HOT PRESS

"It's no easy gig being a tribute band, particularly when your inspiration is U2. Not only are they one of the highest profile bands on earth, but their legendary musical ability, passion and vitality are an integral part of the complete package. For a tribute band, this means you have to look right, you must do justice to some of the finest rock music ever written and you have to capture and transmit that indefinable energy that fuels U2.

Meet Rattle and Hum. Coming from Dublin themselves has maybe given them an advantage over other U2 tribute bands, but it doesn't end there. They are also impeccable and experienced musicians who possess both the physical power and the psychic energy that playing the music of U2 to a live audience demands. The four members, despite individual visual theatrics, become one powerful unit onstage, much like U2 themselves.

Rattle and Hum's 2 hour extravaganza covering all stages of the bands career from 'Boy' to 'All that you can't leave behind', opens as we are whisked back in time to the ZOO TV tour. The leather trousers, the huge Fly shades, and, just as essentially, the tongue in cheek 'Dadaesque' Bono .In the first hour-long segment we are treated to all the highlights of the Zooropa tour as well as the cream of U2's earlier hits.

Part two sees the four re-emerge on-stage in the guise of today's Elevation era U2.As well as songs from the current album, we get a series of 'classics' that have wowed audiences the world-over for years. After another hour of blistering performance the Boys leave the stage to the strains of the elated crowd singing 'How long to sing this song?' from the anthem '40', with Rattle and Hum the answer is 'As long as you like guys'."

RATTLE AND HUM -" WINNING ACCLAIM AROUND THE COUNTRY" NEWS OF THE WORLD

"U2 fanatic Michael Malone started his own rock-star career the day he got MARRIED! At his reception he got on stage, picked up a guitar and belted out a few of his idols' anthems for delighted guests. They soon told Michael he was so good he should go back to playing music. Inspired, the Dublin teacher formed tribute band Rattle and Hum the moment he returned from his honeymoon. And two years later they're winning acclaim around the country.

Michael doesn't boast that they're even better than the real thing - but the lads have definitely hit all the right notes with Bono, who calls them his favourite U2 tribute act. Rattle and Hum sent the superstars a DVD of one of their gigs and the front-man gave them his official thumbs-up. Michael said yesterday, "I had a hunger to get back in a band as I played when I was younger. My obsession with U2 provided the perfect chance."

He and three pals locked themselves in rehearsals for three months before playing live. Rattle and Hum play their biggest show yet at Dublin's Olympia Theatre next Saturday night - and there is the added twist that Bono and the boys could make an appearance. On stage Michael bears an uncanny resemblance to Bono, with his leather jacket and trousers, his "Fly" shades and slicked back hair. He is proud to admit that he has been a fan of the band for the over twenty years. And he says several of their biggest hits touch him deeply when he sings them. Emotions can run high at Rattle and Hum gigs and some fans are just as crazed as U2's. At a Galway show a foreign fan at the front of the stage kept asking Michael for the towel he was using to wipe his face with. "It was a bit scary. She just wanted my sweat!" he laughed."