Biography

Edge often wears hats to cover his receding hairline

Distorted, acoustic, and digitally-processed guitar work and playing

Variety of guitars, often uses Gibson Les Paul

Black Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoes

Falsetto voice

U2 played the former Welsh national rugby station on the first night of the 'Joshua Tree' tour on 25th July 1987. This dates was hastily arranged after a fan had organised a petition of 10,000 signatures pleading for U2 to play this venue. During the show The Edge kicked a rugby ball out into the audience after Bono had said that The Edge's father (Garvin Evans), a Welshman, had predicted that one day his son would play rugby at Cardiff Arms Park.

Christened 'Dave Edge' by Bono, because he was on the edge of things, assessing what was going on and partly because of the shape of his head, which had a straight edge.

Guitarist, keyboardist and sometimes the songwriter of U2.

Although U2 as a band are Irish, The Edge is of Welsh decendancy, his parents hailing from the South Wales town of Llanelli.

'The Top Ten Guitar Heroes' list in 2001 named The Edge as the 7th top guitar hero, behind the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Hank B. Marvin, but in front of Carlos Santana and Ritchie Blackmore.

People always ask us if we think our songs can really change anything. And I always say that's not why we wrote the songs. We didn't write them so they would change the situation.

[on playing the guitar] When I came along, there was a clear need to reassess the instrument. I was drawn to the idea of minimalism. To get the maximum effect from the minimum number of notes. There was a clear need to change the furniture around.

During my time as a performer, I've certainly felt that I was seeing the end of the guitar.

"All That You Can't Leave Behind" was a chance to rediscover the core chemistry of U2 as a band. On the previous record, Pop, we had deconstructed the concept of the rock 'n' roll band and then on the PopMart tour we'd celebrated the surface of things, not in a cynical way but in the spirit of Warholian pop art. Even so, I think we also realised that in the process we had lost something and the attempt on "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was to find that thing again: what it was to play in a room as a band and to rediscover the eccentricity and elusiveness of what a band can do when they're performing together.

Songwriting for U2 is always a very ambiguous process. We write as we record, but in the case of Pop we took that to the nth degree. The loops and machines offered an endless amount of options and in U2 options are not your friends. Limitations, in fact, are often really the thing, and we've made full use of our limitations over the years.