U2 book set for Xmas No 1 spot

BONO says it was like pulling teeth but the Dutch government will be licking its lips as the band — now based in Holland for tax purposes — launched its soon-to-be best selling autobiography to delighted fans in London yesterday.

U2 on U2 is the book in which Larry Mullen Jnr predicts the band will survive personality clashes and musical differences but will eventually succumb to one of the four squeezing “toothpaste from the wrong end”.

Its larger than life front man said it was a project the band felt had to be done before it started writing the next chapter.

Bono said: “I’m much more interested in the future than the past. But this year we thought it was time to take a deep breath, accept we’ve done some interesting stuff, wrap it up in a bow and put it out there.”

For once Adam Clayton upstaged Bono by producing the most long-winded philosophical sound-bite to explain why the money-spinning autobiography was published.

He said: “We are trying to pin down something elusive, something that represents where we are, emotionally, physically, spiritually, but is also fresh and exciting.”

It’s the first time the band has written a first-hand account of its history.

Meanwhile, the book has already been tipped as being U2’s first-ever Christmas Number one by industry sources.

Eason’s general manager Martin Black said: “Oh, it’s a certain number one. No question.”

Within the 352-page hardback edition Bono offers his thoughts on how he needs the band more than it needs him and what happens when people greet him in the street as the “man of peace.”

The band will be in Dublin today to sign 250 exclusive copies of the book at Eason’s on O’Connell Street.

They will then fly to New Orleans for the reopening of the Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana Superdome on Monday.