Cosmos Thoughts III: U2 "WTF were they thinking" moments

[CosmoKramer]

Ebttrt was a great opener for 360 dont get me wrong but the glasto version was awfull

Overall, what did you think of the Glastonbury show being there in person? What was the crowd reaction? I've watched all of the songs in YouTube and almost everyone has the crowd singing along very loudly...more so then any show I've ever heard(with or without you the crowd was really into). It seemed to me that the crowd loved them


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[rennowba]

Overall, what did you think of the Glastonbury show being there in person? What was the crowd reaction? I've watched all of the songs in YouTube and almost everyone has the crowd singing along very loudly...more so then any show I've ever heard(with or without you the crowd was really into). It seemed to me that the crowd loved them


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The gig was good, great in parts and poor in others. Seeing u2 at glastonbury was a dream cause i was a glasto regular but i cant help think what could of been. It should have been the best glasto gig ever but instead it was just good

As for as the crowd reactions,i was right down the front and people round me loved it. I think the crowd at the front were well into it but the further the crowd went back people werent into it as much from what ive heard. Some people were switching stages etc etc

It came across good on tv and on bootleg. Ebttrt was the worst song ive heard live from u2 but then the fly was the best.

Like i said it was good not great and it should have been much better

 

[bobsaget77]

The Fly, Stay, Bad, and With or without you were all great at Glastonbury. The rest of the concert wasn't that great.

 

[rennowba]

The Fly, Stay, Bad, and With or without you were all great at Glastonbury. The rest of the concert wasn't that great.

See i thought it was stay that sent the set dive bombing downwards. The set went

Ebttrt
The fly
Mysterious ways
Uteotw
One
Streets
I will follow
Ishfwilf

Then stay. I think it really stoped the set and killed the momentum they had. It was also just after that point when bonos microphone went low. Lower then it should of been anyway. You cant pick this up on tv but you could in the pit

 

[gvox]

Wow I had forgotten that..they did Stay at Glastonbury? In a short set like that its a vibe-killer IMO. I wonder what's with them and the acoustic version of that song. So so much better full band.

 

[brooklynmike]

While a huge clunker indeed, it doesn't sink to the depths of
"It's the blind leading the blond. It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs."

Oofah! Terrible.

POP more than all the other albums has more indirect meaning, metaphors, etc... But there's some real cringe inducing dogshit mixed in, the above lyric included.

AB has the best lyrics.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Do you want to know the most cringeworthy WTF moment for me?

When U2 played Where the streets Have no Name live from Boston(also the DVD concert) for the NBA finals. The song was amazing! BUT for those that watched it live(I think it was edited in the DVD or they used a different nights cut) bono started the song with his usual running around the heart while Edge was launching the song. But as he ran around the back of the stage and emerged on the otherwise if the heart you could see him waving his hand up and down while making a goofy face pretending to dribble a basketball(air dribbling perhaps it's called). It was soooooo awful and embarrassing looking that for a split second I was embarrassed to be a U2 fan!


Please tell me someone else remembers this??????


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[prbiker15]

Do you want to know the most cringeworthy WTF moment for me?

When U2 played Where the streets Have no Name live from Boston(also the DVD concert) for the NBA finals. The song was amazing! BUT for those that watched it live(I think it was edited in the DVD or they used a different nights cut) bono started the song with his usual running around the heart while Edge was launching the song. But as he ran around the back of the stage and emerged on the otherwise if the heart you could see him waving his hand up and down while making a goofy face pretending to dribble a basketball(air dribbling perhaps it's called). It was soooooo awful and embarrassing looking that for a split second I was embarrassed to be a U2 fan!


Please tell me someone else remembers this??????


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I remember that, but I don't find it that awful or embarrassing. That's just me, I guess.

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

okay so Bono can't play basketball - therefore HE SUCKS! & he doesn't pay his taxes...Kill him at once!!

Seriously though, thinking back to Boston when they made the DVD, some superfans got pissed off because they didn't get into the even though it turns out they actually did, or something like that, and staged a "sit down" for several songs at the beginning of the show. For the official tour DVD, no less, now thats a WTF moment.

 

[prbiker15]

okay so Bono can't play basketball - therefore HE SUCKS! & he doesn't pay his taxes...Kill him at once!!

Seriously though, thinking back to Boston when they made the DVD, some superfans got pissed off because they didn't get into the even though it turns out they actually did, or something like that, and staged a "sit down" for several songs at the beginning of the show. For the official tour DVD, no less, now thats a WTF moment.

Yep, I can't believe people did that.

 

[rennowba]

Can you tell on the dvd?ive never noticed. Didnt they record two shows in boston though.

When it cut to the nba half time thing didnt bono throw a basketball into the crowd but he actually got it to hit the run way at the oppisite side of the heart?im sure ive seen that. Good going if he did

 

[popacrobat]

Yes, it's visible on a few quick shots that people are sitting down toward the back of the heart.

 

[trevgreg]

As for as the crowd reactions,i was right down the front and people round me loved it. I think the crowd at the front were well into it but the further the crowd went back people werent into it as much from what ive heard. Some people were switching stages etc etc

Not to sound weird, but wouldn't that be the case for every artist that plays at a festival? Or have there been some genuine cases where the front to back was absolutely into the one performer?

And yes, I have yet to attend a festival myself...

