Would it be a step backward if Mister Macphisto made a return next tour?

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t8thgr8

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macphisto was great. i feel like hes lurking in the shadows again, i think hes fed up with his political bullshit too.

the music scene would explode if he came back, especially on the next album.
 
im just tired of all the 'puss rock' that has taken ahold of the music scene and it needs to stop. its worse than the poppy boy band music that preceeded it.
 
The whole "step back" arguement is pure BS.

They've already taken steps back on this tour with a stage that looks way too much like Elevation, and ZooTV and Popmart encores which are essentially repeats of prior tours...yet they are touted as "highlights" of this show.

MacPhisto could come back and everyone would love it.
 
Definitely a monumental step backwards. To not see that is to almost completely have not understood what that character was. He does every now and then slip in the odd comment or line in a song in the MacPhisto voice which is great for a bit of "Aaah, those were the days" - but to actually dust of the jacket, horns and shoes? Releasing a dance album is more likely, and smarter.
If you simply mean, in this day and age is there room for Bono to pick up some of the traits from those days, dust off the open political frustration and anger - which he showed in ZooTV and those characters more through mocking the source rather than simply pointing the finger and shouting - then I don't know. I'm sure he's more frustrated and angry than ever. Like he says, he's seen behind the curtain, he's seen what goes into the sausage and he's probably more pissed off with the process and the results then he was in 1992. I was listening to The Fly this morning live from the London gig a few months ago. The guitar in that doesn't just sound chaotic now, it's absolutely exploding with blind rage. I was thinking of the dark heart of man idea in that, and the flashing word imagery used in ZooTV and wondering if Bono's position in the world was different (if he were more protester than campaigner) how would their music be reflected in performance these days. You know, if he wasn't inside and working for change, but was outside and demanding that change be made, things would be different. If for some reason or another he is either forced out of the position he is in and back to the other side of the fence, or the world takes significant shifts for the worse over the next few years (and both are possible) it would be very interesting to see how that is reflected by the band and by Bono, but I can assure you it wouldn't be in the vein of ZooTV and MacPhisto. My guess would be far more on the surface, far more confrontational. He'd feel he had the right to be very blunt and not want there to be any chance at all that the message was going over anyones heads. MacPhisto, clearly, went straight over a number of peoples heads.
 
EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG


WIFE / VICTIM / RAPE / FOOD / SEXY / WAR / BLOODY / KIDS / TRASH / MOM / FRENZY / FISH / COLOUR / ******


CHARGE IT / WEAR IT / DEBT / DOUBT / HYPE / HOPE


GUN / PUSSY / SCHOOL


THE FUTURE IS FANTASY; SUPERFICIALITY IS GOD; AVOID CONFLICT; IGNORANCE IS BLISS; IT'S THE REAL THING; CONSUME LATER; DO NOT ACCEPT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE; CHANGE WHAT YOU CANNOT ACCEPT; BELIEVE EVERYTHING; DO YOU BELIEVE ME; YOU ARE A VICTIM OF YOUR TV/HATRED/APATHY/SELF; IS THIS ALL WE GET?; YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE; WHAT DID THE FIRST PUNK ROCK GIRL WEAR TO YOUR SCHOOL?; WORK IS THE BLACKMAIL OF SURVIVAL; I WANT IT NOW; BE GENTLE WITH ME; THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL; ENJOY THE SURFACE; FREE MANDELA; THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT; AMBITION BITES THE NAILS OF SUCCESS; IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE; TASTE IS THE ENEMY OF ART; BELIEVE" (with the "BE" and "VE" fading, leaving only "LIE"); "MANIPULATION IS ART; YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE; EVERY ARTIST IS A CANNIBAL; CELEBRITY IS A JOB; DEATH IS A CAREER MOVE; MOCK THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM THEE; REBELLION IS PACKAGED; RELIGION IS A CLUB; CONTRADICTION IS BALANCE; I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING; GUILT IS NOT OF GOD; TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME; EVOLUTION IS OVER; SILENCE = DEATH; DEATH IS INEVITABLE; EVERYONE IS A RACIST EXCEPT YOU; ROCK AND ROLL IS ENTERTAINMENT; WEAR A CONDOM

:rockon:
 
As much as i love Mr MacPhisto, I'd rather him remain a memory (that doesn't actually exist for me cos I hadn't reached full U2 fan-maturity by that time)
 
