Are U2 losing their live flexiblity?

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jick

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Many in this forum have blasted U2 for miming their TOTP and CD UK performances. But even their live performances leave a little bit to be desired. They are basically live "mimes".

I've listened to the mp3s from BBC, SNL, J.Ross and the New York show. The conclusion that can be gathered is that U2 were basically trying to reproduce note-for-note the songs as they appeared in the album (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but they failed to add extended jams, extra verses, new parts, snippets of other songs, or other things that U2 have patented through the years.

Back in the past, U2 tranformed their 5 minute studio song called Bad into a 10 minute epic. Where The Streets Have No Name was added a few "ohhs". Sunday Bloody Sunday had the extended reprise at the end. With Or Without You and One had the extra new verses at the end. Even as far as Walk On, we had the hallelujah's to end the song which made it sort of a U2 mini-epic. How can we forget "40" being the extended closer? I Still Haven't Found had snippets of Exodus during the JT Tour and then turned into Stand By Me during Zoo TV. Velvet Dress was transformed into something simple but better during POPMart. Even the live versions of Gone and Discotheque were made more interesting.

But starting with the ATYCLB promo tour, it seems U2 have lost their touch for spontaneity and flexibility. During that tour, their predominantly played songs were Beautiful Day, Stuck In A Moment, Elevation, and New York. And their versions during the promo tour didn't differ much from the Elevation Tour and they were basically the same as the album. Now with the Bomb promo tour, U2 seems to have no flexibility - playing Vertigo, Sometimes You Can't Make It, Miracle Drug, and All Because Of You similar in arrangement, length and mix as the album versions. Sure the guitar tones may be different (it is mroe metallic and sharper for the live versions of SYCMIOYO as compared to the warmer softer rounder tone of its counterpart studio version) but the notes still remain the same.

It also seems that all the songs off HTDAAB have real endings (no fadeouts). Perhaps U2 intentionally did this so that they will just be able to emulate the album versions. Its sad to know that U2 seems to be losing a little bit of their live looseness and spontaneity with the past few tours. I think it all really started with Zoo TV when the multimedia extravaganza had to be timed with the videos so U2 had to play their songs a certain way so that their concerts will last for the exact same length. If you look at pre-Zoo TV, U2 had much more flexibility live. And from the looks of their current live performances, it seems U2 have even lost more flexibility. It is such a pity when you consider that U2 are supposed to be the best live band.

Cheers,

J
 
I think that this is more due to the fact that they've not played the newer songs live very much. As we've seen prior to this, they get a bit more experimental as the concerts performed with the songs increase.

And by the way, just listen to the songs and appreciate them for what they are...
 
well, because it's just that, a promo tour...

to promote the new album, you want the songs to sound as muc has the album versions as possible.. o_O

and on the elevation tour, the ATYCLB songs were flexible, like on the Slane DVD, the endings of Beautiful Day.. "Beautiful GO" ... Elevation "elevation, jubilation..." ... Kite also took on a very personal form as well

o_O

IMO, the songs had much less flexibility on ZOO TV's "fly" songs
 
Comparing promo tours to actual tours isn't even worth it. The best time to hear new U2 songs live is a few weeks into a tour, after they have learned the character of the song, figured out how the audience reacts, and found snippets to add.

Not to mention they are right now trying to push album sales, not concert tickets, so they will be playing what people will be hearing when they buy the album.
 
Why not let the upcoming tour actually start before you say that U2 have lost their flexibility. Of course at this point they aren't going to add extra stuff in! They're probably just trying to make sure they actually know how to play the songs!

As for the Elevation Tour, I'd suggest you get some bootlegs/watch the official DVD's.

Beautiful Day- Boston/Slane had different endings from the album versions. Nearly all the bootlegs I have from the Elevation Tour have some variations in that song.

Elevation--A lot of different endings were added. Again, Slane/Boston both had different endings. The concert I was at in Milwaukee had a completely different ending with Bono screaming out "the world is not enough, no no it's not enought..."

Stuck--The song stayed mostly the same, but snippets were usually added to the intro; for example the Beatles "In My Life."

Kite-- Bono nearly always added in an extra verse at the end, whether it be repeating the second verse or coming up with something new.

New York-- New words added post 9-11.

In A Little While- More stripped down than the album version- Bono often added extras at the end; for example "Crazy Love" in Miami.

Walk On- Completely different ending than the studio version.
 
Beautiful Day had the extra ending (the goal is soul!). Elevation had the extra ending (elevation, soul nation. . .), and even at the Irving Plaza gig in 2000 Bono sang a snippet of that Monkee's song (I'm not your steppin' stone). New York, not played during the ATYCLB Promo tour, had a whole new solo at the end!



Yeah, these past few gigs have been pretty boring in a sense that they're exactly the same as the album, but I'm sure that the tour will give us some pretty cool live versions of the new stuff.
 
