To be honest, I'm probably more of an older U2 fan. I was a really huge fan of 'Boy', 'October', 'War' and 'The Unforgettable Fire'. I like their new stuff here and there, but my favourite stuff is really the early, underproduced stuff.
'Under A Blood Red Sky' was a really big record for me when I was a kid, but there's something about 'Boy', man I love it: the energy, the youthfulness of it and I just love the way they sounded back then.
With U2 you can't listen to the first four albums in the sun. You can almost only really enjoy then in the winter because they have this darkness to them. You just think of them in the snow with those big overcoats on, all earnest, like in the 'New Years Day' video. By 'Joshua Tree', though, you could listen to them in the sun.
I met Larry Mullen Jnr when I was real young, at the MTV Awards. I was playing with Alanis Morissette when I was 23. I went up to him and said 'Dude, you were such an influence to me and to so many drummers and I just think you're really great'. He was really nice to me.
I regret to say I never saw them play back in the day, but I just saw them on this tour and they were really great. I saw them on the 'Achtung Baby' tour and I didn't like that so much. I like some of that record but I don't love all of it, and I wasn't really into the ironic rock star thing they were going for at that time. They were kinda taking the piss out of being rock guys and I'm just not really into joke rock. Even though the songs were serious and I definitely like a couple of songs off that record, just the vibe and the huge stage and the cars with lights and shit on them, I couldn't pay attention to what was going on: it was too much of a multi-media affair
But when I saw them on this tour, it was a really good, stripped-down rock show. They played 'Electric Co/An Cat Dudh' and that was the highlight of the show for me. I would love to see them in a club, just playing their first three records. I like their new stuff but it's more worldly now.
