U2

U2 is more than a favorite band in the novel: its music becomes a means by which Steef reaches Peter, a source of comfort in Steef’s account of survival, and the force that briefly draws Peter into a crowd he would ordinarily resist. The band’s presence shifts from home stereo to stadium spectacle, giving music a role in the characters’ intimacy and in Peter’s changing sense of belonging.

Music in the Home

At a gathering at Steef and Rebecca’s home, Steef rejects the party atmosphere and puts on a U2 CD. The band’s bombastic sound fills the room while Peter runs the leather fringe of a handle through his fingers. The music belongs to a quieter, more personal space than the neighborhood event Steef has organized: he admits that the gathering was Rebecca’s idea, intended to create connections in the neighborhood for Sem, whereas this moment turns toward music as an experience in its own right.

Steef later makes that role explicit. After speaking about his experience in Srebrenica and insisting that survival should lead to a fuller engagement with life, he takes Peter and Eva by the wrists and pulls them toward the music. He presents U2 as his rescue and says that listening to it works better for him than therapy. The scene does not establish that music resolves his trauma; rather, it shows the immediate, practical place it holds in his life, as an alternative source of relief and a way of urging other people out of emotional confinement.

The CD Steef chooses is All That You Can't Leave Behind, which Peter owns among a collection organized alphabetically. Steef singles out its opening track, A Beautiful Day, as a song that carried him through a crisis. He has already told Rebecca that he wants it played at his funeral. When the track begins, Steef clenches his fists and raises them in the air, while Peter turns up the volume. Sem cries, and Rebecca lifts him from his buggy and kisses his head. The music thus gathers several different responses in one domestic scene: Steef’s physical exhilaration, Peter’s participation, and Rebecca’s care for the baby.

A Bond Built Around the Band

U2 helps explain the growing affinity between Steef and Peter. Eva observes that the two men have found common ground in their love of music and motorcycles. Steef encourages Peter to consider taking guitar lessons again, arguing for music as an art form open to everyone. The band’s significance is therefore not limited to listening: their shared enthusiasm becomes part of a friendship that also gives Peter a reason to remain close to Steef and Rebecca.

That connection is not simply shared taste from the outset. Peter has strong preferences of his own and has long regarded Pink Floyd as the world’s best band. He and Steef regularly debate music in Steef’s workshop. Peter dismisses The Edge’s guitar playing in comparison with the virtuosity he admires in older rock musicians; Steef, in turn, calls Peter nostalgic and treats U2 as a contemporary band with a public purpose. Their disagreement gives U2 a double function: it is a point of friction that lets each man assert his taste, and a recurring subject through which they continue to engage with one another.

Peter is also skeptical of Bono. He considers the singer self-important and moralistic, while Steef admires his activism and insistence on doing good in the world. Steef’s devotion is intense enough that Eva describes Bono as God to him, and says Peter has come to share that reverence through Steef’s influence. The difference between Steef’s conviction and Peter’s skepticism remains visible even when Peter agrees to attend a concert with an open mind toward Bono’s message.

The Concert at the Amsterdam ArenA

Steef takes Peter to see U2 at the Amsterdam ArenA in what he calls the Concert of the Century. He has paid 125 euros per ticket on the black market and does not ask Peter to repay him; in return, he asks only for an open-minded response to Bono. For Peter, the trip also revives memories of his former life as a football reporter, when crowds, queues, and stadium routines had become irritating rather than absorbing. He notices the lines for parking, entry, beer, toilets, and merchandise, while Steef enjoys the crowd and had even wanted to arrive at five in the morning for a place in the Golden Circle.

At the venue, the men take half a pill and drink Breezers, which Steef recommends instead of beer. The drug appears to affect Steef quickly: he bounces, joins the crowd’s wave, whistles, claps, jokes, and talks to strangers. Peter, by contrast, watches his own body for signs of an effect and at first feels only the need to urinate. He is reluctant to leave Steef alone, and when the crowd begins moving toward the stage he follows behind Steef’s broad back, worried about being separated from him.

The concert changes Peter’s experience once he returns from the toilet. Although the floor is filthy and his trainers fill with urine, the moment becomes a release rather than an inconvenience. The bass vibrates through him; he runs back toward the field feeling light, raises his hands, sings, smiles, and touches other concertgoers. The crowd that earlier meant irritation and queues now feels like a shared movement in which he can participate. He recognizes the force of The Edge’s playing, reversing his earlier dismissive judgment, and wants to tell Steef.

Peter’s exhilaration also unsettles the boundary he has assumed between friendship and intimacy. He sees Steef amid the crowd and experiences their closeness as a sense of belonging. As Steef interacts with two young women, Peter does not respond with the distance or indignation that might have been expected from his earlier reservations about the men’s closeness. The concert instead intensifies his feeling that he and Steef are connected, while the surrounding bodies and singing make the experience collective as well as personal.

Aftermath and Narrative Significance

The novel places U2’s music in contrast with Peter’s isolation and self-consciousness. Before the concert, he resents the lines and fears losing Steef in the crowd; during it, he becomes absorbed in the music and feels himself part of a larger movement. This change is specific to the scene rather than proof that his skepticism has permanently disappeared: the important reversal is that, for a time, music lets him experience the connection Steef has been urging him to accept.

The band’s presence continues after the show. The next morning, Peter finds a CD on the mat, marked by a photograph of a blindfolded Bono and accompanied by a note from Steef listing his favorite U2 songs for him. The gesture turns the concert into something Peter can carry home: not merely a night out, but a personal offering from the friend who had invited him, paid for the tickets, and hoped he would listen differently. Across these scenes, U2 links Steef’s account of survival, his friendship with Peter, and Peter’s temporary passage from detached observation into shared feeling.