Acrobat Live

[NamelessStreets]

This will probably get moved but sod it.
One song I have never heard live is Acrobat. Ive heard how amazing it is but I have never had it. Its not even on the complete U2! Crime!

Is anyone hear kind enough to send me a decent sounding copy???? Pretty Please!

[jacobus]

yep! ACROBAT definitely one of U2s best 3 songs (others THE FLY, UTEOTW)..its a shame that mr. boner wont do this killer song.
there was a link to an ACROBAT online petition in the interference forum, but i cannot find the link again.
ACROBAT has one of the best guitar solos ever, what a song and what wonderful lyrics

[GibsonGirl]

Originally posted by NamelessStreets
This will probably get moved but sod it.
One song I have never heard live is Acrobat. Ive heard how amazing it is but I have never had it. Its not even on the complete U2! Crime!

The reason why you have never heard it played live before is because it was never played live. The only place Acrobat has ever been heard "live" was during the Hershey Stadium rehearsals. I don't have the files on me...

But yeah, Acrobat was never officially played at a concert.

[Axver]

And the worst part is, the Acrobat heard rehearsed at Hershey was only an acoustic version!

[NamelessStreets]

Oh right. For some reason I thought the played it a few times on the Zoo tour????

[gareth brown]

bastards.

[Axver]

Originally posted by NamelessStreets
Oh right. For some reason I thought the played it a few times on the Zoo tour????

Nope.

They were rehearsing it to precede Zoo Station, but never played it. It didn't even make the public rehearsal on 7 August 1992 - the recording we have is from someone outside the venue during the private rehearsal on 6 August 1992.

The rarely played AB song on ZooTV was So Cruel.

[RocknRollKitty]

They don't because they CAN'T reproduce it live in a form they'd be proud of. In 2001, they told a girl who requested it for her bday that they'd have to 'medidate in a tree for a month' to be able to play it live. They are not going to play it live, ever, so might as well stop asking and making petitions.

[Meghan]

Why can't they meditate in a tree for a month?

If they really loved us they would.

[starsgoblue]

Start climbing up that spruce, Bono

[mobvok]

Originally posted by RocknRollKitty
They don't because they CAN'T reproduce it live in a form they'd be proud of. In 2001, they told a girl who requested it for her bday that they'd have to 'medidate in a tree for a month' to be able to play it live. They are not going to play it live, ever, so might as well stop asking and making petitions.

I call bullshit on the band's excuse. They wrote the song, it's obviously not too technically complex for the band. The only reason I can see that Acrobat never got played was that U2 was too determined on an Acrobat ---> Zoo Station transition like Hershey; and they didn't want to have Zoo Station be anything but the concert opener.

From a practical standpoint, they've likely never even played Acrobat since Zoo TV so a pick-up-and-play request like Out of Control or Angel of Harlem is out of the question.

[RocknRollKitty]

Originally posted by mobvok


I call bullshit on the band's excuse. They wrote the song, it's obviously not too technically complex for the band. The only reason I can see that Acrobat never got played was that U2 was too determined on an Acrobat ---> Zoo Station transition like Hershey; and they didn't want to have Zoo Station be anything but the concert opener.

Ever consider that Bono's voice can't hit the notes the way he'd want it to sound, and he doesn't want to 'dumb it down' by lowering the octave? I think it's the same reason he doesn't do RHMT live either. Also, there are many things you can do musically in a studio that come off sounding fake and canned in concert when you have to use recordings to make up the things the band members can't play live. I admire them for not putting out a halfassed, shitty, toned down version just to say they played it live. Acrobat is a great song and it deserves better than that.

From a practical standpoint, they've likely never even played Acrobat since Zoo TV so a pick-up-and-play request like Out of Control or Angel of Harlem is out of the question.

Those are not 'pick up and play' requests. They did those on the last tour. U2 only do songs they practice. While they are great and creative, they are not natural born musicians with a gift for that sort of thing, we can't really expect it.

[Canadiens1131]

Get your Acrobat here.....
The ZooTV intro that never was....

http://s37.you sendit.com/d.aspx?id=3BOLD91ZVCOSU0FYBC3F3T4F3M

[mobvok]

Originally posted by RocknRollKitty


Ever consider that Bono's voice can't hit the notes the way he'd want it to sound, and he doesn't want to 'dumb it down' by lowering the octave? I think it's the same reason he doesn't do RHMT live either. Also, there are many things you can do musically in a studio that come off sounding fake and canned in concert when you have to use recordings to make up the things the band members can't play live. I admire them for not putting out a halfassed, shitty, toned down version just to say they played it live. Acrobat is a great song and it deserves better than that.

No, I didn't consider Bono's voice being an issue, because there's nothing in Acrobat that's exceptional. There's a few random held notes but you could easily remove them for zero total effect on the song. You can't say that about Pride's "In the NAME of love" or RHMT's...chorus, or Lemon's....entire vocal track. A comparison of Acrobat to RHMT is just silly.

Second, you seem to think that any possible live version of Acrobat will suck enormously and that's why they've never played it. It sounds great from Hershey (albeit with crappy sound quality). If they have a great version of a song but they never play it live, I can only assume there's some other factor beyond the quality of the live experience keeping it- hence my Zoo Station speculation.

Those are not 'pick up and play' requests. They did those on the last tour. U2 only do songs they practice. While they are great and creative, they are not natural born musicians with a gift for that sort of thing, we can't really expect it.

...Right, that's exactly what I meant. If I asked U2 right now if they could play Acrobat, could they do it? No, not without some rehearsal time. But if I asked U2 right now if they could play Angel of Harlem, could they do it? Very likely.

[GibsonGirl]

The only problem I could potentially see with Acrobat live is the intro. But they could change that if they really wanted to. The actual song itself is NOT difficult to reproduce live. If U2 cover bands can do it successfully, then the real thing should be able to as well.

There simply has to be another reason as to why they don't play it. I don't think it has anything to do with the difficulty of reproducing the sound of the song. They wouldn't even have to lower it down half a semitone or even an entire semitone - the album version is well within Bono's register.