I've come to the conclusion that Jick probably takes a few bong hits before each one of his posts here :p
 
korczykp said:
well, because it's just that, a promo tour...

to promote the new album, you want the songs to sound as muc has the album versions as possible.. o_O

and on the elevation tour, the ATYCLB songs were flexible, like on the Slane DVD, the endings of Beautiful Day.. "Beautiful GO" ... Elevation "elevation, jubilation..." ... Kite also took on a very personal form as well

o_O

IMO, the songs had much less flexibility on ZOO TV's "fly" songs

Well, as I said ATYCLB promo tour and Elevation Tour versions of the songs didn't differ very much or evolve very much. So I don't see how the promo tour versions of the HTDAAB songs will improve much come tour time next year.

Cheers,

J
 
Listen to Elevation from Saturday Night Live in December 2000 and then listen to Elevation from any show May 2001 on (these are the shows I've heard the most, so I know best). Sounds like two completely different songs.

*stops feeding attention seekers*
 
I think it's much too early to consider this, to be honest.

This is in no way a go at the original poster of this thread, but there is far too much analysis going on at the moment. Let's just give the music time to breathe.
 
Uh, it seems to me that Bono is already starting to add snippets from other songs to the HTDAAB songs. He did it twice on Saturday Night Live - he added a line from The Beatles' She Loves You to the end of Vertigo and a couple of lines from another song (I can't remember whose song it was at the moment, I think it was mentioned in another thread somewhere) to SYCMIOYO. OK, it isn't much, but they are just starting to get a feel for the new material. Give them time.
 
jick said:


Well, as I said ATYCLB promo tour and Elevation Tour versions of the songs didn't differ very much or evolve very much. So I don't see how the promo tour versions of the HTDAAB songs will improve much come tour time next year.

Cheers,

J

and I said the complete opposite and don't see how they won't improve o_O
 
As the tour goes along, and the songs get rehearsed and played more they will morph into something else completely. A promo tour is a promo tour. It's not like U2 have had massive amounts of rehearsal time...so my advice is to wait.
 
I disagree, Jick. Elevation's ending definitely has extra lyrics. He usually repeats similar ending words like rejuvination, jubilation, etc. He's also sung Instant Karma and Stepping Stone at the end of Elevation.

He's already added the song No Regrets at the end of SYCMIOYO (from SNL and Jonathan Ross). He's also lost the word love after reason is on our side of Miracle Drug.

And these are just the promo tours! I'm sure they will evolve once the tour starts.
 
I think we all have to concede that post-1990 U2 has been much less spontaneous, though I feel much of this was due to the restrictions of technology. Back in the eighties, U2 really experimented with their live songs. Bad could be 8 minutes long one night and 15 the next. Surrender could be 5 or 10, 11 O'clock Tick Tock could have a third solo (4 November 1981 is a case in point), 40 almost made it to the 17 minute mark one night, Desire occasionally had an extra Edge solo at the end, and so on.

Since ZooTV, U2's songs have, for the most part, been roughly the same length. I still enjoy all the bootlegs, but it's rather sad really. Takes out quite a bit of the interest because many renditions, night after night, are quite similar, while two Lovetown gigs could have a lot of differences.

I think jick might have a point here.
 
I think songs have not been as long in the latter tours because there are more songs to play. In the beginning, U2 had less songs to choose from and so would either play their songs longer (with a lot of freestyle extensions) or play certain songs multiple times. A third option would also be covering songs.

These days, they are hard-pressed to find room for newer songs.
 
What is your point?

This has always been the case where they have went with a concept of how a song should sound live and they have stayed with it. The only things that the band usually change live is if they are unsatisified with the album version and I dont see that being the case with this album.

The band has said many many times in the past that they dont change the show for different cities or performances...if you go to a U2 show you get generally the same show night after night.
 
Jick, last time I encountered you it was on Wire. At that time you had yet to SEE them live. This is not a put down to you but until you actually SEE them live in front of you....it's hard to speak about how they will sound on tour. You can listen to a bootleg of a concert and let me tell you from personal experience it is NEVER as good as the actual show. The energy you get from the crowd and from the actual band is about 75% of the show. Until you've actually seen them I don't think it's fair to judge their live ablitites.
 
IIRC, Bono adlibbed a couple of lines during City Of Blinding Lights at the Brooklyn Bridge show, but I can't remember what they were, or even if they were on COBL.
 
Lisa71 said:
This is not a put down to you but until you actually SEE them live in front of you....it's hard to speak about how they will sound on tour. You can listen to a bootleg of a concert and let me tell you from personal experience it is NEVER as good as the actual show. The energy you get from the crowd and from the actual band is about 75% of the show. Until you've actually seen them I don't think it's fair to judge their live ablitites.

I completely agree. If you have yet to see U2 live, jick, then quite frankly it's a little foolish to speak of their live abilities with such criticism.

