U2's Souvenir Suit

U2 has found what it's looking for--and wants the stuff back.

The Irish rockers are suing their former hairstylist to try and recover some gear they say she took without authorization while working on their 1987 Joshua Tree world tour.

Taking time out from the current Vertigo trek, which is conveniently playing a three-night stand in the band's hometown of Dublin, frontman Bono and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. turned up in court Tuesday to explain why Lola Cashman should be prevented from selling band memorabilia she claims was given to her.

Bono wants Cashman to return his trademark Stetson, which he sported in many of the band's classic 1980s video clips, including "With or Without You" and the 1988 concert film, Rattle and Hum. The band also wants back a sweatshirt, trousers, earrings and 200 Polaroids from the era. The cache is valued at about $6,000.

"They sound like trivial items, they're really not. They are important items to the group and we take them seriously," Bono, foregoing his usual black leather jacket for a snappy suit and tie, told the Dublin Circuit Civil Court.

The 44-year-old singer said the band's lawsuit was triggered by Cashman's attempts to auction the items in 2002. The band put the kibosh on the auction and went to court seeking return of the goods. Cashman retaliated with a defamation of character lawsuit.

"You may have wealth and power, but when someone is trying to push us around...at a certain point you have to say, 'Stop right there,' " Bono said. He also denied the band was trying to persecute Cashman because of a tell-all she published last year, Inside the Zoo with U2: My Life with the World's Biggest Rock Band.

While Cashman has insisted the band gave her the items as mementos, Bono said it wasn't the band's policy.

"The stylists would never have asked for them and the band would never have given them," he told the court. Even though the road crew grew to dislike Cashman ("Almost every single person on the tour wanted her off the tour," he said), Bono said he thought she had a good eye and tried to keep her on. She eventually left after a protracted contract renegotiation.

Particularly irksome for Bono was Cashman's attempts to sell his cowboy hat, which he deemed iconic and fit for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"It would be like the Edge giving one of his guitars away. It is not something which will happen," he said.

When Cashman's lawyer, Hugh Hartnett, tried to suggest that those statements were overblown and the band was still too early in its career to be considered iconic , Bono retorted: "Oh no, we had delusions of grandeur from the very beginning."

Cashman took the stand after Bono departed and told the judge she spent two years working for U2 in the late 1980s, overhauling the quartet's image (making it more "raunchy," per Bono's request) and helping establishing the band's look during its rise to superstardom. She said that U2 never once lodged a complaint with her regarding taking any of their possessions without their permission. She admitted shipping the souvenirs in question from Arizona to her London home.

A former assistant stylist and a wardrobe assistant also testified that they had not been given any memorabilia.

Judge Max Deery is expected to rule on July 5.

After the trio of Dublin gigs this week, U2 will be one of the headliners at Saturday's Live 8 concert in London.