HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Kenneth MacLellan
2005.10
Snoop Dogg? Madonna? Pink Floyd? Pete Doherty and Elton John? What was your defining moment of Live 8?
Twenty years earlier, after Live Aid, people asked much the same thing and two performances were almost unanimous in being cited as rousing highlights—U2 and Queen.
Although very different from one another, both were as brilliant as the sunshine on the day of the event. Queen had its time, had its power, and Live Aid proved to be its finest quarter-hour, re-establishing the band as bonafied rock royalty after a relatively lean period. By contrast, U2, less than five years on from the release of its debut album "Boy," was still an up-and-coming band, one of the more junior acts on a bill boasting the likes of The Who and David Bowie.
But U2's big music had successfully made the transition from club to hall, and from hall to arena, and few doubted that it would translate to the stadium as well. With "Pride (In the Name of Love)" reaching No. 3 in the United Kingdom and No. 33 on the US Billboard chart the previous year, it had a guaranteed show-stopper. Only technology or folly could stop a triumphant 15 minutes at Live Aid.
The band took to the stage with "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Even though the lyrics focus on past conflicts in Northern Ireland, like so many U2 songs, the song's central message of peace is universal. At Live Aid it was certainly applicable to the Ethiopian famine that inspired Bob Geldof to organize the event.
The opening lines, "I can't believe the news today/I can't close my eyes and make it go away" reflected how many felt when they saw the footage of those bony, hopeless faces; the children pot-bellied with malnutrition; the flies and dead bodies.
Instead of expressing exasperation at continuing policies of violence, the refrain of "How long must we sing this song?" found new focus, seeking out the world leaders who did nothing in the face of the crisis, who reduced compassion to the factors of an arbitrary, economic decision--one it seemed most did not even consider making.
Suitably, U2's performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was tense, aggressive. The adrenaline and nervous energy of playing to not only to 80,000 at Wembley Stadium but countless millions all over the globe watching on TV, listening on the radio, was evident in the body language and faces of the band members—particularly Bono.
He was wild-eyed and when he took the microphone from the stand, his movements were frustrated, jerky, as if the stage was caging him, impairing his ability to communicate with the audience effectively. This couldn't be further from the truth, as the reception the song received at its close proved.
"We're a band from Dublin, Ireland," said Bono, as he introduced a second song, "it's a city with some good people, some bad. This song is called 'Bad.'"
Many had been expecting to hear "New Year's Day" next. A UK top 10 hit, it would have been the more obvious choice, appeasing the casual fans, building on the momentum of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Instead the band choose to go with "Bad," at the time no more than an album track from the still-recent "The Unforgettable Fire," a song that the majority of the crowd, and world audience, would have been unfamiliar with.
Why the band opted for "Bad" over "New Year's Day" is unclear. Given that each act only had a short set, and that technical problems could scupper even the best of performances, perhaps the band felt that having a keyboard was one variable too many. Or maybe U2 felt that the theme of "Bad," of shifting away from an isolated, dislocated self, was a perfect bridge from the vehement disbelief of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the communal sing-along that its biggest hit at that point, and intended set closer, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" was sure to be.
Or maybe the band just felt that, live, "Bad" was a better representation of where it was at musically, giving a better indication of "The Unforgettable Fire" than "Pride."
The first album that U2 recorded with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanios, "The Unforgettable Fire" was a significant step in the band's creative development. If "Boy," "October" and "War" were black and white sketches, "The Unforgettable Fire" was a watercolor landscape. Layered, atmospheric and often beautiful, it was the sound of U2 growing into the band that would conquer the world with the "The Joshua Tree."
In concert, however, this new, textured U2 did not translate easily. The band was often not happy with how the songs sounded, resulting in them being re-arranged like "A Sort of Homecoming" or swiftly axed like "Indian Summer Sky." And although U2 came to be able to replicate the title track and "MLK," the true exception to the rule was "Bad."
At Live Aid, as it had throughout tour, the opening guitar lines of "Bad" glimmered and sparkled like flash bulbs. Mellow and spacey, it allowed many in the crowd to get their breath back after the intensity of "Sunday Bloody Sunday."
"Bad" built steadily. Over Edge's guitar, Bono sang with his eyes closed, losing himself in the song. Then Larry Mullen Jr.'s kick-drum came in at the end of the first verse. Then the full drums, accompanied by Adam Clayton's bass. Larry, Adam and The Edge grooved along like Bono, becoming the embodiment of their roles as "Bad" continued to increase in force and tempo and volume, before pulling back, slackening, as it reached the "I'm not sleeping" line.
