Bono's talk-singing live

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LemonMirrorSky

War Child
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Was just watching the Rose Bowl dvd and I realized that I really cannot stand that talk-singing habit of his!

The show starts with Boots, which in itself is a pretty awful song just like its older cousin Vertigo but Bono manages to ruin it even further by practically rapping thru the whole thing.

Next is Magnificent which I quite enjoyed. See, cos he is singing! Not talking.
Plus, it's a much better song!

Next, Mysterious Ways is the worst offender! The album version is eons better than this crap. If it weren't for those lovely extended solos in those older live versions, I probably would never bother listening to any live version of this song ever.

Then, on Beautiful Day again he starts talking when it comes to "See the world in green and blue..."

Ugh! It just sounds so lazy. I don't mind singers changing things a bit in a live setting but Bono, when he talk-sings it sounds like he is butchering the album version! :crack:

Anyone agree? :p
 
Was just watching the Rose Bowl dvd and I realized that I really cannot stand that talk-singing habit of his!

The show starts with Boots, which in itself is a pretty awful song just like its older cousin Vertigo but Bono manages to ruin it even further by practically rapping thru the whole thing.

Next is Magnificent which I quite enjoyed. See, cos he is singing! Not talking. * SPOILER *

Next, Mysterious Ways is the worst offender! The album version is eons better than this crap. If it weren't for those lovely extended solos in those older live versions, I probably would never bother listening to any live version of this song ever.

Then, on Beautiful Day again he starts talking when it comes to "See the world in green and blue..."

Ugh! It just sounds so lazy. I don't mind singers changing things a bit in a live setting but Bono, when he talk-sings it sounds like he is butchering the album version! :crack:

Anyone agree? :p

Yes. I do.
 
Oh yes, it's awful when he does that. It ruins the Rose Bowl dvd for me. He does it way too much, going through the motions. Sing like you mean it or just don't play that particular song. With or Without You is another example. That song, once so majestic, is totally ruined by Bono's laziness.
 
God yes.

WOWY has been absolute shite for years because of it. Vertigo on 360? What the fack man, it completely got all the life sucked out of it. :doh:

And UTEOTW with the snippet talk/singing in the middle, way to kill the buzz.
 
One of many reasons why 360 is by far my least favourite tour.
 
Is it my imagination or did the shows toward the end of the 360 tour have less of this "talking the song" stuff? I remember very little of that going on at the East Rutherford show. (Which happened to jump into my top 3 or 4 shows out of the roughly 30 times I've seen them because they simply blew our fucking faces off). The shows in 2009 I remember a more plodding pace along with talking the songs.
 
Don't forget Bono may have been in some possibly bad degree of back pain in the first part of the 360 tour, which would no doubt effect breathing and singing. If the surgery did what it was supposed to, then his state of mind and health and therefore breathing and singing would have greatly improved on the later part of the tour.
 
Is it my imagination or did the shows toward the end of the 360 tour have less of this "talking the song" stuff? I remember very little of that going on at the East Rutherford show. (Which happened to jump into my top 3 or 4 shows out of the roughly 30 times I've seen them because they simply blew our fucking faces off). The shows in 2009 I remember a more plodding pace along with talking the songs.

agreed. i've seen them 41 times, and that was one of the best shows. hottest day of the year (though it was oppressively hot and humid in Baltimore '11 as well), and bono was noticeably fatigued, but the show just kicked ass.
 
I'm glad to see many fans agree with me on this. It is such a buzzkill and the band Bono needs to realize this!

Is it my imagination or did the shows toward the end of the 360 tour have less of this "talking the song" stuff? I remember very little of that going on at the East Rutherford show.

Yea I think you may be right. I saw them much later on the 360 tour and I don't remember much talk-singing that night.
 
Don't forget Bono may have been in some possibly bad degree of back pain in the first part of the 360 tour, which would no doubt effect breathing and singing. If the surgery did what it was supposed to, then his state of mind and health and therefore breathing and singing would have greatly improved on the later part of the tour.

Not sure about that, the vocals seemed more than fine to me during the early parts of the tour.

About the "talking": Sometimes I didn't like it, sometimes I did. It didn't "ruin" anything for me. Bono seems to be improvisiing here, I don't think it's because he's a lazy singer. I like some of the rap parts that extended certain songs live, but generally I do prefer singing and don't really like spoken lyrics with a few exceptions.

However, I think some are overreacting. I would never claim that a thing like Bono talking in a few songs would ruin a concert experience for me. In fact, I can't even remember him doing that when I saw them because I was so lost in the moment when I was at a show. I think it's sad people are sometimes over-analyzing stuff. When I listen back to concerts with one of the bootlegs I sometimes realize stuff I didn't remember personally, but the whole concert experience can never be destroyed or taken from me, even though I witnessed some really bad fuck-ups from all the band members occassionally.
 
Not sure about that, the vocals seemed more than fine to me during the early parts of the tour.

