The Edge: seven teenagers in a Dublin kitchen | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

THE EDGE was still a kid called Dave Evans when U2 began, in a kitchen. On 25 September 1976, seven teenagers crowded into Larry Mullen Jr’s family home in Dublin to see if they could be a band, and he was one of them. Fifty years on, that band has 22 Grammys.

He wasn’t even born in Ireland. He was born in England in 1961, and his family moved across when he was a baby. “I moved to Ireland with my parents as a baby,” he said in 2025, the day he finally became an Irish citizen.

U2 have had 11 number 1 albums in Britain. In 2026, their 50th year, they’re still putting out new music.

Early life and training

David Howell Evans was born on 8 August 1961. The Irish Examiner puts his birthplace in Essex. He grew up in Ireland, and the music came early: his older brother, Dik, was part of that first kitchen line-up too.

At about 15, he went to see Rory Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 play in Macroom. It was his first big rock show. He later called it “an absolute eye-opener”, and he has credited Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 as the first Irish rock star to make it.

Back in that Dublin kitchen, the seven were Mullen, the two Evans brothers, Adam Clayton, Paul Hewson (soon to be Bono), Ivan McCormick and Peter Martin. Martin left after the first session. McCormick lasted a few more weeks.

Career chapters

1. 1976First rehearsal in Larry Mullen Jr’s kitchen, Dublin, 25 September
2. 1977Feedback becomes the Hype
3. 1978The band becomes U2
4. 1987The Joshua Tree, U2’s first US number 1
5. 2005Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
6. 2022Kennedy Center Honors
7. 2025Becomes an Irish citizen, 23 June
8. 2026Carnaval De Luz announced, with a release date of 13 November

Feedback, the Hype, then U2 1976 to 1978

The band’s first name was Feedback. In the spring of 1977 they became the Hype. In 1978, after Dik Evans left, they settled on U2.

The Joshua Tree 1987

The Joshua Tree came out on 9 March 1987. It went to number 1 in America and in Britain, and it was U2’s first number 1 in the US. At the 1988 Grammys it won Album of the Year. According to u2.com, it was certified Diamond, 10 million copies in the US, in 1999.

Grammys, the Hall of Fame and a song for Mandela 2005 to 2022

In 2005 Bruce Springsteen, Who’s Who number 17 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) inducted U2 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A year later the band won Album of the Year again, for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, their 2004 album, and City of Blinding Lights won Best Rock Song. All up, U2 have won 22 Grammys from 46 nominations.

In January 2014, Ordinary Love, written for the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, won the Golden Globe for best original song. Edge said the band had backed Nelson Mandela since they were teenagers. “It has taken us 35 years to write this song,” he said.

In December 2022, U2 were among the Kennedy Center honorees.

Irish citizen, and a 50th year 2025 to 2026

On 23 June 2025, at a ceremony in Killarney, he became an Irish citizen. “Ireland will always be home to me,” he said.

The next year was a busy one. U2 put out two EPs, Days of Ash and Easter Lily. On 24 July 2026 came Fireflies, a track with Martin Garrix, which Edge played live for the first time at Tomorrowland. In September MusiCares named U2 its 2027 Persons of the Year, the band announced a new album, and they released its first song, Silencio.

At the end of that month, U2 marked 50 years with a show in Dublin, and the Central Bank of Ireland launched a U2 commemorative coin.

Craft, sound and style

Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 is the starting point he names himself. He saw him at about 15, called it an eye-opener, and in March 1996 he became the first winner of Hot Press’s Rory Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 Rock Musician Award.

What he did with it was something else. Put on The Joshua Tree and listen to the guitar: ringing notes and echo filling the space, rather than long blues solos. It’s a sound you can pick out of a song within a few seconds.

One guitar and an echo unit

On a trip to New York he went into a guitar shop looking for a Rickenbacker six-string and came out with a Gibson Explorer. It was the only guitar he had when U2 made Boy in 1980. When producer Steve Lillywhite asked what else he’d brought, he held up a finger. “I got one guitar and you’re looking at it,” he told Guitar World.

