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U2's "Boy"

metirish
Mar 29 2010 08:34 AM

I always thought the cover boy for "Boy" and "War" were pictures of Larry Mullen as a kid. I know someone told me that years ago and I guess I just thought it as true.



Well it's not Larry Mullen

Little boy from album covers now turning the cameras on U2

By Ken Sweeney Entertainment Reporter
Monday March 29 2010
THIRTY years ago they photographed him for the cover of their debut album.



But this summer it will be U2 in the frame when the boy who starred on some of their best-known record sleeves turns the camera on them at a series of gigs around Europe.

Peter Rowen is known to millions of U2 fans around the globe as the boy on the cover of albums 'Boy', 'War' and their 1998 singles collection.

But in recent years the 35-year-old has been finding fame in his own right as an award-winning photographer.

Recently featured in 'The New York Times', his studies of people including artist Louis le Brocquy and his own daughter Katie have won him a string of awards.

This summer he will shoot U2 as their 360 Tour, featuring a massive four-legged claw, visits European capitals.

Rowen's involvement with U2 goes back to the band's birth in Dublin during the late 1970s, when his elder brother Guggi, now a bestselling artist, was a member of punk band The Virgin Prunes and friend of Bono.

"Bono was a neighbour of ours growing up. I don't know why U2 picked me exactly to be on a U2 sleeve? I guess maybe I was a cute-looking kid," he said.

Photographed for U2's first EP in 1979, a year later Rowen was posing for the cover of U2's first album, 'Boy' and then again for their third album 'War' in 1983.

He claims neither release encroached on his life.

"You have to remember that U2 were a very small band back then. I was six at the time and hanging around with other kids. We wouldn't have been into rock music so U2 meant nothing to me or my friends," he said.

But would he ever be on another U2 sleeve? "Only this week I got an email from the world's biggest U2 tribute band asking would I pose for their album cover? I had to tell them I was busy taking my own photographs," he said.

- Ken Sweeney Entertainment Reporter

Irish Independent


http://www.independent.ie/entertainment ... ml?start=1

John Cougar Lunchbucket
Mar 29 2010 08:43 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

Huh. I always thought it was because Bono was into little boys.

metirish
Mar 29 2010 08:45 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

[quote="John Cougar Lunchbucket":2q4ejsv2]Huh. I always thought it was because Bono was into little boys.[/quote:2q4ejsv2]


No , the WSJ article last week called him the "worst investor in America" not the "worst molester in America" .


You're on fire today Dickshot.

Edgy DC
Mar 29 2010 08:53 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

He was also in The Commitments and The Snapper, though as different characters.

HahnSolo
Mar 29 2010 09:12 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

A younger Victor Garber?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr
Mar 29 2010 10:03 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

[quote="John Cougar Lunchbucket":16zbq7d2]Huh. I always thought it was because Bono was into little boys.[/quote:16zbq7d2]

Is it getting better? Does he feel the same?

soupcan
Mar 29 2010 10:30 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

I was once told it was Larry Mullin's little brother.

Guggi's little brother isn't a far cry from that story.

Gwreck
Mar 29 2010 10:35 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

He also appears on the cover of the Best of 1980-1990 album.

HahnSolo
Mar 29 2010 11:33 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

That kid is not on the front cover of my copy of Boy. Maybe he's on the sleeve or back cover? I have seen that image, can't remember where.

Edgy DC
Mar 29 2010 11:48 AM
Re: U2's "Boy"

The child was on the cover in the UK (and, I guess, RoI), but the cover was changed in the US when the intital fan base the band got here was largely gay and the record company feared that the band would be accused of promoting pedophilia. Thirty years later, Lunchbucket does just that.

Gay, gay, gay. It's all we ever talk about in this forum.

cooby
Mar 29 2010 01:26 PM
Re: U2's "Boy"

I always wanted to feed the poor little thing and run a chapstick over his mouth

HahnSolo
Mar 29 2010 01:39 PM
Re: U2's "Boy"

I remember thinking he bore a striking resemblance to missing NYC kid Etan Patz.

Ashie62
Mar 29 2010 02:01 PM
Re: U2's "Boy"

I am not a U2 fan anymore. I Saw them back in the day and Pride in the Name of Love is still one of my faves.

They seem very happy to buy large parcels of land in Ireland, where land is scarce, and I am tired of seeing Bono as an "activist of the moment"