SOE promo tour/promo activities

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I love GOOYOW and don't like AS.

I think the performance of GOOYOW in London on the MTV thing was awesome. I thought that on SNL the song was not well done. The sound was empty, I thought Edge's guitar sounded too sharp and Bono looked nervous. About Bono, I felt he looked very confident and in good shape in London but not on SNLe. On SNL his body language was talking like he was not sure "if people still loved him", and he just acted weird and insecure. The contrast with the MTV performance and even the street performance from GOOYOW is very big.

AS was a total embarrassment in my eyes. I don't like the song and there is just not much to save it. The megaphone was awful and annoying.

I really like this SOE album a lot, but feel this SNL performance was a missed opportunity.
This SNL performance together with the new Guardian 2 star review killed my mood on this cold and awful sunday (living in Belgium).

Cheers
 
That was another shocking performance of recent times..... They have really lost their way. I dont mind the album but these performances were utter rubbish, sorry lads.
 
I knew they’d go big with the Refu-Jesus thing. It’s going to be on t-shirts and posters. I’m loving the album, but that song and performance in particular is toe-curling. Can’t see how that would win new fans, or ever change anybody’s mind.
Almost as bad as that performance in France with Kygo. Almost.
 
chrissybaby said:
I knew they’d go big with the Refu-Jesus thing. It’s going to be on t-shirts and posters. I’m loving the album, but that song and performance in particular is toe-curling. Can’t see how that would win new fans, or ever change anybody’s mind.
Almost as bad as that performance in France with Kygo. Almost.
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Meh. I think that's the U2 people expect to show up at the door, honestly. At least since Bomb-era. Hell, maybe even since JT- full of bombast, loud and often grating, calling out the political sphere/zeitgeist. That's just them.

I think if they had gone on SNL and performed, say, "Love is Bigger" and "Red Flag Day" they'd have gotten mocked even harder, with people saying they'd lost their nerve or sounded like Ed Sheeran. They're the easiest target in music, honestly, and that comes with a ton of body blows. All considered, I think they've done fine promoting this album, the most seamless and direct promotion I've seen them do since ATYCLB.
 
I need to watch the performances again since I was half asleep when I saw them the first time, but they are damned if they do damned if they don’t in terms of song choices. Being on an American TV show and releasing a video for American Soul leant itself to playing it, but if you are going to play it, it will be measured similarly to Bullet on Fallon last year due the American references and you can tell it’s like night and day. Going to be that way since I could tell they’re trying to figure out how to play it live. To me GOOYOW should have been first then play The Blackout. That would have brought the house down. Will be interesting to see what the next round of performances bring.
 
Did they do any sort of interview or anything on SNL? Also didn't think the performances where as bad as many are saying and seems pretty positive on social media, each to their own
 
I think the performances last night on SNL were fine, I just find AS to be a very, very weak song. Blackout would have been a much better choice for a rocker on TV.

I think if you drop AS and YTBT from the album and add Book of Your Heart you’ve got a really strong album all the way through. I have come not to hate YTBT, but still don’t think it fits well.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
Meh, American Soul was actually a better performance than Get Out.
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I share the same opinion, despite both are in the bottom of my preferences off the whole album, specially "American Soul", but I have to admit that the latter was a frankly good performance.
Nothing spectacular or unexpected for U2's standards, but it worked quite well as a TV performance within the current zeitgeist.
 
rennowba said:
https://youtu.be/xQceLMdrZpk

https://youtu.be/efi4SCY0TA0

I really don't get the negativity about these performances. Just watched them on YouTube and I thought they were superb. The band especially Bono have there swagger back, body language says a lot. Sounded great. Get out of your own way was loads better then at the MTV awards and American soul was a superb tv performance.

Was they the two songs they should be singing, hell no but they delivered them with confidence and swagger. Really enjoyed it myself

The boys are back !!!!
Click to expand...

I thought it was great as well.
Woke up with morning, fast-forwarded through the show and loved both performances!

I mean, I would have loved it if they had played Acrobat instead... but if I let that get to me then I will never be satisfied! :wink:
 
Total car crash of a performance on SNL, embarassing... deary, deary me, what were they thinking?!

Bono looked all over the place and the megaphone just looked ridiculous.

