U2 rocker The Edge has plenty of reason to celebrate - he turns the big 5-0 on Monday (08Aug11).
The Irish band recently wrapped up its mammoth 360 Tour and marked the end of the 25-month trek with an all night boozing session at New York hotspot The Spotted Pig last weekend (30-31Jul11).
But the party doesn't stop there for the guitar great - The Edge will no doubt be raising a toast once more as he rocks into his 50th year.
And to mark the milestone, WENN has dug deep to find 10 fascinating facts about the man born David Howell Evans.
Happy Birthday, The Edge!
- He was born in England, his family is Welsh, and he was raised in Ireland.
- He originally joined the rock group with his brother Dik Evans, but his sibling quit the band weeks before they launched themselves as U2 in 1978.
- He split from his first wife, Aislinn O'Sullivan, in 1990, after seven years of marriage, but was unable to get divorced until 1996 - a year after it was legalised in Ireland.
- The musician takes 45 different kinds of guitars on tour with him out of his collection of 200.
- Outside of U2, he has worked with artists as varied as country legend Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, Rolling Stone's Ronnie Wood and blues icon B. B. King.
- The Edge and his bandmate Bono wrote the music and lyrics to the much-maligned musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark - the most expensive show on Broadway, costing a reported $75 million (£46.88 million) by the time it officially launched in June (11).
- A keen philanthropist, he is the co-founder of Music Rising, a charity set up in 2005 to replace musical instruments lost in Hurricane Katrina to benefit members of the local community in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- He and Bono teamed up with rap superstar Jay Z and R&B singer Rihanna in January, 2010 to record the Haiti charity single Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour) to raise funds for the earthquake relief effort.
- He featured on his own stamp in Ireland in 2002 as part of a special U2 collection.
- The Edge is a father of five - he has three grown-up daughters with his first wife, Hollie, Arran and Blue Angel, and two kids, girl Sian, born in 1997, and son Levi, born in 1999, with his second wife, dance choreographer Morleigh Steinberg.