hardest songs to play BY instrument

[marik]

what are the hardest U2 songs to play by...

- guitar
-bass
-drums

 

[Pistol Pete]

G - Until the end of the world
B - Gone
D - Sunday B Sunday

 

[JMScoopy]

G - Until the end of the world

Really? I was thinking like Wire or most of the songs on Boy, or the Street Mission solo.

 

[GibsonGirl]

I've never really thought about this before. For guitar, I think I'd break it down into two categories - hard in terms of effects, and hard in terms of technical difficulty.

Guitar (effects) - Do You Feel Loved (intro) / Zooropa / Mofo
Guitar (technical) - Wire (too damn fast) / Love Is Blindness (live solo) / Another Time, Another Place
Bass - Mofo (for the sheer speed of it)
Drums - Rejoice / SBS

An honourable mention for the guitar would have to be The Cry/The Electric Co. Technically, it's not difficult...but it can really hurt your hand after a while. I played it a couple of times in a row last weekend and my poor palm was begging me to stop muting during The Cry.

 

[Phalanx]

Guitar: Stuck in a Moment - some of those Steve Cropper-esque licks are hard to figure to out
Bass: Gone
Drums: Streets

 

[TheEdge U2JT]

Guitar: Wire Riff.

 

[GibsonGirl]

That's three for Wire so far! When I play Wire, I have to sort of compromise and let the delay pedal do most of the work. It's difficult to play it the way it's supposed to be played. I can get it going for the first four or five bars, then my hand cramps up.

 

[lmixristhebest]

Drums - Sunday Bloody Sunday is more syncopated, but Please has a much better groove & is still a distinctively Larry part.

 

[aussiedge]

sunday bloody sunday is pretty easy on drums, as is streets

 

[ZeroDude]

sunday bloody sunday is pretty easy on drums, as is streets

Streets is a show of sheer strength and stamina it's not technically hard but boy you need to be fit.

 

[Phalanx]

Um, Streets seems basic, but when you watch Larry do it, he's got something pretty tough to keep up.

 

[i_love_adam]

Guitar: Bullet the blue sky solo?

I always thought that was a pretty un-Edge part for Edge to compose. His fingers fly more than they normally do! Very un-Edge indeed!

 

[JMScoopy]

Guitar: Bullet the blue sky solo?

I always thought that was a pretty un-Edge part for Edge to compose. His fingers fly more than they normally do! Very un-Edge indeed!

I guess you mean the live version, cause the album solo is just slide.

 

[TheEdge U2JT]

I think that the live Rattle and Hum version of In God's Country might be rough on drums just because it is so much faster than the JT version.

For guitar, the ZooTV version of the Bullet guitar solo is, in my opinion, the hardest Edge solo. I like it so much better than the origninal slide solo version.

 

[GibsonGirl]

I think that the live Rattle and Hum version of In God's Country might be rough on drums just because it is so much faster than the JT version.

I never thought of that one. I love that shot when the camera's directly over Larry and he's pounding away...it's fucking sick!

 

[Infinity]

Most of the Drums on U2 songs are easy or not that hard to play. Sunday Bloody Sunday is easy. Streets (live) requires a lot of strength. But the hardest U2 song to play on drums I can't think off the top of my head. But I will get back to you all.

 

[gareth brown]

Guitar - Another Time Another Place,
Bass - [personal opinion] i've found most of them pretty easy...
Drums - Rejoice, The Fool

 

[youtooellen]

Guitar - Wire, Mofo, Street Mission solo
Bass - Mofo, and a few others but can't think at the moment
Drums - definitely Rejoice, maybe Acrobat, and a few others

but this is an interesting thing to think about

 

[JMScoopy]

For guitar, the ZooTV version of the Bullet guitar solo is, in my opinion, the hardest Edge solo. I like it so much better than the origninal slide solo version.

