Does anyone else think U2 are shíte

Seve OB wrote: »

What a night


What a show

Was it good, yeah?

Highlights?

Seve OB wrote: »

Flyover was cool


The little things did it for me

Looked cool on a clip herself showed me earlier.

Seve OB wrote: »

What a night

What a show

What a crowd.

What a mistake.

What a wanker you have for president!


All was forgiven in the end though:

When I was in secondary school (late 90s) a few of us were really into them. I liked all their albums up to that point, even POP, which objectively is a very bad album but it was different and it worked for me as an artistic statement (I was 14 when it came out). Also we could laugh at the ridiculous bits. The rot set in for me with All That You Can't Leave Behind. I remember hearing Beautiful Day for the first time on a train down to college and thinking "what the f is this?" I suppose it was a fitting time for them to bow out of my life.

Everything they've done since has been pretty meh, and I don't really have an appetite to stand around on a pitch with tens of thousands of people lying to themselves - "they still got it!".

However I'm amazed at how many posters here write them off as "sh#te". Whatever about their present decrepitude, their earlier albums made them one of the Great Bands. I'm not going to suggest this is a case of the Irish doing down their own (I've been accused of this in my assessment of truly worthless acts like the Coronas, Blizzards etc.) but I have to wonder.

jooksavage wrote: »

When I was in secondary school (late 90s) a few of us were really into them. I liked all their albums up to that point, even POP, which objectively is a very bad album but it was different and it worked for me as an artistic statement (I was 14 when it came out). Also we could laugh at the ridiculous bits. The rot set in for me with All That You Can't Leave Behind. I remember hearing Beautiful Day for the first time on a train down to college and thinking "what the f is this?" I suppose it was a fitting time for them to bow out of my life.

Interesting you should say that - I got into them in 2005 after going to their concert in Croker with my family, the only song of theirs I consciously knew at the time was City Of Blinding Lights (as in, I'd heard snatches of others obviously but I'd never really known the whole song or who the band were before CobL) and that was such an epic night that I essentially discovered U2 "backwards". The first two albums I listened to were How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and All That You Can't Leave Behind, and I sort of worked backwards from there. As a budding guitarist, Achtung Baby quickly became my favourite album - I spent literally hours and ridiculous amounts of money (well, ridiculous to a 15 year old) buying and fine tuning various effects pedals trying to see if I could reproduce that reverse flanger-wah sound in Mysterious Ways.

Because of this, I'm actually more familiar with their most recent stuff than the older stuff, though I love the older stuff just as much - but I'd consider their '09 album No Line on the Horizon to be the album I'm most emotionally connected to of theirs, and Beautiful Day is probably hands down my favourite song of all time. And in that context, I think they're epic. I wonder if there are many others who discovered them backwards, and thus aren't always subconsciously trying to relate all of their newer music back to the 80s? The change in direction and the loss of the echoey wall-of-sound guitar style was VERY much deliberate. Beautiful Day has a very brief riff towards the end (the "Touch me / take me to that other place" part) where Edge plays the jangly delayed guitar of the 80s, but apparently he had a really tough job convincing the rest of the band to let him play it that way because they were so determined to leave that sound in the past and not become repetitive.

I suppose when a band is consciously trying to sound completely different from one album to another, they'll inevitably lose some fans along the way while gaining new ones.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Interesting you should say that - I got into them in 2005 after going to their concert in Croker with my family, the only song of theirs I consciously knew at the time was City Of Blinding Lights (as in, I'd heard snatches of others obviously but I'd never really known the whole song or who the band were before CobL) and that was such an epic night that I essentially discovered U2 "backwards". The first two albums I listened to were How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and All That You Can't Leave Behind, and I sort of worked backwards from there. As a budding guitarist, Achtung Baby quickly became my favourite album - I spent literally hours and ridiculous amounts of money (well, ridiculous to a 15 year old) buying and fine tuning various effects pedals trying to see if I could reproduce that reverse flanger-wah sound in Mysterious Ways.

