How three hitchhikers contributed to rock history

Hitchhiking can be dangerous for both the Good Samaritan driver and the person on the side of the road with their thumb out.

Just dig into the history of serial killers. Ted Bundy, Edmund Klemper, Donald Gaskins, Ivan Milat, and the still unknown Santa Rosa killer are just a few examples of murderers who preyed on people who just wanted a ride.

Those horrible stories overshadow the countless times when giving a stranger a ride turned out not only to be a kind gesture but a life-altering event in a good way. Here are three examples from the annals of rock history.

At 5:20 p.m. on July 13, 1985, U2 stepped on the stage at Wembley Stadium to perform at Live Aid. They were still a medium-sized band at the time — their Joshua Tree breakthrough was still two years in the future — so they knew a powerful performance in front of over a billion people would do wonders for their career. \

Every act had about 20 minutes, so U2 carefully chose three songs. They’d start with Sunday Bloody Sunday, move into Bad, and then finish with a rousing rendition of Pride (In the Name of Love), their biggest single to that point.

Things started well enough, but during Bad, Bono noticed a woman in the crowd named Melanie Hills. According to Bono, she seemed to be in some distress. (That’s disputed; it’s more likely that Bono was trying something for the cameras.)

As the band played, Bono jumped into the photographers’ pit, then into the audience, whereupon he pulled the woman onto the stage with him to engage in a very slow, intimate sort of dance.

He tried to get Hills’ sister, Elaine, then, but the security guards didn’t respond. A third woman, 15-year-old Kal Khalique, is pulled from the crowd for another slow dance.

It was a nice TV moment, but the slow dance act between Bono the women took so long (Bono also had a hard time getting back up on the stage) that U2 had to vamp on Bad for 12 long minutes. By the time the song wrapped up, their time was over. They never got to play Pride.

The rest of the band was furious and there was a very big row backstage. It was bad. “We’ve blown it!,” they said. Bono, chastised and angry, flew back to Ireland alone to brood with his wife at his in-laws’ place in the countryside. He was sure his bandmates were so angry at him that U2 was finished. Maybe he’d just quit.

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But then fate intervened.

In the week following Live Aid, the general consensus became that U2’s set (along that of Queen) was the highlight of the Wembley portion of the concert. They hadn’t blown it. In fact, Bono’s effort to break down the barrier between band and fan was some kind of career-making moment.

Second, there’s a story that while Bono was driving to his in-laws, he picked up a hitchhiker who’d seen Live Aid and gushed about how much they loved U2’s performance. That was the validation Bono seemed to need. Within days, all was forgiven and patched up. U2 was saved.

Is the story about the hitchhiker true? I’ve heard it repeated a few times over the decades. There’s also the tale about a breakup in 1981 over the band’s inability to reconcile their religious beliefs with rock stardom. It is said that Bono went for a drive in the country, picked up a hitchhiker, and had a long conversation that made him realize there was a way to compromise.

Which story is true? Both? Neither? Take your pick.

This hitchhiker story is definitely true. While walking through West Vancouver in 2011, Bono and his assistant were caught in the rain. Sticking out his thumb, a car driven by Edmonton Oilers center Gilbert Brule pulled over.

Bono and the assistant squeezed into the car with Brule’s girlfriend German shepherd and for the ride back to the hotel.

For his trouble, Brule and his girlfriend were given backstage passes to U2’s upcoming show at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

Kurt Cobain’s death devastated Dave Grohl. He was so distraught that he couldn’t pick up an instrument, let alone think about making music and performing anymore. He’d reconciled himself to the fact that his music career was over.

This Nirvana thing had been so big, so influential, that there was no way Dave would ever be able to outrun it for the rest of his life. It was at that moment he decided to get back to work. The result was the Foo Fighters.

Dunne’s cousin tells the story in the tweet below.

This final story isn’t quite as earthshattering as the previous two, but it’s still very cool.

In May 2012, an indie band called Here We Go Magic was on their way to yet another gig in Ohio when they noticed a tall, slight man, with a thin moustache begging for a ride next to the on-ramp to I-70. He was wearing a hat that read “Scum of the Earth” and holding a sign that read “To the End of Rte. 70,” which would mean somewhere in Utah.

At first, the band just drove on past, thinking it was another itinerant. But half a kilometre down the road, the band’s sound man said, “John Waters.” One of the band members said, “Yep. Definitely John Waters.”

The van took the next exit, circled around and found the man still there. It was indeed film director John Waters. He’d been hitching for a couple of hours and no one wanted to pick him up.

What was a famous film director from Baltimore doing begging for rides on the side of an interstate? Hey, he need to get to Fort Cove, Utah, for some reason.