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mebythesea

The Fly
Joined
Jan 29, 2002
Messages
173
So I was listening to a couple mp3s from a concert from London tv on 5/15/1982, where U2 played "Rejoice" and "With a Shout."

Bono is quite revved up for the former, screaming "rejoice" at the beginning etc.

Well, near the end of Edge's long, climactic solo before the final fade-out section, Bono slips into this very heightened, exalted mode and chants/cries out (it's hard to describe the tone - it's forceful and on a high pitch, but not "singing"):

"Can you hear me?
Open up!
LISTEN TO ME -- YOU CAN TOUCH IT! YOU CAN HAVE IT!
Rejoi - Yes!
Rejoice, in the rest of the world.
We rejoice -- Reach out, rejoice!
We rejoice, we open up --Touch it!
Rejoice, reach out, rejoice!"

I know Bono calls out "open up" to the audience a lot (on early bootlegs), along with other similar things. He also does and says all kinds of stuff which I feel sure is meant to be very gently evangelistic/ invitational (letting us watch him pray, third-person comments between songs, or little signs like hiding J33:3 on ATYCLB). Still, it strikes me that in terms of *direct address* to the audience this is one of the more explicitly evangelistic -- "You can have it!" -- *musical* moments I've heard from him.

So I'm curious -- is this pretty unique as far as others of you know? Or are there similar examples?

Or alternatively, what are some of your favorites of his onstage exhortations (mine might have to be "we're going up!!")


[This message has been edited by mebythesea (edited 04-08-2002).]
 
an intersting exaltation i noticed during I will follow in the elevation san remo concert..."let the lines disappear on my face, let the spirit descend on this place..our spirits will never grow old..."also..i noticed a different intro than usual on the oakland Nov 15 concert to streets...."Who's gonna fall in front of Thee...Who's gonna fall in front of Thee...You have my heart. You have my heart"
 
Originally posted by popsadie:
an intersting exaltation i noticed during I will follow in the elevation san remo concert..."let the lines disappear on my face, let the spirit descend on this place..our spirits will never grow old..."also..i noticed a different intro than usual on the oakland Nov 15 concert to streets...."Who's gonna fall in front of Thee...Who's gonna fall in front of Thee...You have my heart. You have my heart"

Popsadie, which parts of Elevation and Streets did Bono start saying these? I'm very interested.
smile.gif
 
Heh, your thread title brought to mind a poem by Philip Levine, You Can Have It.

My brother comes home from work
and climbs the stairs to our room.
I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop
one by one. You can have it, he says.


The moonlight streams in the window
and his unshaven face is whitened
like the face of the moon. He will sleep
long after noon and waken to find me gone.


Thirty years will pass before I remember
that moment when suddenly I knew each man
has one brother who dies when he sleeps
and sleeps when he rises to face this life,


and that together they are only one man
sharing a heart that always labors, hands
yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps
for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it?


All night at the ice plant he had fed
the chute its silvery blocks, and then I
stacked cases of orange soda for the children
of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time


with always two more waiting. We were twenty
for such a short time and always in
the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt
and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.


In 1948 in the city of Detroit, founded
by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes
of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died,
no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace,


for there was no such year, and now
that year has fallen off all the old newspapers,
calendars, doctors' appointments, bonds,
wedding certificates, drivers licenses.


The city slept. The snow turned to ice.
The ice to standing pools or rivers
racing in the gutters. Then bright grass rose
between the thousands of cracked squares,


and that grass died. I give you back 1948.
I give you back all the years from then
to the coming one. Give me back the moon
with its frail light falling across a face.


Give me back my young brother, hard
and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse
for God and burning eyes that look upon
all creation and say, You can have it.


foray
 
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