It’s become so easy, of late, to think of U2 in international-corporation terms that it’s weirdly surprising to imagine them as human beings who listen to music sometimes. But in a new Rolling Stone story, both Bono and the Edge have a few words on younger bands. Bono, for instance, is all the way into Baltimore synthpop weirdos Future Islands, which means Bono has good taste: “Have you seen them? That song, ‘Seasons’? A miracle, that is.” Yes, Bono! Yes, it is! I can’t wait for “The Miracle (Of Samuel T. Herring)” to open the next U2 album. Meanwhile, the Edge went to Coachella this year, and he spent enough time watching Neutral Milk Hotel to dismiss them as “strange hippie stuff.” Here’s what he says:

The band that I liked at Coachella was Cage The Elephant. Their commitment to the performance really blew so much of the other stuff away. They really did own it in a way that few other artists did. Broken Bells were great, and Skrillex’s thing was pretty cool. Pixies were on, that was good to see them. And I love Outkast. Some of the more strange hippie stuff wasn’t that great. Neutral Milk Hotel, you know them? If you were sort of one of the faithful, you could sort of get excited about it. It didn’t really have a universal appeal at all. And that might be its appeal.

(via Rolling Stone)

I’d like to formally invite the Edge to be Stereogum’s Coachella correspondent in 2015.