Have you ever heard The Fool? That solo is harder than the live bullet solo, as is the street mission solo.
The Fool has edge's fastest guitar solo, without a doubt (except maybe for some of the God Part II from lovetown solos) and Street Mission has Edge's longest solo (a little over a minute and a half!)

 

[discotech]

Street Mission isn't that bad. its hard to remember all the different parts at first, but it's totally do-able. The Fool, however . . . i'm not even going to try

 

[ZeroDude]

I always find it supremely interesting that at age seventeen Edge was an adept pentatonic soloist but he chose to be the Edge.

That deserves a round of applause.

He chose to ignore rock clichés and that well inadvertently rocks.

 

[tommycharles]

I don't own UF, and so I haven't heard Wire, but I find New Years Day pretty difficult to figure out on the guitar.

 

[JMScoopy]

I don't own UF, and so I haven't heard Wire, but I find New Years Day pretty difficult to figure out on the guitar.

New Years Day is accually pretty easy to play if you have a good tab. I can see how it could be hard on an acoustic guitar. Of course i've been playing now for about 6 years, so almost all U2 songs are easy for me.

 

[JMScoopy]

Street Mission isn't that bad. its hard to remember all the different parts at first, but it's totally do-able. The Fool, however . . . i'm not even going to try

Now you can try!

http://forum.interference.com/t147849.html

 

[Muad'zin]

There are no U2 songs that I know off that are hard to play. Getting the right tone has always been the real bitch, but the actual playing with some good tabs isn't a problem. I'm also into blues and heavy metal and compared to that anything Edge and Adam do playingwise is peanuts. A lot of the stuff Larry does however, thats a different matter. Nor can I play the piano. I can still play the new year's day piano part, at one time I could do a decent October, but nowadays...

 

[TheEdge U2JT]

I don't own UF, and so I haven't heard Wire, but I find New Years Day pretty difficult to figure out on the guitar.

NYD is one of the many songs, along with Wire, Bad, WOWY....that, if you try to play what you are hearing you are doomed. It is a matter of playing the right part, with the right delay setting, at the right tempo. When all the pieces come together, it sounds great.

It's one of the reasons why U2 are such a tight band. When you rely on the delay as a key part of the rhythm of some songs, if they get off, the whole song suffers and sounds sloppy. I have bootlegs of it happening. Even U2 make mistakes.

Not a bash on Metal or Blues players, but many I have played with could not play to a click to save their lives. You can say Edge's parts are not the most complex, but to do it all the right way is another story.

 

[tommycharles]

NYD is one of the many songs, along with Wire, Bad, WOWY....that, if you try to play what you are hearing you are doomed. It is a matter of playing the right part, with the right delay setting, at the right

Yeah..that's probably the problem - I learn parts by ear... not by tab.

 

[liamcool]

Originally posted by GibsonGirl
That's three for Wire so far! When I play Wire, I have to sort of compromise and let the delay pedal do most of the work. It's difficult to play it the way it's supposed to be played. I can get it going for the first four or five bars, then my hand cramps up.

Strangely, I find Wire really easy to play...it was one of the easiest songs for me, actually...

Guitar - I Threw A Brick Through A Window / A Day Without Me (October/War/UF Tour version)

Bass - Gloria (slapping... )

Drums - Stranger In A Strange Land

 

[U2DMfan]

All the bass parts are easy.
Most of the guitar parts, with a good tab and adequate effects are easy.
Drums, I can't directly speak to, but my initial impression is that none of them would be unattainable by a pretty good drummer.

the big trick to U2's music is nailing down the delay and timing of Edge's guitar.

But look at it this way, if you can play U2's songs, you can play Green Day's songs, Pearl Jam songs and Radiohead songs and everyone else, there is no great divide unless you start getting into more progressive forms of music.

None of it is that hard, unless you start changing time signatures and so on....

 

[ZeroDude]

^
That's true and if we're that honest you can add The Beatles (even easier in most cases), Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Oasis, Eric Clapton, The Smiths etc. etc.

In fact even Hendrix can join that list.