Roger Waters Calls U2’s Bono “Disgusting” and “a (Expletive)”

“Anybody who knows Bono should go and pick him up by his ankles and shake him… until he stops being an enormous (Expletive)”

Roger Waters has lashed out at U2 frontman Bono, describing him as “disgusting” and “a (Expletive)”.

The comments against the Irish rock singer arose in a new interview with Waters, and saw the Pink Floyd musician criticise the former for his previous comments on the Israel-Hamas war.

Speaking during one of their Sphere residency shows in Las Vegas, Bono used the performance to pay his respects to those killed during the October 7 attack at the Israeli music festival Supernova.

“In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence,” he told the crowd before launching into a performance of ‘Pride (In The Name Of Love)’. “But our hearts and our anger, you know where that’s pointed. So sing with us… and those beautiful kids at that music festival.”

He then played the song with altered lyrics, singing “Early morning, Oct. 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky… Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride,” in place of the original lines.

Now, Waters – who has been a longtime critic of the State of Israel – has taken aim at the musician for his comments during a new interview with Al Jazeera (via Clash) , and branded the comments made at the live show “disgusting”.

“My mother told me, when faced with difficult problems, the first thing to do is to read—read, read, read. Then, the next part is easy: do the right thing,” he told the outlet, referring to his own family background that saw his father killed in the Second World War.

“Anybody who knows Bono should go and pick him up by his ankles and shake him… until he stops being an enormous (Explitive).”

“We have to start saying to these people, your opinion is so disgusting and so degrading… sticking up for the Zionist entity,” he added. “What he did a couple of weeks ago in the Sphere in Las Vegas, singing about the Stars of David, was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

This is far from the first time that Waters has openly criticised Israel. Over recent months, the outspoken former Pink Floyd member has been in the news for his comments on the conflict in Palestine and accusations of anti-Semitism.

He has repeatedly denied all accusations of anti-Semitism and explained that his disdain is towards Israel, not Judaism. He also accused Israel of “abusing the term anti-Semitism to intimidate people like me into silence”.

He was recently the subject of a documentary, The Dark Side Of Roger Waters, which was produced by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and collates various incidents of alleged anti-Semitism levelled against the musician.

Rogers spoke out against the documentary with a post to his official website, dismissing the project as “a flimsy, unapologetic piece of propaganda”. He later claimed that it “indiscriminately mixes things I’m alleged to have said or done at different times and in different contexts, in an effort to portray me as an anti-Semite, without any foundation in fact”.

The documentary highlights a controversial concert in Germany back in May 2023, which was criticised by the US State Department who described it as “deeply offensive to Jewish people”. The gig saw him appear on stage wearing a black trench coat with a swastika-like emblem. At the time the musician defended the choice, claiming that the segment was a statement against fascism, injustice and bigotry and called criticism of it “disingenuous and politically motivated”.

In April, Waters won a legal battle to play a concert in Frankfurt after it was initially cancelled over claims of anti-Semitism, and last month it was reported that he had been dropped by his label BMG over his comments on Israel.

As for U2, over the weekend the Irish rock band once again used their residency shows in Las Vegas to make a political statement – using their Saturday show to pay tribute to the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in a Russian penal colony and suddenly died on Friday (February 16).

From Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon#Release

Sales

The Dark Side of the Moon became one of the best-selling albums of all time[103] and is in the top 25 of a list of best-selling albums in the United States.[56][104] Although it held the number one spot in the US for only a week, it remained in the Billboard 200 albums chart for 736 nonconsecutive weeks (from 17 March 1973 to 16 July 1988).[105][106] Of those first 736 charted weeks, the album had two notable consecutive runs in the Billboard 200 chart: 84 weeks (from 17 March 1973 to 19 October 1974) and 593 weeks (from 18 December 1976 to 23 April 1988).[107] It made its final appearance in the Billboard 200 albums chart during its initial run on the week ending 8 October 1988, in its 741st charted week.[108] It re-appeared on the Billboard charts with the introduction of the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart in the issue dated 25 May 1991, and was still a perennial feature ten years later.[109] It reached number one on the Pop Catalog chart when the 2003 hybrid CD/SACD edition was released and sold 800,000 copies in the US.[56] On the week of 5 May 2006 The Dark Side of the Moon achieved a combined total of 1,716 weeks on the Billboard 200 and Pop Catalog charts.[72]

After a change in chart methodology in 2009 which allowed catalogue titles to be included in the Billboard 200,[110] The Dark Side of the Moon returned to the chart at number 189 on 12 December of that year for its 742nd charting week.[111] It has continued to sporadically appear on the Billboard 200 since then, with the total at 988 weeks on the chart as of January 2024.[112] “On a slow week” between 8,000 and 9,000 copies are sold.[103] As of April 2013, the album had sold 9,502,000 copies in the US since 1991 when Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales for Billboard.[113] One in every fourteen people in the US under the age of 50 is estimated to own, or to have owned, a copy.[56]

The Dark Side of the Moon was released before the introduction of platinum certification in 1976 by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and therefore held only a gold certification until 16 February 1990, when it was certified 11 times platinum. On 4 June 1998, the RIAA certified the album 15× platinum,[56] denoting sales of fifteen million in the United States. This makes it Pink Floyd’s biggest-selling work there; The Wall is 23 times platinum, but as a double album this signifies sales of 11.5 million.[114] “Money” has sold well as a single, and as with “Time”, remains a radio favourite; in the US, for the year ending 20 April 2005, “Time” was played on 13,723 occasions, and “Money” on 13,731 occasions.[nb 7] In 2017, The Dark Side of the Moon was the seventh-bestselling album of all time in the UK and the highest-selling album never to reach number one.[115] As one of the blockbuster LPs of the album era (1960s–2000s), The Dark Side of the Moon also led to an increase in record sales overall into the late 1970s.[116] In 2013, industry sources suggested that worldwide sales of The Dark Side of the Moon totalled about 45 million.[3][117]

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