Earnie Shavers said:
Definitely a monumental step backwards. To not see that is to almost completely have not understood what that character was. He does every now and then slip in the odd comment or line in a song in the MacPhisto voice which is great for a bit of "Aaah, those were the days" - but to actually dust of the jacket, horns and shoes? Releasing a dance album is more likely, and smarter.
If you simply mean, in this day and age is there room for Bono to pick up some of the traits from those days, dust off the open political frustration and anger - which he showed in ZooTV and those characters more through mocking the source rather than simply pointing the finger and shouting - then I don't know. I'm sure he's more frustrated and angry than ever. Like he says, he's seen behind the curtain, he's seen what goes into the sausage and he's probably more pissed off with the process and the results then he was in 1992. I was listening to The Fly this morning live from the London gig a few months ago. The guitar in that doesn't just sound chaotic now, it's absolutely exploding with blind rage. I was thinking of the dark heart of man idea in that, and the flashing word imagery used in ZooTV and wondering if Bono's position in the world was different (if he were more protester than campaigner) how would their music be reflected in performance these days. You know, if he wasn't inside and working for change, but was outside and demanding that change be made, things would be different. If for some reason or another he is either forced out of the position he is in and back to the other side of the fence, or the world takes significant shifts for the worse over the next few years (and both are possible) it would be very interesting to see how that is reflected by the band and by Bono, but I can assure you it wouldn't be in the vein of ZooTV and MacPhisto. My guess would be far more on the surface, far more confrontational. He'd feel he had the right to be very blunt and not want there to be any chance at all that the message was going over anyones heads. MacPhisto, clearly, went straight over a number of peoples heads.
Click to expand...

Bono?

sorry man, I guess i need to be educated on the character. But can you honestly say that you dont think about whipping that voice out and wearing those horns and using ONE OF THE CELL PHONES you keep having everyone light up to makie a call to somewhere to humliate someone about a certain unnecessary war?
 
t8thgr8 said:

But can you honestly say that you dont think about whipping that voice out and wearing those horns and using ONE OF THE CELL PHONES you keep having everyone light up to makie a call to somewhere to humliate someone about a certain unnecessary war?
Click to expand...

I can honestly say that I think that's something that will never, ever happen. MacPhisto would call up the White House, claiming to be calling Bush Snr, get some secretary, and for laughs (while subtlely making a point) talks shit to him or her. He never actually got through to anyone did he? Why? The secretary probably never gave it a second thought, just another drunk guy. So who was he talking to? YOU, the audience, were who he was talking to, not the person on the other end of the line. The point was being made to YOU. It was the audience that needed the education, not the person he was pretending to call.

There is a big difference now. Bono actually can call the White House and get put through to George Bush. Bono's audience are up to speed, it's a different environment to 1992. He wouldn't need to use humour and a character to make a subtle point to an otherwise pretty aparthetic crowd. He would expect to be straight up about it, his audience would expect him to be straight up about it, and to be honest, George Bush would expect him to be straight up about it.

Bono's earned it, and I think if he is forced into a position where that anger or frustration is something he wants to make public and make a point out of, it will come from Bono as Bono and it will be loud and clear while maintaining some level of respectability. Can you not see there is a huge difference between him in 1992 and him now? His level of power or his position in peoples minds? Or the way he educates a U2 audience now and the way it was done in 1992?

MacPhisto would just come across as a petulant, immature display today. It was absolute genius then, but it wouldn't be now.
 
Macphisto is dead. He died in the hold me thrill me video .

But even though, i don't really think that he could return... he's a charchter built on rock and roll excess. The Vertigo tour does not have excesses of anything rock and roll
 
Miricale_Drug said:
Macphisto is dead. He died in the hold me thrill me video .

But even though, i don't really think that he could return... he's a charchter built on rock and roll excess. The Vertigo tour does not have excesses of anything rock and roll
Click to expand...

I thought The Fly became MacPhisto at the end of the video in the hospital bed.

It's a widely debated issue that's been puzzling the entire world for a decade:wink:
 
Earnie Shavers said:

MacPhisto would just come across as a petulant, immature display today. It was absolute genius then, but it wouldn't be now.
Click to expand...

I agree. It wouldn't have anything near the original effect. Part of Macphisto's attraction was that you knew some people weren't getting it, but even they were loving it.

The effect, to me at least, was that Bono was using this "mask" as an avenue for a different dialgoue. He doesn't need those avenues anymore. A Macphisto reppearance might be cool for about 5 mintues, then it would seem like pure nostalgia. And in that sense I think it would be a sad statement. Like you were saying Bono pretty much posesses the most political power of any rock star since Lennon. A cheeky call to the White House in 2005, or to elsewhere doesn't have the same effect when he's been gladhanding a lot of these people to help Africa, aside from other disagreements.

Machphisto did make a reappearance at the POPmart St Louis gig.
I was there and it was fucking brilliant, impromptu, and really more fitting than something that would have been contrived.

So yeah, if Bono sees another fan dressed in full MAcphisto costume, pulls him up on stage, and basically has a confrontation with him (theatre of course) and switched his hat for the fans horns, swapped jackets as well etc, like he did in St Louis back in 1997, then maybe that's a cool idea. But even that has already been done.

