Bono performs his life story onstage at The Ryman

Across Broadway from Bridgestone Arena where the CMA Awards were celebrating all things country Wednesday night, an entirely different show was taking over The Ryman Auditorium.

This show had no red carpet and at the request of the artist, no selfies, no TikTok posts and no video. Phones were locked in Yondr cases upon entry to ensure the performance garnered the audience's full attention.

Turns out, Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono, the front man for one of the world's biggest rock bands -- U2 -- could have read the phone book and nobody would have tuned out.

Decked out in black and armed with two simple backdrops adorned with hand-drawn sketches, white spotlights and a microphone, Bono's performance art would hold the entire audience in the palm of his hands for the better part of 90 minutes by acting out, singing and reliving his life from childhood to the early days of U2 and beyond.

The show, "Bono: Stories of Surrender, An evening of words, music and some mischief" was a one-man, live-action version of Bono's book "Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story" that in Bono's words is "the story of how Alison Stewart saved me from myself." Stewart is Bono's wife of more than 40 years.

Bono welcomed the crowd and immediately admitted he felt a little weird playing the Ryman Auditorium for the first time without his near-lifelong pals Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and The Edge.

"It feels a bit transgressive to meet you here without my bandmates, but I have their permission to meet you here tonight at the Mother Church, the Ryman Auditorium," he told the crowd.

But this was not a U2 show. The night belonged to Bono and the stories of humor, passion, truth and heartbreak that molded and shaped him from childhood to rock stardom. The book and Bono's Ryman performance dealt with everything from the untimely death of his mother Iris at a young age, his challenged relationship with his father, Bob, and how he went from a punk rock kid in Dublin to being both a massive rock star as well as an internationally influential philanthropist.

Scattered throughout the night, Bono launched into stripped-down versions of many U2 hits such as "Vertigo," "With or Without You," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," and "Pride (In the Name of Love)" backed by only a cello, harp, percussion, keyboards and some additional tracks.

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It's no mystery that Bono is an incredible front man and singer, but it became apparent Wednesday night that he is also a fantastic storyteller. His stories wove the audience through heart-wrenching moments like watching his mother die of an aneurysm at her father's funeral, to hilarious scenes of his Irish Catholic father gushing over Princess Diana.

"It was like 800 years of oppression -- GONE in eight seconds," Bono recalled, laughing.

Or the time the Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti came to the studio where U2 was recording and invited the band to play a show with him in Italy. "The Edge and I met with him, but two other grown men ran and hid from Luciano Pavarotti." Bono and The Edge turned up for the show in Italy. Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., however, did not.

As the band began to wrestle in its early years with religious convictions and collective dreams of rock stardom, Bono recalled asking "Can we not change the world, and have fun?" The band even considered a breakup over this inner struggle until their manager at the time reminded them they'd signed a contract.

Bono would go on to found "One" and "Red" both international campaigns aimed at raising public awareness and money to fight global health issues and extreme poverty. Throughout his career, he used what he calls his band's currency to meet with world leaders and raise tens of millions of dollars.

He thanked several presidents along with Sen. Bill Frist for being among those who enabled him to make a global impact throughout his career.

"Turns out," he told the crowd, "You can change the world and have fun."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: U2 frontman Bono performs his book 'Surrender' at Nashville's Ryman