Chris Seward's U2 photos

The story behind the old, black-and-white U2 photos on the cover of Friday's Weekend section is this:  Our Chris Seward shot them when he was just a young free-lancer for the old Spectator publication back in the early '80s.

Chris, who joined our staff in 1986, was a recent graduate of N.C. State at the time, with a major in economics and a minor in computer science and a passion for photography.  He had learned his craft shooting for the college newspaper and yearbook, and was looking for full-time work and taking free-lance assignments to pay the bills.

And that's how he found himself at Kenan Stadium seeking shelter from the rain while a young singer name of Bono was waiting to go on with his group, a gaggle of Irishmen who were beginning to make a name for themselves. As our music writer David Menconi noted in Friday's story, U2 wasn't even the main attraction at the April 1983 "Spring Fling" concert.  

Seward noticed that Bono seemed a little quiet and pensive, so he tried to reassure him: Don't worry, man, he said. They're going to like you. They know who you are.

In a few months, everyone with access to MTV would know who U2 was, and the band would become one of the most enduring in rock history. 

You may have noticed that the photos we ran were in black and white.  That was pretty much all we ran back in the 1980s and into the '90s.  Better technology, particularly in the printing presses, made it possible to start running more color. 

Like the cover of our Hurricanes preview section on Friday, featuring Seward's great shots of the Canes' veteran players (and graphic artist Tim Lee's terrific rock-poster design.)

Seward is the photographer who specializes in shooting hockey, so the pictures that you'll see this season of goals and fights in the paper and online will come through his lense as he roams the RBC.  I can't imagine a more difficult sport to shoot than hockey. I can barely figure out where the puck is sometimes, let alone think about trying to shoot the photo of the game-winner that's going to get spread across four columns of our Sports front in the morning. That's why I became a writer. I don't have the ice water in my veins that news photographers have. 

I asked him, what's the difference between shooting rock concerts and hockey? 
Seward thought for a moment and said, well, there are some obvious differences, of course, rink vs. rock, but not in what he’s trying to achieve as a photojournalist.

In both cases, he's trying to capture the special moments, whether it's the expression on Bono's face as he sells a song, or the look on Eric Staal's face when he drives the puck to the back of the net.