ADecentMelody said:Regarding extra musicians...both of you, prove it.
Axver said:I'm starting to wonder if U2 shows are losing their spontaneity. Pre-UF boots are amazing because it's just four men on a stage and different performances stand out for different reasons. However, I feel a lot of post-1991 shows have had a sameness to them.
ADecentMelody said:Regarding extra musicians...both of you, prove it.
Earnie Shavers said:
Read "U2: At The End Of The World" by Bill Flannagan.
If you shout... said:
Good call; I was just leafing through my copy this morning...
chocky said:We SAW the extra under-stage musicians on the ZooTV documentary so there's the PROOF!!
Axver said:Honestly, I can't help but lose a little bit of respect for U2 when I think about this topic. I absolutely love the spontaneous nature of the pre-Zoo shows where Bad and 40 could go for over fifteen minutes, 11 O'clock Tick Tock could have a third solo, or the band could come back out after the final encore to play I Will Follow again. We may have some spontaneity in the acoustic sets, but that means nothing to me because I don't like the acoustic set.
Spontaneity is what made U2's live shows great. I know I'm going to attend every show on the next tour for which I can get tickets and I will LOVE it, but ... I hope they cut back on pre-recorded sounds and instruments played by people backstage. Whatever happened to four men on a stage?
Folkelig said:Listen to songs like UF and Bad from the UF tour. They played to backing tapes back then too. When it comes to songs sounding the same, and having the exact same lenght througout a tour, it's the most reasonable thing to do really, for many reasons. First of all, playing to a backing track will insure that things go reasonable well, even on a day where the lads have a bad day, or if for some reason one of them stops playing, have a technical problem or whatever. In such cases the others will be able to make it through the songs anyway. Secondly, it's the only way to program everything to match the songs, lights, video, and vocal effects. What most bands will do, and I believe U2 do this as well, is to have two third of the show planned with these kind of songs, and the rest with songs they actually play just the four of them. Thus making the show somewhat dynamic.
Folkelig said:Springsteen and Pearl Jam are both great, but with all do respect, their liveshows are not nearly as complex as fx ZooTV and Popmart. Springsteen has a much bigger band with him on stage as well.
Flying FuManchu said:Pumping a wah-wah is part of playinig the guitar though
If you shout... said:But with the extra musicians, I know somebody (or knew, at least) who tried out to be the under-the-stage keyboardist during the show. The band typically has locations scouted out ahead of time and people can try to get a gig doing a bit of down-under work, as far as I understand the whole matter. I'll tell you that...!