The other half of the sound was a delay pedal. U2 got their first Memory Man, made by Electro-Harmonix, while they were cutting early demos, and within minutes he’d heard “the rhythmic possibilities that it suggested”. Guitar Player says the Deluxe Memory Man is on U2 records from Boy onwards, and that he wrote parts around its repeats rather than just adding it on top.

The Infinite Guitar

With or Without You was built on a guitar that holds a note for as long as you like. The Infinite Guitar was a modified Stratocaster that the Canadian musician Michael Brook built for him, and Edge called it “a guitar that plays itself”. Co-producer Daniel Lanois told Fender it arrived at the studio while the track was being worked on. Edge plugged it in and played two takes, and “The part never changed,” Lanois said. U2 author Aaron J. Sams says the band had talked about walking away from the song before then. It became U2’s first number 1 single in America.

Eleven Explorers

The Explorer was a 1976 Gibson, bought in 1978 when he was 17, on a family trip to the US. By 2018 he owned eleven 1976 Explorers, all stock and nearly identical, and took three on tour. That tour carried 45 guitars, with 18 to 20 used each night and a backup for each one. Among them were a 1971 Telecaster, a 1966 SG, a 1964 Epiphone Casino, a 1967 Rickenbacker 12 string, and a Takamine acoustic that Bruce Springsteen, Who’s Who number 17 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) gave him. His Fender signature Strat is based on his favourite old Strats, with a DiMarzio FS-1 at the bridge.

Where the Streets Have No Name

The part is a fast picked arpeggio against a delay set to a dotted eighth note, about 354 to 365 milliseconds at 128 beats a minute. MusicRadar says he most likely used a TC Electronic 2290 or a Korg SDD-3000, or both, split into two old Vox AC30s, and reportedly a black 1973 Strat. The source hedges on the guitar and the delays, so take those as likely rather than certain.

Amp alley

On the 2018 tour most of his amps sat under the stage in “amp alley”: Vox AC30s hand wired by Dave Clarke, a Fender Edge Deluxe, a 1957 Tweed Deluxe and a 1957 Harvard, with one Edge Deluxe on stage. The rack held three Fractal Axe-Fx units, a Korg SDD-3000 and Line 6 delays. On the floor were an Ibanez TS-9, Boss overdrives, a chorus and an octave pedal, and a Whammy. His tech, Dallas Schoo, worked a second controller beside the stage. He doesn’t endorse a string company, so Schoo keeps trying brands and gauges for each guitar and tuning.

Tearing up the rule book

In 1985 he described what he was after as “tearing up the rule book”. Guitar Player listed what he used in place of lead runs: partial chords, harmonics, echo repeats, damped drone strings, slide, the E-Bow and feedback. By then British and American music papers were running ads for a “Guitarist, U2 style”.

Stories people still tell

1. The kitchen.

   Seven teenagers turned up to Larry Mullen Jr’s family home on 25 September 1976. Two were gone within weeks. Once Dik had left as well, the four who were left became U2.

2. Born in Ireland? No.

   People often assume he’s Irish born. He was born in England and moved to Ireland as a baby.

3. Irish at last.

   He only became an Irish citizen in June 2025, almost 49 years after that first rehearsal.

4. The Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 award.

   The guitarist who opened his eyes in Macroom ended up with an award named after him. Edge was its first winner, in 1996.

Legacy

The Edge is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with U2, he has two Album of the Year Grammys, and in December 2022 he was a Kennedy Center honoree. MusiCares will honour the band as its Persons of the Year in 2027.

The band that started in a kitchen now has its own coin.

Carnaval De Luz, U2’s 16th studio album, was set for release on 13 November 2026. It has 12 tracks, produced by Jacknife Lee, on Interscope.