronnie as the “greatest voice in the world”. Ronnie Drew, the founder of the Dubliners band, was wearing a black suit and a patterned red scarf. This humble man told Pat Kenny that he does not deserve such honoring and is totally knocked over by the gesture.

The “late late show” saw the singers in a one–off performance. They sang the song written by Ronnie while he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer. The song was composed by Bono, Robert Hunter, Simon Carmody and the Edge and was titled “The Ballad of Ronnie Drew”. This was recorded at the Windmill Lane and will be released in March this year. Bono, paid homage to the Irish singer and praised the powerful voice of Ronnie by saying that after hearing Ronnie, the Nirvana sounds like a girl band.

U2 was bold enough to release its third album “War” in 1983 which was in total contrast to the hip hop and pop music that were created by various artists then. They came up with an album that had a set of sound tracks which reflected serious political issues and there are many people who still believe that this was the album that converted the Christian punk band U2 into a political rock band. The songs of the album War still haunts many people and it is still a popular album all over the world. The War album did not win any Grammy’s, but won in six categories in the Hot Press Readers poll and also got the Brit Award for the “Best Live Act”.
The song “New Year’s Day” from the album found the 2nd position on the Billboard Rock Track chart and it came up to the 53rd position in the Billboard 100 countdown. The popular singles from the War album are: “New Year’s Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and these songs are even now played by U2 in rock concerts, tours and awards functions. The album is slated for a re-release in May this year and this album has certainly made a mark in the pop culture history.