Paul Cleary’s Blades are still sharp as they return for another Olympia date

The feud with U2 may have been a myth, but there’s a lingering feeling that Paul Cleary’s band should have been megastars, writes Ed Power

U2 VERSUS The Blades has gone down as among the greatest feuds in Irish rock history. In one corner, four stadium overlords in waiting. In the other, a scrappy punk crew destined to burn brightly and briefly. According to popular mythology, these two opposing forces spent much of the early 1980s at one another’s throats. It’s a rollicking story — with one small catch. It is almost entirely untrue.

“I took some potshots at U2 in interviews,” says Paul Cleary, The Blades’ hard-bitten and still straight-talking frontman. “That was about the extent of it. My atheism clashed with their Christian beliefs. The nearer to success they got, the more I resented it. But U2 were always good back then, even in soundchecks. They definitely had something.”