Recent content by BigMacPhisto

Current Acts With Great New Records And A Tremendous Live Show: Alex G Animal Collective Beach House HAIM Japanese Breakfast Purity Ring St Vincent War on Drugs - best live act on the planet Wild Hearts Tour (Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker) And some other great live acts, skewing...

It doesn’t always give you tickets. Remember the Vertigo Tour fiasco much? That was just a waste of cash if there ever was one.

I mean, way to just make stuff up? Lorde literally said she refused to do arenas again and she sold out half an arena here BEFORE the album came out very quickly. Arcade Fire easily could fill up an arena. They do multiple nights here at the half-arena including selling out the first night at...

Way to misread my post. I meant opening the tour, as in the earliest dates of SOE. My number of 13 was wrong though as they played “only” 12 songs from those shite albums on opening night (and 11 thereafter). Because it’s a real bright idea to perform that many new songs from records the public...

There’s no “too big” for amphitheaters. Tons of acts like Lorde and Arcade Fire have purposely downgraded from arenas because they feel the experience doesn’t allow for connectivity with their fans. And as someone who goes to basically every venue in the Bay Area, I can definitely say that...

I think anyone arguing thar U2 SHOULD be opening a tour with 13 songs from SOI/SOE is a lost cause and up the band’s arse. So the sycophant tag should remain.

The difference is that SOI was the weakest received album of their career at that point. Any critics’ aggregate or user score aggregate around the web confirms that (and as far as critics are concerned, U2 has a MASSIVE edge with mainstream, legacy publications that give them 4 or 5 stars no...

Um, what? That was some pretty A-list shit. Kendrick and Eminem are bigger worldwide stars than U2 (certainly streamed more) and the former may very well be a bigger concert draw in the US at this exact moment. And that’s just those two. May not be what you’re into, but it was a cool way to...

Yep. Saps it of all its power. The longer the intro, the worse it is. “Get out your phones and text” for Vertigo was probably the worst.

Good lord…anyway, I’m about as easy going as it gets when it comes to live shows. As long as people aren’t talking through the music next to me or singing loudly in my ear at a quieter, folky show - I’m all good. Yet U2’s fanbase has somehow annoyed me so darn much! That says a lot!

Super Bowl purposely said they’re moving away from white legacy rock acts and have shifted to more younger appealing, urban stuff in recent years. U2 isn’t going to play the Super Bowl. A lot of it has to do with “going viral” and the kids aren’t going to Tweet “OMG Pride!”

AB was a mega popular, critically acclaimed album with an endless string of hits that people actually wanted to buy unlike what was lassoed to their phones. Pop has a ton of highs regardless of your overall opinion of the album. It’s kind of a weird generalization to just say someone isn’t...

They need to not soften demand by touring US or at least the west coast or whatever. New arena will have a lot of selling points and that alone could probably get them to fill the place up for five nights to locals alone and U2 could advertise it to their fans as “a spectacle you won’t see...

I’m just giving some of my honest experiences. It’s a fanbase with millions and there are a lot of bad apples, particularly among the hardcore lot. I’ve seen arena shows with similar contemporaries and never really experienced this sort of thing. Pearl Jam fans are pretty chill even if they’re...

Calling someone a casual for disliking some new material is…something. I loathed those plodding numbers when I first heard them and nothing changed that for me. Frankly, I just don’t care about the visuals. Joshua Tree with its gorgeous Anton Corbijn footage projected onto a massive Drive-In...