Then there was another surge in intensity. The Edge's guitar hauled the song from chord to chord and back again. Then Bono sang; "Isolation/Desolation/In Temptation/Revelation/Isolation/Desolation/Let it go/And not fade/Fade, fade away."
And then, shortly afterwards, Bono disappeared from the stage.
Inspired by classic rabble-rouser Iggy Pop, Bono had always tried to break down the metaphoric barriers between audience and performer to fully communicate with crowd. He had employed various ways of doing this—going into the audience himself, plucking out a girl to slow dance with, clambering over PA systems, climbing up scaffolding and sometimes crawling across the top of the stage.
The spectacle lead to many memorable performances and helped the band pick up fans in its early years of small gigs and support slots. However, it had also been the subject of many post-show inquests, with Bono chastised for his impulsive and often reckless behavior. With U2 maturing into a new musical phase, it was hoped that on stage Bono would do likewise. But in the rush of performing, Bono was—and continues to be—a law unto himself.
During "Bad" at Live Aid, Bono saw a girl in the front row being crushed against the barrier. On seeing the discomfort on her face, the instinct came to him to pull her out. He watched her for a moment from the lip of the stage. The Wembley stage was high with a steep, sheer face separating it from the photographers' pit. This did not deter Bono. One leg over the rail, then the next, Bono dangled for a moment, body wriggling, before jumping down, then down again, this time onto the ground between the bottom of the stage and the barrier.
Bono beckoned the security guards to help the girl—which, eventually, they did. After being hauled over the gate, she had no sooner planted her feet on the ground than Bono embraced her. He twirled her round, gave her a kiss, took her hand and slow danced with her for a few moments. After the dance, he put his hands on the side of her head and kissed her before climbing back onto the lower part of the stage.
Although many people at Wembley saw what happened during U2's set, the television cameras managed to capture the drama of the moment for millions of viewers around the world. What they saw in Bono's actions was the spirit of Live Aid symbolized, the music community reaching out to help those in need of help, the breaking down of barriers, the coming together of fans and artists as one, the responsibility we have towards others, to reach out and not turn away--these were all aspects of Live Aid that people saw refracted through the prism of Bono's gesture.
But all Bono had done was help prevent a fan being crushed against the rail. The interpretation of the moment lies with the audience and, given that the event and bill were criticized in some quarters for using charity to self-promote, Bono's actions could have easily been interpreted as opportunistic.
Two factors prevented this perception; the first being the obvious spontaneity of the gesture and the second is a testament to Bono's unique charisma. Quite simply, no one else could have got away with it. Not McCartney. Not Bowie. Not even Freddie Mercury. If any of them had attempted something similar, the whiff of gimmick would have lingered with them long after the event's finale. With Bono, however, the gesture may have been unplanned but it was not uncharacteristic. If anything, it was the pinnacle of the type of direct contact and communication Bono had been striving to achieve since the earliest days of U2. And while the rescue is seen as a symbol of Live Aid, what is not often said is that it was also an encapsulation of Bono as an artist--and as a man--as the intervening years of campaigning and awareness raising have shown.
While all this was happening off stage, on it, The Edge, Larry and Adam were still playing "Bad," oblivious to what was going on below them, undoubtedly aware of the clock ticking down U2's set time, their feelings flitting between anxiety and anger over Bono's disappearing act.
The chance to play "Pride" had gone by the time Bono got himself back near a microphone. To compensate, he decided to snippet some cover versions into "Bad." Beside the photographer pit, he led the audience through a call-and-response rendition of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," before throwing in the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" and "Sympathy for the Devil" for good measure.
When U2 finally wrapped up "Bad" and left the stage, the song had been going for 11 minutes.
Unfortunately, history is ignorant of what was said to Bono by his bandmates and manager Paul McGuinness after U2 left the stage. It is safe to say that they did not congratulate him on single-handedly symbolizing Live Aid. Indeed, 20 years on from that day's set, the issue is still a contentious one, as a recent ITV U2 special revealed.
"Well, we might get to play the song we didn't get to do last time," said The Edge, giving Bono a look, when asked about U2's plans for Live 8.
"What I'm doing this time is I'm taking precautions," remarked Larry in the same ITV interview. "I'm taking a little tape recorder. If he [Bono] disappears, I'm pressing 'go.' If only he'd told us. If only he'd written to us."
"Poor Larry, his arms were so sore from playing that beat for so long." said The Edge.
To paraphrase a Smiths song from the same era—they can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible--as Bono suggested, when interviewed by BBC Radio 1 for the 10th anniversary of Live Aid.
"I was really bummed out," he said. "I'd thought I'd just shot the band in the head in front of a billion people."