But if it means, Dirty Day, Zooropa, Daddy's Gonna Pay, Stay and Lemon get resurrected from off the shelf, then I am all for it. Whatever it takes.
 
To extend on what I wrote before - YOU were the audience for MacPhisto, not George Bush Snr. He used George Bush to get a laugh and maybe a moments thought from YOU. For Bono now, George Bush Jnr is the audience. He's using YOU to have an affect on HIM. It's spun right the other way.

Think about the use of the phone in both examples: He used to play a loner prank calling a President, only to pick on some poor secretary for a laugh, because that's how he got a message through to you. Now he's the ringleader getting all of you to pull out your cell phones and make a call, because that's how the message gets through to the President.

In that is the difference in Bono, and how he works politicaly and a clue as to how he'll operate if any situations change in the future.
 
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Maybe it's the difference between actual results and pure theatre.

I like your idea about how Machphisto's antics were for the benefit of the U2 audience and not some larger statement. It really was sort of just a joke, the whole ZooTV, Zoomerang thing "look at us, aren't we so big and famous" with their gadgets and fanciful technology meant to obscure the music being performed on the stage, all the while with a wink and nudge saying "the jokes on them, not you" meaning, "those of you in the audeince are in on the joke, part of it, it's the others we collectively have a joke at their expense". Or something similar someone more articulate than I could convey.

Now the collective is a bigger idea, much less theatre actually and the idea is some sort of action. Not the wink and a smile, but an action and an idea?

I don't know, just riffing off of your opinion. This might be off base.

Maybe the concert experience is different in general, because there isn't much uneccessary posturing anymore. Maybe some people actually miss it, not because of pretense, but because of the lack of theatre, for sheer entertainment value.
 
I do miss the theatre of ZooTV, also, to sound like a wanker, the art of it. It was all very clever, very intelligent. Not just theatre for the sake of overblowing everything, not just a huge stage for the sake of overblowing everything, but the performances, the characters, the imagery, were all a direct extension of the songs and the message, either revealing more or revealing something different or as you say, just giving a nod and a wink to those paying closer attention or those who had been all along. PopMart wasn't so much. Fantastic idea and show, but it missed the mark in as much of a way as ZooTV fucking nailed it on every level. I think that was mostly because the subject they were trying to deliver was asking for it, not that they fucked up the delivery.

On MacPhisto, he's more than one thing.

There's MacPhisto A - the debauched booze soaked Fly at the end of the line singing Daddy's Gonna Pay.

There's MacPhisto B - The Screwtape Letters type devil making those speeches and phone calls, subtley sending a message to the audience about where the devil lies.

Then there's MacPhisto C - Singing Lemon and With or Without You, which I think is truly Bono at his most revealing. The lyrics to both songs suddenly spring to a whole new life, and the difference in MacPhisto's 'act' couldn't be more striking between the two songs. First Lemon. Bright lights and a big show. Confidence, bravado, sexually suggestive attention seeking to the highest degree, "needing the love of 20,000 people just to feel normal" as Bono likes to say. Grabbing the camera and spinning it out to the crowd, showing off his popularity, even humping the thing.

Then the heartbeat rhythm of With Or Without You kicks in, the lights go down to darker blues, and suddenly MacPhisto is slow and sullen. His make-up running down as he's searching out into the crowd like he's looking for one individual face that he knows and has been searching for for most of his life - "I can't live With or Without You..." The camera this time is softly asked to come closer, as if he's asking it to comfort him. This time he pulls it in towards his heart...

You suddenly know exactly who he's singing about in both songs, and the meanings of both are instantly the same. In that character and in that 'act' is probably Bono's most honest on stage moment.

It's stuff like that that I do miss. There's more in that MacPhisto set of songs then in an entire Elevation or Vertigo show - if you're paying attention.
 
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Earnie Shavers said:
I do miss the theatre of ZooTV, also, to sound like a wanker, the art of it. It was all very clever, very intelligent. Not just theatre for the sake of overblowing everything, not just a huge stage for the sake of overblowing everything, but the performances, the characters, the imagery, were all a direct extension of the songs and the message, either revealing more or revealing something different or as you say, just giving a nod and a wink to those paying closer attention or those who had been all along. PopMart wasn't so much. Fantastic idea and show, but it missed the mark in as much of a way as ZooTV fucking nailed it on every level. I think that was mostly because the subject they were trying to deliver was asking for it, not that they fucked up the delivery.

On MacPhisto, he's more than one thing.

There's MacPhisto A - the debauched booze soaked Fly at the end of the line singing Daddy's Gonna Pay.

There's MacPhisto B - The Screwtape Letters type devil making those speeches and phone calls, subtley sending a message to the audience about where the devil lies.

