11/12 May 2013 (Days 131 & 132) – My Dilemma That Is U2

The weekend afforded a chance to recharge, catch up on a few DVDs, muse on why John Cusack chose to appear in something as unintentionally funny as the end of the world disaster movie, 2012 and attend the footy.  For the most part my pre game optimism was well placed.  The Dogs really took it up to North for most of the match before falling away badly in the last quarter – effects of the travel to and from Perth? -  before losing by an undeserved 50 points. 

(The PA at Etihad Stadium was hard to pick up on Saturday which made identifying tracks difficult and, during breaks, impossible.  The pre game tracks I heard were:

1.       Coldplay – Speed Of Sound
2.       Bruno Mars – Brand New Day
3.       The Black Keys – Lonely Boy)

Sunday was probably the last of the warm weekend days we can expect before Winter sets in and but are ability to hit the Botanical Gardens was hit by a charity fun run/walk around it that made parking anywhere near it impossible.  Then it was back home for more DVD’s.

One of these was music related and it caused me to muse about one of the great mysteries of my music life.  I have every U2 album, most of their concert DVDs and seen them on four different tours of Australia…….and yet, I cannot definitely say that I love the band.  I haven’t felt the need to buy their collector’s editions of their albums, have never been in rush to get concert tickets (except for their very first tour way back in 1984) and I’ve bought the concert DVDs usually years after their release.  The only exception to the latter has been the DVD of their most recent 360⁰ Tour only to be disappointed by the band’s performance.

But U2 are a band that I respect and value highly.  They have been responsible for a few classic albums (most definitely in my book, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and All That You Can Leave Behind), back up their beliefs with a commitment to genuine action and have always been passionate, charismatic performers live.  And that’s before you factor in the elaborate staging of just about every one of their tours from ZooTV onwards which is more than worth the price admission alone.   

Not only that, but they have accomplished this with what might be termed modest ingredients.  The only truly elite band member in their number is Bono, unquestionably one of the great front men rock has ever produced.  The Edge is a reasonable guitarist who, I suspect, has never really flexed the true extent of his abilities on record and the rhythm section is solid but called upon to do little more.  In other words, U2 is a classic case of a band that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts.   

So How to explain this? I suspect it goes back to their catalogue.  Only three classic albums (and my view about All That You Can Leave Behind does change from time to time) isn’t a great return.  Although their debut Boy was extremely promising, Zoopropa a solid, experimental effort and War just short of classic status, but there have been a number of less than impressive albums.  October was less than adequate, although I know there are reasons explaining this.  The “I love the USA” songs on Rattle And Hum seriously disrupted the flow of that album, Pop was an intriguing though ambitious failure and, however, much I play them, can barely remember more than a couple of tracks from each of the last two albums.  Plus, I’ve never been that much of a fan of the great reinvention album Actung Baby.   Although it has a number of great tracks (especially Zoo Station and The Fly), I’ve never felt that it represented as great a change in direction as has been claimed.  Mysterious Ways, One and Even Better Than The Real Thing, for example, all strike me as “traditional” U2 numbers  - in construction not all that differenet to those that were to appear on Behind - simply dressed up in different clothes.  Zooropa is much more of an experimental album than its predecessor but never seems to have been promoted or hailed as such. 

Having said all of that, I was tremendously impressed by recent 360⁰ Tour performance I saw at Etihad Stadium a couple of years back.  The amount of passion the band put into their performance was really impressive and this one factor alone more than justifies their continued existence.  It was also something I also spotted on my only viewing over the weekend:

(Audio Visual 8) U2 – Go Home Live From Slane Castle Ireland (2001/released 2003)

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of too many live performance DVDs where the act performs in or near their home base. This is an exception, taken from the tour supporting All That You Can’t Leave Behind.   The setting is an impressive one with about 80,000 fans neatly set out in what appears to be a natural amphitheatre at the base of the castle.   The set list is pretty close to a U2 Greatest Hits and the energy never flags from the natural feeling opening of Elevation and Beautiful Day.  A combination of New Year’s Day, Boy’s Out Of Control and Sunday Bloody Sunday, maintains the momentum only for a lame version of Angel Of Angel to eventually interrupt the natural flow of proceedings. The run home and encores – Where The Streets Have No Name, Pride, Bullet The Blue Sky, With Or Without You, One and Walk On is flawless.   Most importantly, by performing on a bare bones stage without the extravagant stage set that was the norm for tours before and since, U2 convincingly demonstrates that it is their music that is responsible for the large crowds that continue to flock to their shows,

By the time the DVD has ended, I experience the same sort of sensation as I did after the Etihad Stadium gig.  It’s a sense of wonder mixed by a reminder of the number of great individual songs the band can rely on over the course of a long uninterrupted career.

Who knows, maybe its love after all.