For 10 minutes Tom O’Leary was “living the dream.”
As the drummer for the U2 tribute band, The Joshua Tree, O’Leary was given the opportunity to play to an audience of 68,000 people during halftime of the New England Patriots’ game with the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, September 12’th at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.
The band played the classic U2 songs “Where the Streets Have No Name,” and “Beautiful Day.” The Patriots organization reached out to the band because they wanted to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with a recreation of U2’s iconic Super Bowl halftime concert at the Louisiana Superdome in 2002. As The Joshua Tree played “Beautiful Day” in one of the Gillette Stadium endzones, a list of the 9/11 victims was scrolled across the stadium’s Jumbotron video screen, similar to what was done during U2’s set on February 2nd, 2002 when the Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams.
“It was so surreal to look out at 68,000 people and see myself up on a huge video screen playing the drums,” says O’Leary a New Bedford native and resident. “It’s literally something you dream about when you start playing the drums.”
O’Leary claims that the Patriots’ organization“accomodated the band professionally.”
“They really took care of us,” he says. “They gave each member of the band a Patriots’ jersey with ‘The Joshua Tree’ printed on the back. I didn’t take mine off for three days.”
“There were a lot of people who came up to us after the game who recognized us from our images on the Jumbotron,” he says. “I saw people who I hadn’t seen for years who happened to be at the game – teachers and classmates from high school who were calling me up and telling me they recognized me on the video screen.”
O’Leary has been a member of The Joshua Tree for about a year, joining the fold during the down days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Joshua Tree has been performing for 20 years, playing throughout the nation and abroad. Before the pandemic they were playing between 80 and 100 shows a year. The four members of the group also comprise the Tom Petty tribute band, Rebels. O’Leary is also a member of the local pop rock group, The J Kelley Band.
The singer for The Joshua Tree is Mike Golarz, an East Bridgewater resident who has previously lived in New Bedford. He has been with the group since it formed.
“It’s been a lot of hard work and grinding for 20 years, but we’ve built a recognizable name for ourselves,” Golarz says. “It was cool to have some of the Patriots’ players and coaches recognize us. It was cool for me to see a bunch of famous players and sports talk show hosts I listen to everyday on the radio.”
The Joshua Tree did a soundcheck for the performance on the Friday before the game as the players went through their practice routines.
“It was an honor to do that show, given the enormity of the anniversary,” Golarz says. “There were 68,000 people in the stadium so I was concentrating on playing to the people who were around us, thinking that if I was entertaining them I would probably be entertaining everybody.”
In 2005 The Joshua Tree landed a high-profile gig performing at The TD Garden in Boston during Boston Bruins games. They would perform “Where the Streets Have No Name” as the Bruins took to the ice, also playing between periods as well as doing a 45-minute set after the game was finished. They were the second band to ever play at a Bruins game – the first band to play the event was Godsmack. For two years the Garden would play a recorded version of The Joshua Tree’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” as the Bruins’ players came out of the locker room for pre-game warm ups.
In addition to O’Leary and Golarz, The Joshua Tree includes guitarist Mike Courcy of Wareham, MA, and bassist Joe Wilson of Rye, New Hampshire. The group’s next local performance is on October 10th at The Chicken Box in Nantucket.
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