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Bono and The Edge onstage on U2's current 360° Tour (© A3464 Rainer Jensen/dpa/Corbis)

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How long does it take for you and Edge to be in sync? How long is the rehearsal process between the two of you?

"It can take several weeks. And things change while we're on tour. Certain songs come and go. The good thing is, I've been with him for so long, so there's a history between us. We have a shorthand."

Take me through the amp setup you have here.

"Well, of course we have the main AC30 from '64. Can't do a show without that. Then we have a '58 Fender Deluxe with a Vox speaker and a '57 Deluxe with a Jensen speaker. From there we go to a mid-'50s Fender Harvard - a very rare amp, by the way, and it sounds fantastic - and I put a Vox speaker in that. Plus, we have some early '70s Vox amps as backups."

The heartbeat of Edge's sound, his 1964 Vox AC30TB. Photo: Joe Bosso

But the main star amp-wise is the '64 AC30.

"Absolutely. It's the basis for The Edge's sound, live and in the studio - well, aside from what's in his head and his hands and just the magic he brings to what he does."

Let's go through some specifics of the amp. It's what's known as an 'AC30TB.'

"That's right, it's a 'Top Boost.' The chassis is 1964 but it's housed in a 1970s cabinet - this I how the amp came when Edge originally purchased it. The speakers are a Jensen Blue Alnico 12" from the '60s and a Silver Jensen Alnico 12". I replaced a Blue Alnico in early 1986 for the Silver Jensen because the blue one blew out and that's what I had in the U2 Dublin storage as a replacement."

Could Edge tell the difference between the two speakers?

"Totally. He knows any kind of change I make to that amp. Nothing gets by him. Luckily, he likes the speaker combination, so we stuck with it."

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