Well of course what I meant is that it is bound to affect him some times, not all the time maybe, but possibly sometimes. So yeah there will be good nights and bad nights. It's just something to consider when people make these type of complaints. Considering what he had to finally do, I think it would be silly to say that there's no way his singing wasn't affected in some way, and yeah negatively, by the type of pain and restriction that type of injury would cause.
 
I think some are overreacting. I would never claim that a thing like Bono talking in a few songs would ruin a concert experience for me. In fact, I can't even remember him doing that when I saw them because I was so lost in the moment when I was at a show. I think it's sad people are sometimes over-analyzing stuff.

Look, I'm not saying that the whole concert experience is ruined because of this. Of course the concert atmosphere and excitement all stay in your mind a lot more than something like this. I'm actually talking more about while watching a dvd at home kinda thing... When I was watching the Rose Bowl dvd, the talk-singing thing was a serious buzzkill.

And they always always ruin Mysterious Ways. It is never as good as on the album. :( In fact, there are a good handful of songs that I actually prefer the studio versions of, just because of this talk-singing.
 
Is it my imagination or did the shows toward the end of the 360 tour have less of this "talking the song" stuff? I remember very little of that going on at the East Rutherford show. (Which happened to jump into my top 3 or 4 shows out of the roughly 30 times I've seen them because they simply blew our fucking faces off). The shows in 2009 I remember a more plodding pace along with talking the songs.

That's definitely true. :) The 2011 shows I saw were amazing, the 2010 shows were brilliant too. Just 2009 wasn't all that great in my experience. I was wildly underwhelmed. :D But thankfully the other shows made up for that. Only pet peeve I still hated was UTEOTW. Just shut up and sing the bridge Bono! :fist:
 
Look, I'm not saying that the whole concert experience is ruined because of this. Of course the concert atmosphere and excitement all stay in your mind a lot more than something like this. I'm actually talking more about while watching a dvd at home kinda thing... When I was watching the Rose Bowl dvd, the talk-singing thing was a serious buzzkill.
:up: It's the main reason why I think the Rose Bowl dvd is just mediocre. It includes some good/all right performances, but especially the talking-singing in Mysterious Ways, Beautiful Day and With Or Without You are cringeworthy.
 
If we survived Sarajevo vocals, a little talking won't kill us.

And UTEOTW should not be the offender; he practically speaks/half mumbles it on the album already, except the ending.
 
If we survived Sarajevo vocals, a little talking won't kill us.

Two completely different situations. Sarajevo was an emotional performance. He fought very hard trying to belt out those vocals, and the result was weirdly poignant, as it was a very emotional night and the band simply killed it (especially with Edge stepping up with his vocals). Unlike that concert, where Bono gave his all despite his voice being shot, there are tons of lazy and bored vocals on the 360 concerts where he was in a situation where he could invest more into the songs. But I guess this stuff happens when you sing the same songs for 10 or 20+ years.

And UTEOTW should not be the offender; he practically speaks/half mumbles it on the album already, except the ending.

Singing in a lower register does not equal "speaking".
 
Two completely different situations. Sarajevo was an emotional performance. He fought very hard trying to belt out those vocals, and the result was weirdly poignant, as it was a very emotional night and the band simply killed it (especially with Edge stepping up with his vocals). Unlike that concert, where Bono gave his all despite his voice being shot, there are tons of lazy and bored vocals on the 360 concerts where he was in a situation where he could invest more into the songs. But I guess this stuff happens when you sing the same songs for 10 or 20+ years.



Singing in a lower register does not equal "speaking".

That. I really don't get how these things have anything to do with him lazying off live lately.
 
True. Sarajevo killed "it" - Bono's vocals, namely.
But hey, here he is about 15 years older and Edge doesn't need to step in like that.

Given how he used to sing in that era, UTEOTW would qualify as talk/singing. WOWY, the other offender (like several 80's songs), hasn't been done right since Zoo TV. 360 is no exception. But 360 has the excuse of Bono going through Ultraviolet and MOS so he "lazied it out" on WOWY to save the vocals.
 
True. Sarajevo killed "it" - Bono's vocals, namely.

Given how he used to sing in that era, UTEOTW would qualify as talk/singing.

I said the band killed it and not Sarajevo, maybe you didn't read it right. Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cities don't kill vocals.

He sings in a number of Achtung Baby songs in a lower register. It doesn't qualify as talking and this style of singing has absolutely nothing to do with the examples that the OP was talking about.
 
Yes there is an obvious difference between say, the album version of UTEOTW... "Haven't seen you in quite a while..." where he is singing in a low register vs. the live version of Mysterious Ways... "Johnny take a walk.... sister in the rain... " where he is barely singing, just throwing out words.
 
But Cedars I would say is more of singing in a low register than talking. And besides, Cedars is both lyrically and musically brilliant... albeit a bit un-exciting overall. IMO :)
 
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