Fifty years in, U2 take the full MusiCares honour

U2 have been named MusiCares’ 2027 Persons of the Year, an honour that marks half a century of recording and touring and the band’s long record of humanitarian work. The 36th annual Persons of the Year benefit gala will be held on Friday 5 February 2027 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, two nights before the 2027 Grammy Awards. The evening will centre on a star-studded tribute concert, with performers yet to be announced; for the first time MusiCares will make that part of the event open to fans through ticket sales.

Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. issued a joint statement on the news. “We are huge fans of MusiCares and the lifelines they provide across the incredible pool of talent that is the music industry. We’ve been recording and touring for 50 years because of that pool, from producers and engineers to carpenters and riggers. ‘Persons of the Year’ couldn’t be a better title as it’s the people we’ve been so fortunate to work with, and of course our indomitable audience, that have given us the opportunity to keep making music and keep rocking the boat on things we really care about. It’s such an honour, and we’re very excited to be in the front row of our first ever U2 gig… we know we’re gonna be outplayed.”

Recording Academy and MusiCares CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said the organisation was “honored to celebrate and recognize U2 as this year’s MusiCares Persons of the Year,” adding that their impact “goes far beyond the stage” and that they had been “equally exemplary in their dedication to humanitarian work and using their platform for good.” MusiCares executive director Theresa Wolters pointed to the band’s demonstration of “the extraordinary power of music to bring people together, draw attention to urgent needs and inspire action” across global health, disaster response, addiction recovery, mental health and music education. The announcement was made on 10 September 2026.

From Dublin post-punk to a fifty-year catalogue

U2 formed in Dublin in 1976 and still comprise the original four: Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. Rooted at first in post-punk, their sound has shifted across decades while retaining an anthemic core built on Bono’s vocals and the Edge’s chiming, effects-heavy guitar. Live work has always been central: the band have staged a succession of large-scale tours that match the scale of the records.

The studio run began in earnest with *Boy* in 1980, followed by *October* (1981) and *War* (1983). *The Unforgettable Fire* arrived in 1984; the live document *Under a Blood Red Sky* and the *Wide Awake In America* EP were released around the same time. Later landmarks in their catalogue stretch through the 1990s and 2000s into recent years: *Songs of Surrender* in 2023, the single *Atomic City* the same year, the *ZOO TV (Live in Dublin, 1993)* EP in 2024, the *Stories Of Surrender* EP in 2025, and *Days Of Ash* in 2026. The MusiCares citation frames that span as fifty years of music made possible by the wider working life of the industry — a point the band themselves stressed in their statement.

A second MusiCares chapter, this time for four

Bono was named MusiCares Person of the Year in 2003. The 2027 honour is the first time the full band have received the title together. That shift matches the wording of their own response: the credit, they said, belongs as much to the people they have worked with and to the audience as to the four names on the bill.

What remains open is the shape of the February night itself. Performers for the tribute have not yet been named. Ticket details for the newly public concert portion have not been set out beyond the principle that fans will be able to buy tickets. The gala sits two nights before the Grammys, which keeps the Los Angeles week tightly packed for anyone following both the awards and the benefit. For a band still releasing work in 2026 and, in their own words, still framed by the pool of talent around them, the Persons of the Year title is a career marker rather than a farewell — and a fundraiser built around the craft that has kept them on stage for five decades.