As has already been pointed, Bono has added snippets to the songs in the promos (also, U2 mimed their ATYCLB-promo TOTP performance as well). And I can guarantee you that Bono will add snippets, extended verses, and various other bits to the songs during the tour. That's a given.
 
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No.

Compare the amount of ATYCLB songs played on the promo tour - 4 (BD, Elevation, Stuck, NY) - and the amount of HTDAAB songs played on the promo tour so far - 6 (Vertigo, ABOY, MD, COBL, OOTS, Sometimes). Not to mention the song order has been played with, too.

The songs will no doubt evolve on tour, Bono already has a snippet on Sometimes... ending.

As for ATYCLB promo, I think only Stuck in a moment is really similar - and even that song got snippets. BD got the goal is soul ending, Elevation got a different ending to the album version (also, compare the Irving plaza intro of that song to the tour version), and New York got new lyrics after 9/11.
 
Axver said:
I think we all have to concede that post-1990 U2 has been much less spontaneous, though I feel much of this was due to the restrictions of technology. Back in the eighties, U2 really experimented with their live songs. Bad could be 8 minutes long one night and 15 the next. Surrender could be 5 or 10, 11 O'clock Tick Tock could have a third solo (4 November 1981 is a case in point), 40 almost made it to the 17 minute mark one night, Desire occasionally had an extra Edge solo at the end, and so on.

Since ZooTV, U2's songs have, for the most part, been roughly the same length. I still enjoy all the bootlegs, but it's rather sad really. Takes out quite a bit of the interest because many renditions, night after night, are quite similar, while two Lovetown gigs could have a lot of differences.

I think jick might have a point here.

U2 now has all the members with ear pieces that have a "click track" to cue them in on the tempo of the song. And since their songs have to be synchronized with the click tracks and the sequencers and backstage musicians, their flexibility is greatly limited now.

Sure Bono still adlibs and he doesn't adlib the same every night. Edge may add a few notes here or there. But the song length and tempo still remains the same thanks to their click tracks and time constraints due to their multimedia show.

But gone are the days of doing something as great and as spontaneous as Live Aid.

Cheers,

J
 
ADecentMelody said:
I think songs have not been as long in the latter tours because there are more songs to play. In the beginning, U2 had less songs to choose from and so would either play their songs longer (with a lot of freestyle extensions) or play certain songs multiple times. A third option would also be covering songs.

These days, they are hard-pressed to find room for newer songs.

True, U2 once had a far smaller pool of songs to select live tunes from, but by JT/Lovetown, they had already scrapped many songs (UF --> JT saw the first big removal of songs, not Lovetown --> ZooTV). Their setlists haven't grown a whole lot since those days, and yet there was still plenty of variation. Essentially, the brilliant additional verse of One Tree Hill on 26 December 1989 would NEVER happen today and that's not because of setlist length. Extending a solo by a minute won't make or break a concert or make it excessively long, but U2 simply aren't going to do it now.

Jick raised the point of click tracks ... I'm not very familiar with those, but don't they just keep the tempo and can continue the song for as long as the band wish to play? I think the main cause of the lack of variation and song extension is the multimedia aspect of the tours. I wish they would return to the days of War, four men on a stage. No-one comes to see a light show, they come to see a band play music.
 
Axver said:

No-one comes to see a light show, they come to see a band play music.

Unless it's Pink Floyd!

I agree with Jicks original post. For me, seeing them for the 1st time on the last tour was fantastic - and then having both the Boston and Slane dvd's to watch was even better. For a while anyway. Recently when ive watched either of them, ive though to myself "why couldnt they of done this during that song" or "why did they play that again, when 'this' song would've been more welcomed".
The spontaneous nature of the band and, on particular Bono, probably hasnt been there since the ZOOTV days, as Popmart and Elevation had very predictable set-lists many nights, with the same style of performences. (UTEOTW/BTBS/WOWY...)

Im not saying it's totally a bad thing, just that I agree that the days of War-LiveAid-UF-JT-Lovetown performences are gone.
 
I like the way your posts generate so much,, Could it be that - wonder - is the word :wink:

I for one am not into these snippets at all. Those extra lines from other songs is nothing that gets me going. I dont mind them, but they mean nothing to me at all.
One of my friends once told me that it annoyed him that Bono always has to play up to the camera. And in reality he always does the same thing. Grab the camera, look into it and lately giving it a little headbutt during Vertigo.
Hey,,, Its Bono and i think its cool. But it seems maybe too standard for U2 now. It dosn´t leave atleast a tv performance with alot of excitement. I know excatly whats gonna happen.
BUT, i still love watching them on tv. And as someone said, then all of these rehearsed and standard parts of the shows dosn´t matter when you are at their concerts. You just love every minute of it, and it leaves you wanting even more than before the concert even started.

They are great live, and will always be great live. Regardless of the concert routine. Thankfully its a routine that works very well.
Though if i could change one thing about their concerts, then it would be to drop the snippets, and crank in an extra song.
 
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