Because of this, I'm actually more familiar with their most recent stuff than the older stuff, though I love the older stuff just as much - but I'd consider their '09 album No Line on the Horizon to be the album I'm most emotionally connected to of theirs, and Beautiful Day is probably hands down my favourite song of all time. And in that context, I think they're epic. I wonder if there are many others who discovered them backwards, and thus aren't always subconsciously trying to relate all of their newer music back to the 80s? The change in direction and the loss of the echoey wall-of-sound guitar style was VERY much deliberate. Beautiful Day has a very brief riff towards the end (the "Touch me / take me to that other place" part) where Edge plays the jangly delayed guitar of the 80s, but apparently he had a really tough job convincing the rest of the band to let him play it that way because they were so determined to leave that sound in the past and not become repetitive.

I suppose when a band is consciously trying to sound completely different from one album to another, they'll inevitably lose some fans along the way while gaining new ones.

Well look, that's cool. I was repulsed by their stuff from ATYCLB onwards but that could have as much to do with the shift in my own tastes since then as anything else. At least they're shedding fans like me the right way: by changing things up (even if it means going places I don't care for) rather than grinding out the same ole stuff til no one cares one way or another.

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

I actually like their music, I just can't stand the sound of that wanker Bono's voice. If they had a new lead singer I'd listen to them a lot more.

On a side note, if you were to meet the band how would you greet that wanker in the hat?

"Hello The Edge" perhaps?

bit of an oxymoron that isn't it?

those 2 **** write and compose some pretty good music. :rolleyes:

wylo wrote: »

Joshua Tree is a great album. I'd love to go but not a crazy fan enough to have been keeping track of when tickets were going on sale.

Anyone paying out silly money in TWENTY17 to see a band that last had a decent album back in NINETEEN86 needs their head checked. They may have serious unresolved nostalgia issues stopping them moving on with life. I'm not a pro shrink like, but I don't know any other explanation.

I like The Fly, Electrical Storm, Magnificent and Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own. Every Breaking Wave is a top tune. That's about it.

I remember working in a factory boxing iMacs during 1st year college on Saturdays. It was when they released their 80's Best of album. They played the radio over the speakers and every Saturday in September/October 1998, we had to endure 'The Sweetest Thing' every bloody hour of the 12 hour shift. The opening bars to that song still make me shudder.

zcorpian88 wrote: »

I like their stuff as far as Rattle and Hum....with the exception of Beautiful Day.

LOL

I think they're great

Was at two U2 gigs (Slane 2001, a week and a half before 9/11....the day McAteer's goal beat Holland and also the Monday night gig of their 2005 Croker Park concerts). I only take them in small doses and whilest they've done some amazing stuff, it's been increasingly sparse since Joshua Tree, but not non-existent, even since the millennium.


However, I don't particularly like Justin Bieber, or Rhianna, or many others who get big publicity when they play Dublin. I don't understand the need to start a thread about it when it's U2.

Wow, U2 are so divisive and generate such from people that it's unreal.

I have my own taste in music that finds the majority of today's popular stuff rubbish but I wouldn't get worked up about it.

The truth is that U2 are the most influential band to come out of Ireland ever and they have been good for Ireland's reputation.

Also, in the 80s and early 90s from the period of Unforgettable Fire to Achtung Baby they really were at the top of their game and their music was orignal, exciting and ground breaking. It's perfectly normal and fine that they still play from this catalogue 20-30 years later.

As for Bono, people hate him for his "preaching", success, "tax evasion" and glasses.

Truth is he pays lots of taxes in Ireland but U2, the corporate entity, are registered in The Netherlands.

I have never seen him preach about anything else but stopping world hunger, poverty, war and disease. What is wrong with that?

Despite their fame, they lead quite normal lives.

Bono is regularly seen around Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey & Killney area on the streets and in pubs etc.

Also, heard a story recently froma friend of mine who was at an acquaintance's funeral and it turned out both Bono and The Edge were there as the man was a carpenter and did regular work for them. They were at the church, low key and paying their respects like the rest.

This sort of stuff goes unheard of and people will just criticise them.

They made some pretty special stuff during the 80's but it all went downhill from the 90's.