Surely they should have rehearsed one of the other album tracks like Showman or even Little Things which they have already played on the Joshua Tree tour.

:doh:
 
Despite my opinion of the song, I can see why they'd play American Soul (it sorta lends itself to Bono's theatrics, for better or worse :p). But the performance of GOOYOW seemed, IMO, just as unremarkable as the song itself; it's a bit too "U2 by numbers." So this makes it all the more maddening due to how vastly superlative the rest of the record is compared to what they chose to play lol... I mean, I get it, you can't really have LIAWHL or Landlady fill one of those song slots, but Lights of Home? Red Flag Day? LIBTAIIW? Freakin' Blackout (tho this seems like a better alternative to American Soul)?! Guhgfgbdvbhh

Eh, so it goes... I just remember having noticeably lower expectations for SoE after listening to the one-two punch of GOOYOW and AS. Hopefully others aren't as turned off by those songs as I was [emoji14]
 
Martinuk100 said:
Total car crash of a performance on SNL, embarassing... deary, deary me, what were they thinking?!

Bono looked all over the place and the megaphone just looked ridiculous.

Surely they should have rehearsed one of the other album tracks like Showman or even Little Things which they have already played on the Joshua Tree tour.

:doh:
Click to expand...

+1. Unfortunately I totally agree
 
zoocarolina said:
I need to watch the performances again since I was half asleep when I saw them the first time, but they are damned if they do damned if they don’t in terms of song choices. Being on an American TV show and releasing a video for American Soul leant itself to playing it, but if you are going to play it, it will be measured similarly to Bullet on Fallon last year due the American references and you can tell it’s like night and day. Going to be that way since I could tell they’re trying to figure out how to play it live. To me GOOYOW should have been first then play The Blackout. That would have brought the house down. Will be interesting to see what the next round of performances bring.
Click to expand...



Watched the performances again and they were actually quite good, Get Out is U2 by the numbers, but it works well live. Hoping for the blackout at some point and then they will hopefully throw in something like red flag day and love is all we have would be great too. Either way the tour should cover almost all of the new tunes. Maybe if we get lucky all!!!!
 
chrissybaby said:
I knew they’d go big with the Refu-Jesus thing. It’s going to be on t-shirts and posters. I’m loving the album, but that song and performance in particular is toe-curling. Can’t see how that would win new fans, or ever change anybody’s mind.
Almost as bad as that performance in France with Kygo. Almost.
Click to expand...


With "refu-Jesus" you either go big or go home and they went big and that's they way to do it. Otherwise, you don't put yourself out there with that line (I don't have a problem with it but yeah, I'm not going to bat for it either).

As for the performance...I thought it was okay but in no universe was it worse than the Kygo France performance. That was just awkward and unbearable.....U2 is a live band and only half showed up and Bono lip-synced the song....so only Adam showed up.
 
I thought the performance was fine.

American Soul is a nice raucous track and Get Out ... has some nice arena anthem tones to it.

I would loved to have had a Red Flag Day/Blackout combo but oh well.

Bono seemed a little shaky on some things but I'm sure that'll get ironed out as the tour goes on.
 
I think Blackout should have been the rocker promo song over American Soul. It's way more interesting musically and has similar political undertones to AS. Sigh, a case where the band needs to get out of their own way with this song, lol.
 
Watched American Soul again this morning. Yep, still liked it. Maybe a little too much megaphone, but great energy.

Still fascinating how polarizing it was.

Get Out was a meh performance.
 
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I thought the SNL performance of AS was fine, but mostly forgettable. The megaphone wasn't necessary and could have been done without.

But damn sound mix was awful. You couldn't hardly hear Bono without the megaphone. And I couldn't even hear Adam at all. Edge's guitar was twice as loud as everything else so when he wasn't playing, the sound just fell flat.
 
I didn't notice any sound issues, but SNL performances are notorious for having questionable sound.
 
Moser said:
I thought the SNL performance of AS was fine, but mostly forgettable. The megaphone wasn't necessary and could have been done without.

But damn sound mix was awful. You couldn't hardly hear Bono without the megaphone. And I couldn't even hear Adam at all. Edge's guitar was twice as loud as everything else so when he wasn't playing, the sound just fell flat.
Click to expand...

yeah i noticed that too... awful
 
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