In the weeks following the event, Bono was prone to embarking on long drives to stop himself from brooding on the matter. It was only when fan reactions began to filter back that he was able to come out of his despondency, and see that rather than shooting the band in the head, he had given its international appeal a shot in the arm.
Concrete evidence of U2's post-Live Aid sprout in stature came a year later when it performed in support of Amnesty International on the "Conspiracy of Hope" tour alongside the likes of Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Reed and Joan Baez. Many of those in attendance were there specifically to see U2. And the song they wanted to hear the most? "Bad."
That year Bono visited Ethiopia for himself and the trip had a profound effect, not only influencing the lyrical tone of the band's next album, "The Joshua Tree," but also instilling a conscience over the condition of the continent as a whole. This conscience has been with Bono ever since, coming to the fore in recent years with the Drop the Debt, DATA and other campaigns, each of them endeavoring to help the continent stand on its own two feet and not be reliant on Live Aid-style charity in the 21st century.
The year following Live Aid, 1986, was also the year that Freddie Mercury bowed out of live performance, the grip of HIV/AIDS too strong for there to be any more shows after Queen returned from a three-year hiatus with 1989's "Miracle." One of the final flourishes from one of rock's most gifted frontman, Mercury's unfortunate, untimely demise in 1991 is unquestionably a factor in why Queen's Live Aid set is now seen as the ultimate performance from that day, beating U2 into second place. But this would be the last time U2 would be runners-up to anyone. The release of "The Joshua Tree" would see the band capture the crown of Biggest Band in the World—a title it still holds tightly to this day.
When Robbie Williams came on stage to the tom-tom-snare of "We Will Rock You" at Live 8, he brought to mind Mercury, the great dame in white vest and black eyeliner, leading Queen, and the crowd, through that sublime set of hits and handclaps at Wembley. No one at Hyde Park attempted to recreate U2's set from that day, not even the band itself. This time it played all the songs it was supposed to and Bono left the issue of crowd safety to the security men.
But U2 has probably again defined the event for many with its sparkling rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with Paul McCartney, a performance that both opened Live 8 and set world records as a download. The key, ambassadorial role in helping secure the increase in aid for Africa. Like 20 years earlier, the band's role in proceedings will be remembered for what happened on and away from the stage.
2005.10
Snoop Dogg? Madonna? Pink Floyd? Pete Doherty and Elton John? What was your defining moment of Live 8?
Twenty years earlier, after Live Aid, people asked much the same thing and two performances were almost unanimous in being cited as rousing highlights—U2 and Queen.
Although very different from one another, both were as brilliant as the sunshine on the day of the event. Queen had its time, had its power, and Live Aid proved to be its finest quarter-hour, re-establishing the band as bonafied rock royalty after a relatively lean period. By contrast, U2, less than five years on from the release of its debut album "Boy," was still an up-and-coming band, one of the more junior acts on a bill boasting the likes of The Who and David Bowie.
But U2's big music had successfully made the transition from club to hall, and from hall to arena, and few doubted that it would translate to the stadium as well. With "Pride (In the Name of Love)" reaching No. 3 in the United Kingdom and No. 33 on the US Billboard chart the previous year, it had a guaranteed show-stopper. Only technology or folly could stop a triumphant 15 minutes at Live Aid.
The band took to the stage with "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Even though the lyrics focus on past conflicts in Northern Ireland, like so many U2 songs, the song's central message of peace is universal. At Live Aid it was certainly applicable to the Ethiopian famine that inspired Bob Geldof to organize the event.
The opening lines, "I can't believe the news today/I can't close my eyes and make it go away" reflected how many felt when they saw the footage of those bony, hopeless faces; the children pot-bellied with malnutrition; the flies and dead bodies.
Instead of expressing exasperation at continuing policies of violence, the refrain of "How long must we sing this song?" found new focus, seeking out the world leaders who did nothing in the face of the crisis, who reduced compassion to the factors of an arbitrary, economic decision--one it seemed most did not even consider making.
Suitably, U2's performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was tense, aggressive. The adrenaline and nervous energy of playing to not only to 80,000 at Wembley Stadium but countless millions all over the globe watching on TV, listening on the radio, was evident in the body language and faces of the band members—particularly Bono.
He was wild-eyed and when he took the microphone from the stand, his movements were frustrated, jerky, as if the stage was caging him, impairing his ability to communicate with the audience effectively. This couldn't be further from the truth, as the reception the song received at its close proved.
"We're a band from Dublin, Ireland," said Bono, as he introduced a second song, "it's a city with some good people, some bad. This song is called 'Bad.'"
