U2's Bono mourns father

Bono: Dedicated song to his father

LONDON, England -- Rock star Bono has decided to continue with a concert tour of Britain despite the death of his father from cancer.

He performed on stage in London in front of 17,000 fans just hours after leaving the hospital in Dublin where his father died following a long illness.

The lead singer with the Irish rock group U2 dedicated the song Kite to his father Bob Hewson, who was 75, before thousands of fans at the Earl's Court in London.

Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, had been flying back to Dublin on a nightly basis from the band's current Elevation 2001 tour in Britain to be with his father.

No concerts are due to be cancelled. Thursday's show at Earl's Court and Saturday's performance at Slane Castle, in Co Meath in the Irish Republic are to go ahead.

Bono was given a standing ovation as he paid tribute to his father, a retired postal worker, on stage. He said: "I want to thank my old man, my father, for giving me this voice.

"He was a fine tenor and he always said if I had his voice who knows what might have happened.

"He had been ill for one week and has gone now. He's free of all that now. This is a song I wrote for him. This is Kite."

The song was originally written for his children, but Bono told Reuters news agency it now feels "like my father wrote it about me. It's funny how things work out."