Gavin Friday was interviewed outside Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona on June 20th where he is working on the production of U2′s 360 tour, which starts on June 30th. The brief interview was broadcast in U2Valencia’s podcast. Gavin discussed his role in U2′s production, calling himself an ‘aesthetic midwife’ and in a message to the listeners he sent his greetings and the news: “Next year I’ll be sending you my own music, as I will be releasing my record, which I haven’t done in 10, 12 years.”
Download the full podcast (mp3) which also features interviews with Catherine Owens and Bono. (Fan commentary is in Spanish.) or continue for a transcript of Gavin’s complete interview.
Pictures taken during the interview.

U2valencia: Is it possible to have a small interview?
Gavin Friday: Very small, because they go on stage in about 15, yeah?
U2V: Hi. We are with Gavin Friday, best friend of Bono. We know you have worked with U2 before, on Vertigo. What are you doing now, with 360? What is your job?
GF: What I always do. I… Let’s say ever since they’ve done Joshua Tree and most tours. Because we grew up together. I’m an aesthetic midwife, you know, when the baby is in the mother, I help the baby be born. I look at all the things… they’re on stage, they can’t see everything, so I’m their eyes and their ears, and I understand the four of them very well, cause I know them 30 years, or more. And so we speak the same language. I don’t blow smoke up their ass. Do you know what I mean?
U2V: Eh… you don’t smoke?
GF: I don’t *blow* smoke up their ass. Like… I talk the truth. I’m not afraid of them either. I’m just… the truth. But also… all the different departments, it’s such a big, complex show, so I help glue it all together. And then I deliver the baby and say ‘Bono, Edge, Larry, this is the bambino. I christen the bambino 360 degrees, and Padre Friday is going now, back to Dublin to work on his own stuff.
U2V: Do you think this one will be their best tour?
GF: I don’t know… the baby is still coming out. It’s not born yet. It’s born on the 30th of June. I think it’s like most U2 things, it’s always a challenge finishing a new thing. You look at U2, they keep taking risks, and trying to get better and better. What’s incredible about this, it’s that it’s so big, but for me it’s very intimate. The audience are going to feel this intimacy like I’ve never seen at a U2 show. But what is the best, what is the biggest? I don’t know, I just love it being what it is today.
U2V: Can you say a message to the Radio Vertigo listeners?
GF: Say a message? OK, this is Mr Gavin Friday, in Barcelona. Outside the stadium, a week before the U2 tour and I send you all my love and greetings and next year I’ll be sending you my own music, as I will be releasing my record, which I haven’t done in 10, 12 years.
U2V: Can you sing for us?
GF: Sing? Sing? Sing… I still sing, but… I’m shy, you make me shy and embarrassed. What could I sing? I’m trying to think of, eh, (sings) ‘Una Paloma Blanca…’

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