isabelle_guns said:
Interesting thread, I was just talking about this with my boyfriend. We were watching the Boston DVD and noticed his declining vocals and yes, I am very worried about it. It is one thing to be at a U2 concert for the spirit of U2 and another for a good show and performance. Only time will tell
I'm surprised you say this about the Boston show as I felt his vocals were VERY strong there. In contrast, I thought he was more "airy" sounding on the Slane DVD. He hit all the notes clean (especially that operatic wail at the beginning of "Streets"), but his voice lacked the richness that I heard on the Boston DVD.
As for Bono's overall voice, I agree, it's not as rich or full as it was during the R&H era - easily Bono's best vocal period. However, there was a high price to pay. His voice frequently failed then as he constantly sang out of his range. This caused the cancellation of many shows and most likely did damage to his vocal chords. Furthermore, I have boot CD's from that era where Bono starts of really strong and powerful, but is a "disaster" by the end of the show. One can just hear how strained his voice is. In contrast, these days, Bono's voice stays consistently strong throughout the entire show. It may not be as rich as it was, but there's far less cracking vocals (something I even heard on the ZOO TV tours) and scratchiness.
As the tour moves on, often Bono's vocals do get a bit "airy" sounding - hence why Slane doesn't sound as good as Boston. But as I listen to "Electrical Storm", "Hands that Built America", the Oscar performance and these clips, it's clear to me that Bono has full command of his upper register - almost back to the UF era. Also, he can belt out that operatic voice - something we haven't heard since the R&H era. Therefore, he's clearly been resting his voice and should sound great on this album. If his voice "cracks" it is intentional (on an album, they would keep recording over and over until they got the sound they wanted - clearly Bono/U2 wanted his voice to sound a certain way on certain songs).
Therefore, vocally I feel Bono's voice will be fine. I'm more interested in hearing Edge's guitar work on this album - the one thing that I felt was a bit lacking on ATYCLB.