The 1980 town hall gig that ended up losing money

Only coming around once every four years, 29 February is a date to remember.

Unless you are U2, whose leap day 40 years ago was one to forget.

In the decades since, they have sold 175m records and played sell-out shows at the world’s largest venues.

But in their early days they faced the same challenges as every other emerging band – trying to get noticed while playing smaller venues in unlikely locations.

And 29 February 1980 was far from a ‘Beautiful Day’ for the Dublin group when they played Newry town hall in County Down. Admission was £1.50, but even at that price, it didn’t sell out.

Mickey Magill, who was the event promoter, received a call from a record shop owner, Michael Carlin, who told him about “a great young band from Dublin”.

“I asked him what they were called and he said U2.

“I got in touch with Paul McGuinness [the band’s manager] and it ended up that we got the gig,” he told BBC News NI.

“We promoted it fairly heavily. I still have the ad we placed in the Newry Reporter.

“I paid them £400. That was the contract and I lost a few pounds. I’ll not tell you how much though.

“Unfortunately, there wasn’t the biggest crowd at the gig, but the crowd that was there really lapped them up.”

Like the exact attendance that night, the reception U2 received is also a matter of debate.

Today, Conor Sweeney is an accountant for InterTrade Ireland, but in 1980 he was a bass player in punk band Psycho.

“On social media this pops up all the time and the amount of people who claim they were there that night probably totals 50,000 – but it just didn’t happen.

“There were about 50 people at the gig. They were unknown.

“It was before they signed their record deal to do the album Boy so they were doing a nationwide tour to promote this.

“They came on and it just fell flat because nobody knew their songs. We were doing covers, so everybody knew them and we had to go on to finish the night off, which is quite funny in hindsight.

But Conor lapped up the performance, ‘with or without’ a full house: “Even back then, their craftwork was in their music. If you listen to the album Boy, it’s still one of the purest albums in their repertoire and I certainly enjoyed it [the gig] from a technical point of view.”

In that crowd of 50 was a Newry teenager who wasn’t necessarily there for the music.

Jackie O’Rourke, who was Jackie Lynch in 1980, hadn’t heard of U2 but went along as it was her second date with the man who is now her husband.

“It wasn’t very good and there weren’t many people at it. They were really punky, really out there type of music.

“Lots of people left. Within a year everybody was raving about them.”

An age-old leap year custom is that on 29 February, women turn the traditional tables and asked men to marry them.

“I didn’t ask him to marry me at the concert, but four years later I asked him on a leap day,” said Jackie.

Mickey Magill joked that there’s still an open invitation for the band to return.

And just like Jackie’s husband Fran, he’s hoping they’ll take up the offer.