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50 free U2 trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This U2 trivia quiz follows the band from Larry Mullen's 1976 notice on a Dublin school board to the Las Vegas Sphere: the names Feedback and the Hype, the Limerick talent contest, Windmill Lane and Steve Lillywhite, the white flag of the War tour, Live Aid, Eno and Lanois, The Joshua Tree's desert photo shoot, the Rattle and Hum backlash, the Berlin sessions for Achtung Baby, the Trabants of Zoo TV, the PopMart lemon, the Super Bowl halftime show after 9/11, the 360° claw, the album Apple pushed to 500 million iTunes accounts and Songs of Surrender. Expect questions on all four members, from Bono's real name and the Edge's Welsh parents to Adam Clayton's English birthplace and the only run of shows Larry Mullen has missed. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who owns The Joshua Tree, a third need a closer memory of the albums and tours, and the rest reward the fans who know the producers, the venues and the numbers. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the band, its members, albums and tours before publishing, and each question carries the sentence that establishes it. No lyrics are quoted. If you think one is wrong, use the report button and we will look again.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At which Dublin school did the members of U2 meet in 1976?
Mount Temple Comprehensive
The drummer posted a note on the school notice board looking for musicians, and the first practice was in his kitchen.
Q 02Which band member posted the notice board message that brought U2 together?
Larry Mullen
He later joked it was "the Larry Mullen Band for about ten minutes, then Bono walked in".
Q 03What was the first name the future U2 settled on, one of the few technical terms they knew?
Feedback
They became the Hype in 1977 and U2 in March 1978.
Q 04Who suggested the list of six names from which the band picked U2 in 1978?
Steve Averill
Averill, of the Radiators from Space, later designed many U2 sleeves including The Joshua Tree; they chose U2 as the name they disliked least.
Q 05Which older brother of the Edge left the band with a farewell concert in March 1978?
Dik Evans
He went on to join the Virgin Prunes, who often opened for U2.
Q 06What did U2 win at the Pop Group '78 talent contest in Limerick?
£500 and a CBS demo session
The demo recorded at Keystone Studios that April was largely unsuccessful.
Q 07Which journalist introduced U2 to their long-time manager Paul McGuinness in 1978?
Bill Graham of Hot Press
Hot Press was one of the band's earliest allies.
Q 08At which Dublin studio did U2 record their first demos in 1979 and their debut album in 1980?
Windmill Lane Studios
It was the first of the band's many recordings there.
Q 09Who produced U2's debut album Boy after Martin Hannett was passed over?
Steve Lillywhite
Hannett had produced the band's first international single, "11 O'Clock Tick Tock", which failed to chart.
Q 10What did Bono lose backstage at a Portland nightclub in March 1981, complicating the writing of October?
A briefcase of lyrics
The band had to write the second album with little time on tour.
Q 11Which U2 album was their first UK number one?
War
Its singles included "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day", the band's first hit outside Europe.
Q 12What did Bono famously wave during performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" on the 1983 War Tour?
A white flag
He also climbed scaffolding and lighting rigs and jumped into audiences on that tour.
Q 13Which two producers first worked with U2 on The Unforgettable Fire in 1984?
Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois
Their influence produced a more abstract, ambient sound on the 1984 album.
Q 21How did Bono describe Achtung Baby's break with the band's past?
Four men chopping down the Joshua Tree
The record drew on alternative rock, dance and industrial music.
Q 22Which East German cars were gutted and hung as lighting rigs on the Zoo TV Tour?
Trabants
Six hung above the arena stage and a seventh doubled as a DJ booth and mirror ball.
Q 23Which devilish alter ego did Bono adopt for Zoo TV encores in 1993?
MacPhisto
Mirror Ball Man had filled the encore role in 1992.
Q 14Where was The Unforgettable Fire partly recorded?
Slane Castle
The album marked a major change to a rich, orchestrated, atmospheric style.
Q 15Where did U2 play Live Aid on 13 July 1985?
Wembley
Rolling Stone had called them the "Band of the '80s" that March.
Q 16Which Joshua Tree single, along with "With or Without You", is one of U2's only two US number ones?
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
The album has sold 25 million copies and was their first US number one album.
Q 17Which photographer shot The Joshua Tree's desert sleeve images with U2 in December 1986?
Anton Corbijn
The bus trip around the Mojave started at Reno and took in the ghost town of Bodie.
Q 18What were the provisional titles of The Joshua Tree?
The Desert Songs and The Two Americas
The sleeve concept was to show where the desert met civilisation.
Q 19Rattle and Hum included live recordings at which Memphis studio, birthplace of rockabilly?
Sun
The 1988 double album and film also featured collaborations with Bob Dylan and B.B. King.
Q 20In which Berlin studio did U2 begin recording Achtung Baby in October 1990?
Hansa Studios
The sessions were so fraught they nearly split the band, before a breakthrough with the song that became "One".
Q 24Which 1995 film soundtrack featured U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"?
Batman Forever
It reached number one in Australia and Ireland and number two in the UK.
Q 25In the video for Pop's lead single "Discothèque", U2 dressed as which group?
The Village People
The song hit number one in the UK, Japan and Canada.
Q 26What fruit was represented by the 40-foot mirrorball on the PopMart stage?
A lemon
The set also had a 100-foot golden arch mocking McDonald's and the world's largest LED screen.
Q 27In which city did U2 become the first major group to play after the Bosnian War, in September 1997?
Sarajevo
Three days earlier a show in Reggio Emilia drew over 150,000 people, a reported record for a one-act paying audience.
Q 28What did Bono reveal inside his jacket at the end of U2's Super Bowl XXXVI halftime show?
An American flag lining
The names of the September 11 victims were projected behind the band during the performance.
Q 29Which 2000 album did Rolling Stone call U2's "third masterpiece"?
All That You Can't Leave Behind
It was seen as a back-to-basics return to conventional rock after the 1990s experiments.
Q 30How many first-week US copies did How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sell in 2004, a band record?
840,000
It reached number one in 30 countries.