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Few rock bands have worked politics into their CV quite so richly as U2. Their upbringing within shooting distance of Northern Ireland's Troubles clearly gave Bono and co a launchpad unlike that experienced by, say, Kasabian. But few could have imagined how far the band's much maligned singer would take it. So it is that as we await Barack Obama's historic inauguration tomorrow, the group often cited as the biggest in the world are happily and coincidentally right on-hand to give the thumbs up to the world's new dawn.

A cynical Famethrowa wonders if they actually mapped-out the schedule for new album, "No Line On The Horizon", to include this humungous happening? Perhaps Obama will actually be credited as the inspiration or producer even, like Andy Warhol on The Velvet Underground's seminal debut? Naturally U2 were amongst the acts to perform for the President-elect in Washington on Sunday at the "We Are One" concert, alongside Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen. "On this spot where we're standing, 46 years ago, Dr King had a dream. On Tuesday, that dream comes to pass", Bono told the 400,000 crowd in classic, pompous and bombastic style.

Their two-song set of "Pride" and "City Of Blinding Lights" did not feature the new single "Get On Your Boots". Many people have been bigging up the band's comeback, with producer Daniel Lanois calling the album "one of the great, innovative records from U2", humbly spouting "rock'n'roll has been reinvented one more time." Meanwhile, Bono himself says: "It's not like anything we've ever done before, and we don't think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either." There can be little argument that with "The Joshua Tree" and "Achtung Baby!", U2 broke terrific new ground but can this peculiar single, which doesn't seems to know if it's Arctic Monkeys, Keane, Elvis Costello, Queens Of The Stone Age or, like, U2, really hope to do it all over again?