Then there's MacPhisto C - Singing Lemon and With or Without You, which I think is truly Bono at his most revealing. The lyrics to both songs suddenly spring to a whole new life, and the difference in MacPhisto's 'act' couldn't be more striking between the two songs. First Lemon. Bright lights and a big show. Confidence, bravado, sexually suggestive attention seeking to the highest degree, "needing the love of 20,000 people just to feel normal" as Bono likes to say. Grabbing the camera and spinning it out to the crowd, showing off his popularity, even humping the thing.

Then the heartbeat rhythm of With Or Without You kicks in, the lights go down to darker blues, and suddenly MacPhisto is slow and sullen. His make-up running down as he's searching out into the crowd like he's looking for one individual face that he knows and has been searching for for most of his life - "I can't live With or Without You..." The camera this time is softly asked to come closer, as if he's asking it to comfort him. This time he pulls it in towards his heart...

You suddenly know exactly who he's singing about in both songs, and the meanings of both are instantly the same. In that character and in that 'act' is probably Bono's most honest on stage moment.

It's stuff like that that I do miss. There's more in that MacPhisto set of songs then in an entire Elevation or Vertigo show - if you're paying attention.
Click to expand...

:drool:

Ok, if no macphisto, then a new character on the level macphisto was. The only reason i'm bringing this up is because im thinking about the whole zooropa II release that could happen next year with a subsequent tour. Maybe on the record he could sing in a new character and tour with it like he did with zooropa.

I understand what macphisto was about, and that if he did anything like that now hed do it with a straight face. But if he sinply brought back the theatrical part of it with a new meaning. Something new we get to wrap our heads around. Something to put the show back in showbusiness.
 
yes, like something other than irony?
pretty much anything else.

Like, be fucking sincere but don't be self-righteous like 1988 or so annoyingly self-aware rock star like 2001, but just be sincere.

Maybe Bono should go by Paul and drop the fucking shades.
Get as real as possible. Sincerity baby.
With a touch of theatre, a nod and a wink to those paying attention closely.

or whatever. I am drinking some good bourbon tonight waiting on Conan's show.
 
Earnie Shavers said:

Then there's MacPhisto C - Singing Lemon and With or Without You, which I think is truly Bono at his most revealing. The lyrics to both songs suddenly spring to a whole new life, and the difference in MacPhisto's 'act' couldn't be more striking between the two songs. First Lemon. Bright lights and a big show. Confidence, bravado, sexually suggestive attention seeking to the highest degree, "needing the love of 20,000 people just to feel normal" as Bono likes to say. Grabbing the camera and spinning it out to the crowd, showing off his popularity, even humping the thing.

Then the heartbeat rhythm of With Or Without You kicks in, the lights go down to darker blues, and suddenly MacPhisto is slow and sullen. His make-up running down as he's searching out into the crowd like he's looking for one individual face that he knows and has been searching for for most of his life - "I can't live With or Without You..." The camera this time is softly asked to come closer, as if he's asking it to comfort him. This time he pulls it in towards his heart...

You suddenly know exactly who he's singing about in both songs, and the meanings of both are instantly the same. In that character and in that 'act' is probably Bono's most honest on stage moment.

It's stuff like that that I do miss. There's more in that MacPhisto set of songs then in an entire Elevation or Vertigo show - if you're paying attention.
Click to expand...

That is soooooo true... despite the makeup, Bono really looks his most vunerable as Macphisto. You can actually see his eyes, which is something I'm afraid we'll never see again... :| come on Bono, take off the shades like you did during Elevation, will ya?

I agree that Macphisto wouldn't really work now. Saying something in the Mac voice or maybe doing a prank phone call to someone (not the president) for some special occasion maybe, but not the whole character. It'd just be weird. I wonder if Bono will come up with any more stage characters, so to speak.
 
AtomicBono said:


That is soooooo true... despite the makeup, Bono really looks his most vunerable as Macphisto. You can actually see his eyes, which is something I'm afraid we'll never see again... :| come on Bono, take off the shades like you did during Elevation, will ya?
Click to expand...

That is what we certainly need. The moments when the shades come off are the ones when you see Paul Hewson, singing the songs he's written for Bono to sing for him.
 
Achtung BAby = greatest album ever
Zoo TV = Greatest tour ever.

however, i think mr. mac should remain in history. It was all done to perfection, let it stay that way.
 
Yes it would be a step backward. It'd be like saying there is nothing new left to do so lets just rehash all the old things we used to do. It'd be gimmicky. The first time it was original and sure maybe a bit gimmicky but it was cool. To do it again would be redundent and unimaginative. AS for the person who compained about the Vertigo stage looking WAY too much like the Elevation stage don't you think that even if it does look extremely similar it's still the best stage in music. I mean stretching the catwalk way out inot the crowd and having people fill the inside is the coolest thing. So much better than the standard stage at the front of the venue.
 
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