 

[trevgreg]

Do you want to know the most cringeworthy WTF moment for me?

When U2 played Where the streets Have no Name live from Boston(also the DVD concert) for the NBA finals. The song was amazing! BUT for those that watched it live(I think it was edited in the DVD or they used a different nights cut) bono started the song with his usual running around the heart while Edge was launching the song. But as he ran around the back of the stage and emerged on the otherwise if the heart you could see him waving his hand up and down while making a goofy face pretending to dribble a basketball(air dribbling perhaps it's called). It was soooooo awful and embarrassing looking that for a split second I was embarrassed to be a U2 fan!


Please tell me someone else remembers this??????


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

I remember watching this, but I don't recall anything about the dribbling thing. Might have to check it out on YouTube again at some point.

 

[rennowba]

Not to sound weird, but wouldn't that be the case for every artist that plays at a festival? Or have there been some genuine cases where the front to back was absolutely into the one performer?

And yes, I have yet to attend a festival myself...

There have been at glastonbury to be fair for example the stones,blur,radiohead,coldplay etc but i know what your saying.

Im just going off what ive read but according to it u2 didnt have a massive crowd there, there were alot of spaces at the back which you wouldnt see on tv. Alot of people were coming and going. Some people at glastonbury do move between stages if they dont like what their seeing. But apprantly there was quite alot of movement in the last half of u2's set

Some review of the gig i read quoted that " u2 were playing to the people at the front of the crowd not the whole field"

 

[prbiker15]

Some review of the gig i read quoted that " u2 were playing to the people at the front of the crowd not the whole field"

Isn't that common with the majority of festival acts? I don't know how they could play to the whole field when the stage is ridiculously far from the barriers. Maybe during the daylight they could reach out even more.

 

[rennowba]

Isn't that common with the majority of festival acts? I don't know how they could play to the whole field when the stage is ridiculously far from the barriers. Maybe during the daylight they could reach out even more.

Yeah i know what your saying. I think it was more to the fact that people down the front were into it but people at the back were drifting away. They probaly just put this on the band

The sound at the back of the pyramid sometimes isnt the best. Theres been loads of sets that have been talked about afterwards because of bad sound.Ive experienced it first hand myself. With the weather that day it couldnt have helped.

 

[Axver]

It's fair to say that if you compare footage of early eighties U2 at a festival to the Glasto performance, Bono made more of an effort back then to reach out the whole crowd and engage the back as well as the front. I guess as a young band they had a lot to work for, especially pre-War when they were pretty unknown.

Also, cue "Bono was fitter back then"/"soddin' mountain goat"/"Guinness: sorry PLEBA" jokes.

 

[liamcool]

The biggest WTF moment U2 have ever done was dropping Pete The Chop from their live set.

 

[nbelcik]

Biggest WTF moment is definitely when they kicked Dik Evans out of the band, every day I imagine what could've been.


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[Axver]

Biggest WTF moment in U2 history is when they repeated their cover of the Bay City Rollers' "Bye Bye Baby" as their encore at Mount Temple in October 1976. Clearly they were already out of ideas or creativity.

 

[djerdap]

And they ended up repeating themselves again with those silly Vertigo encores in 2005.

 

[rennowba]

And they ended up repeating themselves again with those silly Vertigo encores in 2005.

I did like that i must admit

 

[djerdap]

Nobody's perfect.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

it was alright once, after that it was just lazy

 

[Axver]

Yeah, why would anybody want to hear one of the other 200 songs in their catalogue?

That said, if they returned to doing 11 O'clock Tick Tock twice you wouldn't hear a word of complaint from me.

 

[djerdap]

The first time they did it was in Seattle and it was the best version of Vertigo I've heard. I'm not a fan of the song, but the energy for that one was off the charts. The whole show is in retrospect my favorite Vertigo Tour bootleg. Bono actually does some good guitar work in Running to Stand Still as well.

It really should have been a one-time thing. Putting that on the setlist (as a regular in Europe) and not having it as a spontaneous encore was a true WTF moment.

 

[brooklynmike]

Vertigo was also played "spontaneously" at one of the NJ or NY shows I went to and it nearly blew the roof off. No problems with Vertigo x 2 at all.


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[popacrobat]

Vertigo was also played "spontaneously" at one of the NJ or NY shows I went to and it nearly blew the roof off. No problems with Vertigo x 2 at all.


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Yeah. I was there in New Jersey when they ended the show with 40, Bono, Adam and Edge are all off the stage, and Larry is just doing the drum solo to end the show. Then he starts doing the Vertigo beat, and they all come back and rip into Vertigo. That was totally fucking awesome, second performance of it or not.

I had also seen it when they planned to end the show with it. Not as good, but, I still think it was better than 40. Bad was the best closer that tour, though.

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

Vertigo is one of those songs, love it or hate it, that just blows up when played live. It was a great single at a great time for the band, sounded great on radio and got some people interested again who had wandered off.

I've seen it played live 5 times now and its never disappointed. I think the best one had to be in Nashville 2011, after a long HOT day of waiting in line in the July heat, the band came out and played with such intensity like nothing i had ever seen before. You wouldn't believe the looks on the faces of the crowd, young and old, as u2 went through their setlist. Lots of people completely blown away like they had no idea u2 were so good live. These are among the moments i live for.