The two Slane Castle concerts from the Elevation Tour were a homecoming event for U2. They were a return to their home Ireland, and to the iconic Slane Castle venue, which they haven’t played for many years. But the homecoming connotation of the concerts could be approximated trough a different angle as well, this being, the passing of Bono’s father, which took place two days before the second concert, is a return home, hence, the double meaning of “U2 Go Home” as the title of the Slane Castle DVD; in one hand “Home” refers to the physical place where one lives (in this case Ireland). On the other, it refers to “Home” as the place where we return after dying. In the cover of the Vertigo Single the font used to write “U2” and “Go” is the same font that was used in the “U2 Go Home” DVD title. This link between the Slane Concert and the Vertigo Single serves as a transitional element between All That You Cant Leave Behind and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, an album that revolves around “home” and “death”, as two of its main themes.

Graphic 36: Same Font (Vertigo-U2 Go Home)

'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' and 'Let It Be' are both “returning home” albums. Writer Devin McKinney comments in his book Magic Circles: “They spent all of January rehearsing and recording songs for their next album, an album advertised with the tagline -The Beatles as Nature Intended- Get Back was its symbolic title: the songs would be rock n’ roll primitive, free of overdubs and post psychedelic fairy dust…And basic meant basic. Even the White Album songs hadn’t gotten far enough…” . In the same manner, with All That You Can’t Leave Behind U2 went back to basics, but with How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb they went even further into their origins.

This necessity of making contact with their beginnings that appears in both bands at this point is externalized through certain traits in their artwork and communicative intention.

In U2’s case, their departure from their beloved recording studio prompted the band to seriously consider calling the new album “Hanover Quay”, the name of the dock area where the studio facility is placed; and coincidentally, where the October cover picture was taken, therefore, connecting both eras, the current one and the early one, through the nostalgic relation with this classic Dublin location in U2’s history. Also, the recording of a song like Vertigo was intentionally done to connect with the early punk roots of the band, and the direct and frequent allegories to the BOY album in the Vertigo tour are connections to the earliest of times. Another intriguing connection with the beginning is the surprise appearance of the mysterious October Lyrics that were stolen 24 years before.

From the The Beatles side, it is interesting to notice that The Beatles’ original intention for the cover of the ‘Get Back’ album (Let It Be) was to use a photograph taken by photographer Angus McBean. In this picture they posed in the same balcony of the EMI building in which the ‘Please Please Me’ cover - The first Beatles album- was taken, thus, connecting as well both eras, the early one and the concluding one. Another palpable example of this is the recording of "One After 909", one of the first songs written by Lennon/McCartney which was featured in 'Let it Be'.

All this, shows how both bands, at this point, had an organic necessity to make a connection with their origin, only because both were coming full circle. Both bands were going back to the place from which they 'started out from'.

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