How three hitchhikers contributed to rock history

globalnews.ca:

Joshua Tree breakthrough was still two years in the future — so they knew a powerful performance in front of over a billion people would do wonders for their career. \Every act had about 20 minutes, so U2 carefully chose three songs. They’d start with Sunday Bloody Sunday, move into Bad, and then finish with a rousing rendition of Pride (In the Name of Love), their biggest single to that point.Things started well enough, but during Bad, Bono noticed a woman in the crowd named Melanie Hills.

According to Bono, she seemed to be in some distress. (That’s disputed; it’s more likely that Bono was trying something for the cameras.)As the band played, Bono jumped into the photographers’ pit, then into the audience, whereupon he pulled the woman onto the stage with him to engage in a very slow, intimate sort of dance.He tried to get Hills’ sister, Elaine, then, but the security guards didn’t respond. A third woman, 15-year-old Kal Khalique, is pulled from the crowd for another slow dance.It was a nice TV moment, but the slow dance act between Bono the women took so long (Bono also had a hard time getting back up on the stage) that U2 had to vamp on Bad for 12 long minutes.

By the time the song wrapped up, their time was over. They never got to play Pride.The rest of the band was furious and there was a very big row backstage. It was bad.

“We’ve blown it!,” they said. Bono, chastised and angry, flew back to Ireland alone to brood with his wife at his in-laws’ place in the countryside. He was sure his bandmates were so angry at him that U2 was finished.