Many had been expecting to hear "New Year's Day" next. A UK top 10 hit, it would have been the more obvious choice, appeasing the casual fans, building on the momentum of "Sunday Bloody Sunday." Instead the band choose to go with "Bad," at the time no more than an album track from the still-recent "The Unforgettable Fire," a song that the majority of the crowd, and world audience, would have been unfamiliar with.
Why the band opted for "Bad" over "New Year's Day" is unclear. Given that each act only had a short set, and that technical problems could scupper even the best of performances, perhaps the band felt that having a keyboard was one variable too many. Or maybe U2 felt that the theme of "Bad," of shifting away from an isolated, dislocated self, was a perfect bridge from the vehement disbelief of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the communal sing-along that its biggest hit at that point, and intended set closer, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" was sure to be.
Or maybe the band just felt that, live, "Bad" was a better representation of where it was at musically, giving a better indication of "The Unforgettable Fire" than "Pride."
The first album that U2 recorded with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanios, "The Unforgettable Fire" was a significant step in the band's creative development. If "Boy," "October" and "War" were black and white sketches, "The Unforgettable Fire" was a watercolor landscape. Layered, atmospheric and often beautiful, it was the sound of U2 growing into the band that would conquer the world with the "The Joshua Tree."
In concert, however, this new, textured U2 did not translate easily. The band was often not happy with how the songs sounded, resulting in them being re-arranged like "A Sort of Homecoming" or swiftly axed like "Indian Summer Sky." And although U2 came to be able to replicate the title track and "MLK," the true exception to the rule was "Bad."
At Live Aid, as it had throughout tour, the opening guitar lines of "Bad" glimmered and sparkled like flash bulbs. Mellow and spacey, it allowed many in the crowd to get their breath back after the intensity of "Sunday Bloody Sunday."
"Bad" built steadily. Over Edge's guitar, Bono sang with his eyes closed, losing himself in the song. Then Larry Mullen Jr.'s kick-drum came in at the end of the first verse. Then the full drums, accompanied by Adam Clayton's bass. Larry, Adam and The Edge grooved along like Bono, becoming the embodiment of their roles as "Bad" continued to increase in force and tempo and volume, before pulling back, slackening, as it reached the "I'm not sleeping" line.
Then there was another surge in intensity. The Edge's guitar hauled the song from chord to chord and back again. Then Bono sang; "Isolation/Desolation/In Temptation/Revelation/Isolation/Desolation/Let it go/And not fade/Fade, fade away."
And then, shortly afterwards, Bono disappeared from the stage.
Inspired by classic rabble-rouser Iggy Pop, Bono had always tried to break down the metaphoric barriers between audience and performer to fully communicate with crowd. He had employed various ways of doing this—going into the audience himself, plucking out a girl to slow dance with, clambering over PA systems, climbing up scaffolding and sometimes crawling across the top of the stage.
The spectacle lead to many memorable performances and helped the band pick up fans in its early years of small gigs and support slots. However, it had also been the subject of many post-show inquests, with Bono chastised for his impulsive and often reckless behavior. With U2 maturing into a new musical phase, it was hoped that on stage Bono would do likewise. But in the rush of performing, Bono was—and continues to be—a law unto himself.
During "Bad" at Live Aid, Bono saw a girl in the front row being crushed against the barrier. On seeing the discomfort on her face, the instinct came to him to pull her out. He watched her for a moment from the lip of the stage. The Wembley stage was high with a steep, sheer face separating it from the photographers' pit. This did not deter Bono. One leg over the rail, then the next, Bono dangled for a moment, body wriggling, before jumping down, then down again, this time onto the ground between the bottom of the stage and the barrier.
Bono beckoned the security guards to help the girl—which, eventually, they did. After being hauled over the gate, she had no sooner planted her feet on the ground than Bono embraced her. He twirled her round, gave her a kiss, took her hand and slow danced with her for a few moments. After the dance, he put his hands on the side of her head and kissed her before climbing back onto the lower part of the stage.
Although many people at Wembley saw what happened during U2's set, the television cameras managed to capture the drama of the moment for millions of viewers around the world. What they saw in Bono's actions was the spirit of Live Aid symbolized, the music community reaching out to help those in need of help, the breaking down of barriers, the coming together of fans and artists as one, the responsibility we have towards others, to reach out and not turn away--these were all aspects of Live Aid that people saw refracted through the prism of Bono's gesture.
But all Bono had done was help prevent a fan being crushed against the rail. The interpretation of the moment lies with the audience and, given that the event and bill were criticized in some quarters for using charity to self-promote, Bono's actions could have easily been interpreted as opportunistic.
