It was a good night for the rock group U2 at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Wednesday night. The Irish band won five Grammys, including the key awards of Album and Song of the Year. Mike O'Sullivan was backstage and reports the evening also marked a comeback for singer Mariah Carey.
U2 awards include Album of the Year for their recording How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. The group also won Song of the Year - a songwriting award - for their single "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own."
Their cut "City of Blinding Lights" was named Best Rock Song.
The group Green Day won the Grammy for Record of the Year for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."
And Mariah Carey won her first Grammy since 1990. This year, she had been nominated for eight and lost in three key categories, but her three wins cemented her comeback after a career slump. She won for Best Contemporary R& B Album, Best Female R & B Performance and Best R & B Song for her single "We Belong Together."
Kelly Clarkson won two Grammys, for Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Female Pop Performance for her song "Since U Been Gone." Clarkson broke into the music business as winner of the nationwide TV show, American Idol.
As she went onstage to accept her awards, she was overcome with emotion and said she could not keep from crying. She also performed at the star-studded event and talked about her experience backstage.
"My big win was performing, so being able to perform in front of people like Paul McCartney and Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen and all these people I admire. It was amazing," she said.
Singer John Legend won three Grammys, including Best Male R & B Performance for "Ordinary People."
Legend was also named best new artist. Backstage, he said he is not really a newcomer.
"Nobody's a newcomer. Anybody's who wins best new artist is only new to the general public," he said. "They always work a lot beforehand to get a record deal, to get the album out. That's a long struggle."
Rapper Kanye West won three Grammys, including Best Rap Album for his record Late Registration and Best Rap Solo for the single "Gold Digger."
Stevie Wonder will go home with two awards, including one for Best Male Pop Performance for the song "From the Bottom of My Heart." In a poignant moment, he and Alicia Keys did a short impromptu performance of Wonder's "Higher Ground" to honor the late civil rights figure Coretta Scott King. The widow of the late Martin Luther King Jr., she was buried Tuesday.
