U2’s performance in Paris on Sunday night wasn’t just about music — it had a mournful tinge, too.
Frontman Bono paid respects to 130 people killed by extremists in Paris on Nov. 13, and 14 people killed in a mass shooting last week in California.
Names of Paris attack victims were projected on a huge video screen in the arena on the east side of the French capital, not far from the site of the Nov. 13 rampage.
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Bono wrapped himself in a French tricolour flag for the encore, in which he sang a verse from French crooner Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas,” or “Don’t Leave Me.”
“We stand together with the families of those killed in Paris. We stand together with the families of those killed in San Bernardino,” he told the energized Paris crowd.
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“We are all Parisians,” he continued. “There are few words to speak to the loss you are feeling in this city tonight.”
Earlier, U2 dismissed rumours that it would be joined on stage Sunday by Eagles of Death Metal, the band that was performing in the Bataclan concert venue when suicide bombers stormed it Nov. 13. The band, deeply shaken by the attacks, has said it wants to play again in Paris.
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