Two factors prevented this perception; the first being the obvious spontaneity of the gesture and the second is a testament to Bono's unique charisma. Quite simply, no one else could have got away with it. Not McCartney. Not Bowie. Not even Freddie Mercury. If any of them had attempted something similar, the whiff of gimmick would have lingered with them long after the event's finale. With Bono, however, the gesture may have been unplanned but it was not uncharacteristic. If anything, it was the pinnacle of the type of direct contact and communication Bono had been striving to achieve since the earliest days of U2. And while the rescue is seen as a symbol of Live Aid, what is not often said is that it was also an encapsulation of Bono as an artist--and as a man--as the intervening years of campaigning and awareness raising have shown.
While all this was happening off stage, on it, The Edge, Larry and Adam were still playing "Bad," oblivious to what was going on below them, undoubtedly aware of the clock ticking down U2's set time, their feelings flitting between anxiety and anger over Bono's disappearing act.
The chance to play "Pride" had gone by the time Bono got himself back near a microphone. To compensate, he decided to snippet some cover versions into "Bad." Beside the photographer pit, he led the audience through a call-and-response rendition of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side," before throwing in the Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" and "Sympathy for the Devil" for good measure.
When U2 finally wrapped up "Bad" and left the stage, the song had been going for 11 minutes.
Unfortunately, history is ignorant of what was said to Bono by his bandmates and manager Paul McGuinness after U2 left the stage. It is safe to say that they did not congratulate him on single-handedly symbolizing Live Aid. Indeed, 20 years on from that day's set, the issue is still a contentious one, as a recent ITV U2 special revealed.
"Well, we might get to play the song we didn't get to do last time," said The Edge, giving Bono a look, when asked about U2's plans for Live 8.
"What I'm doing this time is I'm taking precautions," remarked Larry in the same ITV interview. "I'm taking a little tape recorder. If he [Bono] disappears, I'm pressing 'go.' If only he'd told us. If only he'd written to us."
"Poor Larry, his arms were so sore from playing that beat for so long." said The Edge.
To paraphrase a Smiths song from the same era—they can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible--as Bono suggested, when interviewed by BBC Radio 1 for the 10th anniversary of Live Aid.
"I was really bummed out," he said. "I'd thought I'd just shot the band in the head in front of a billion people."
In the weeks following the event, Bono was prone to embarking on long drives to stop himself from brooding on the matter. It was only when fan reactions began to filter back that he was able to come out of his despondency, and see that rather than shooting the band in the head, he had given its international appeal a shot in the arm.
Concrete evidence of U2's post-Live Aid sprout in stature came a year later when it performed in support of Amnesty International on the "Conspiracy of Hope" tour alongside the likes of Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Reed and Joan Baez. Many of those in attendance were there specifically to see U2. And the song they wanted to hear the most? "Bad."
That year Bono visited Ethiopia for himself and the trip had a profound effect, not only influencing the lyrical tone of the band's next album, "The Joshua Tree," but also instilling a conscience over the condition of the continent as a whole. This conscience has been with Bono ever since, coming to the fore in recent years with the Drop the Debt, DATA and other campaigns, each of them endeavoring to help the continent stand on its own two feet and not be reliant on Live Aid-style charity in the 21st century.
The year following Live Aid, 1986, was also the year that Freddie Mercury bowed out of live performance, the grip of HIV/AIDS too strong for there to be any more shows after Queen returned from a three-year hiatus with 1989's "Miracle." One of the final flourishes from one of rock's most gifted frontman, Mercury's unfortunate, untimely demise in 1991 is unquestionably a factor in why Queen's Live Aid set is now seen as the ultimate performance from that day, beating U2 into second place. But this would be the last time U2 would be runners-up to anyone. The release of "The Joshua Tree" would see the band capture the crown of Biggest Band in the World—a title it still holds tightly to this day.
When Robbie Williams came on stage to the tom-tom-snare of "We Will Rock You" at Live 8, he brought to mind Mercury, the great dame in white vest and black eyeliner, leading Queen, and the crowd, through that sublime set of hits and handclaps at Wembley. No one at Hyde Park attempted to recreate U2's set from that day, not even the band itself. This time it played all the songs it was supposed to and Bono left the issue of crowd safety to the security men.
But U2 has probably again defined the event for many with its sparkling rendition of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with Paul McCartney, a performance that both opened Live 8 and set world records as a download. The key, ambassadorial role in helping secure the increase in aid for Africa. Like 20 years earlier, the band's role in proceedings will be remembered for what happened on and away from the stage.
