Well, not that I actually expect anyone to ever really pay any attention to this, I thought I’d start this blog as a ‘News’ extension of my portfolio site. And since I think I would hate writing solely about my work (websites, flash, ect…) I thought I’d also use this as a venue for dumping anything else that might come into my mind onto the world wide web – where I’m sure it will be used against me in a court of law at some point in the future.
Anyway, for my first post I’m going to vent a bit about the U2 show I attended the other night (Sunday October 25th, 2009) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA. I could go on and on about the lack of planning on the part of the Rose Bowl – it was a nightmare – but that’s a whole other story. I’d like to just share my thoughts in general on the show itself.
In the late 80s and early 90s U2 was it for me. I loved the music, the shows, the transitions from soft spoken Bono to in-your-face Bono – hell, I even pierced my ears because Bono had pierced ears. But then nothing really evolved. The shows got bigger, the lights got brighter and that’s about it. The music took a back seat to the theater of it all. Even the albums started to become populated with songs that were written to play live in huge stadiums – they didn’t feel personal any more. And this 360 Tour seems to be the pinnacle of it all. All the chemistry the band had on stage seemed staged, every five degrees you turned your head you’d see a big sing for Blackberry, real political prisoners were turned into graphic logos and eye-less masks, and so much of the crowd seemed more interested in taking crappy video or crappy photos with their phones than actually watching the show in front of them. Again, that is a whole other story in itself.
The bottom line for me is this: U2 was and is a great band, but they need to get out of their own way and be real again – they need to evolve - they need to remember the music is the message, not the frills of a light show or the dumbing down of real social and world problems for the masses. Come back to me U2.
Well, there’s a bit of a silly rant which was all meant to lead to this. The video below proves to me that U2 still has the chops to make great music as a great band without all the B.S. that has been packaged with them. I’d love to see this U2 on tour – no spaceship, no video montages – just four guys cranking out good Rock ‘n’ Roll music.
