The album version of ONE can't be beat

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Originally posted by Giant Lemon:
That's how I feel about With or Without You. I love hearing it live, but I don't think anything can beat the intensity of the album version.

my favorite video

altho in concert if/when he sings "shine like stars" !!



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I don't know. Something about the Live version of One--the one with the full orchestral (Sarajevo)--to me is the most uplifting and beautiful things in the entire world. I love how the orchestra swells with Bono's emotion, falls with his voice. It's so beautiful, so powerful, so moving, I've cried...
One (album version)--is such a masterpiece. I think this really is U2's most perfect song--it can't be beat in my mind. But seeing/hearing it live, despite the fact that Bono's voice may not be 'on' that night, or that the guitar isn't hooked up properly, etc...something about seeing it live is such an experience. It takes me to new heights. It's kinda like, for a few minutes, everyone in that arena is united under the power and fluidity of One's spell (I especially love when he sings the "Do you hearme coming" part). One means so much to so many people--for a few minutes, all appears to be right with the world--peace. Problems cease to matter as we are spellbound by U2's artistry in recreating the perfect melody, perfect rhythm, and perfect emotional range.


As a sidenote--oliveu2cm--I love it when he sings "Shine Like Stars" as well. To me, it's like hearing the "Do you hear me coming.." part from One. In fact, in Hamilton, I was so tired of WOWY...had overplayed it/didn't even WANT to hear it. Then Bono sang "Shine Like Stars"--he even turned over and gazed at the area of the crowd where I was standing--and smiled.It's like he sang it for me...like he knew. I was moved beyond words.

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*Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul*


[This message has been edited by The_Sweetest_Thing (edited 12-16-2001).]
 
I agree with Sweetest Thing... amazing as the studio version of One is, the Warchild concert version with the orchestra is just completely out of this world. It's amazing.
 
This is how I feel about With or Without You...

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Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
 
Originally posted by SkeeK:
I agree with Sweetest Thing... amazing as the studio version of One is, the Warchild concert version with the orchestra is just completely out of this world. It's amazing.

ditto with Skeek. The Warchild version is to me the version to end all versions.

But I am stuck on the album version of WOWY.

-sula
 
Originally posted by The_Sweetest_Thing:
It's kinda like, for a few minutes, everyone in that arena is united under the power and fluidity of One's spell (I especially love when he sings the "Do you hearme coming" part). One means so much to so many people--for a few minutes, all appears to be right with the world--peace. Problems cease to matter as we are spellbound by U2's artistry in recreating the perfect melody, perfect rhythm, and perfect emotional range.

Beautifully put. I didn?t see them playing One in the intimacy of an arena, neither several times like so many here, just once in a huge stadium, a Popmart concert. Even so it was like you described above, peace and love like floating in the air. I wanna feel that again one day.

I tend to agree with oliveu2cm about the album version and all that he/she wrote about it. But I have another one I would like to mention, it?s the performance with Bono and Lanois, and orchestra, from the Millenium Eve in Washington DC, really beautiful.

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"To me a rock and roll concert is 3-D, it?s a physical thing - it?s rhythm for the body. It?s a mental thing in that it should be intellectually challenging. But it?s also a spiritual thing, because it?s a community, it?s people agreeing on something, even if it?s only for an hour and a half." (Bono, as quoted in the book U2 The Road to Pop)
 
wowy and pride have rarely had a live version to match the studio cuts imo...but personally i think the live version of one is super...and that orchestral performance is shiver worthy.
 
hey I had completely forgotten about that orchestra version of One! you're right- it is breathtaking! It did come terrifingly close.. I just think something about those four guys playing together, that sound is SO beautifully captured on that album! but yeah- love the violins with it, too.

Follower: olive's a she
smile.gif


Sweetest_Thing: that is so true what you wrote about this song. There definitely is this incredible magic when it is performed live- all these people breathing, literally, as one. Another reason it's probably their best song.

WOWY: when he HITS that Stars moment!!! it's all over for me. I heard it in Montreal and still get queasy thinking of it.


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Show your heart....
Show your heart, and your soul!


*%* U2 Take Me Higher *%*

[This message has been edited by oliveu2cm (edited 12-16-2001).]
 
"One" on AB is amazing, but the live version is perfection, in my mind.

The extended guitar solo just keeps building, and finally when it's about to fade away again, Bono jumps in with the extra verse (hear us coming...), and brings you even higher. That verse is one of the most emotional moments I've ever heard in music. It usually brings me close to tears.


-MIke

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My U2 Bootleg Archive
 
What's funny is whenever I listen to the Achtung Baby version of One I feel a little let down cuz I really don't find it as gripping as the live version. It's a little casual on the album. It sounds great, mind you, but it really lacks the extra punch(and the extra lines).
 
In my opinion...

One is an audience song. While the album version is great and I hold it dear to my heart...One is made for people. People are the essence of what the song is about and so the presence of people makes it better.

Here's my experience: I love the song and one day I just kept listening to it over and over again. I thought that nothing could be better. Then I went to a live show. When the first chords of the song were played the entire arena erupted. And I got to experience one of the most powerful live performances of a song that I've ever seen. The band played the song as if they hadn't already been performing for two hours. A spark came out in that song that united the entire audience. It can't really explain the feeling, but it was incredible. And now I can't listen to it without remembering that experience.

So, I think the album version is awesome by itself. But nothing compares to the live performance.

hippy

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One love, one life...
Give peace a chance!
Don't let the bastards grind you down!

Bono: I don't walk, I swagger! I sashayed once, but just once. It wasn't for me.
 
I've been thinking about this for a while and finally saw the video again and need to share:

The album version of One will always be the best version of One. U2 plays this song at nearly every show- if not every show. It is a staple of theirs, and rightly so. Yet there is something about that album version that is so perfect that they just nailed....I know some nights they come terrifingly close playing this live, but the album version will never ever cease to give me chills or make me amazed.

From the opening moment of Larry's drumsticks counting the beats you are taken in. You can hear his subtle tamborine in the background of this incredible guitar riff you can not only feel, you can actually see it, and you realize you have even lived it. There's Adam's mournful bass in the background, quiet and steady, which somehow at the end of the song he transcends and it becomes uplifting. Then you have that voice, and those lyrics. Painful, begging for forgiveness, for himself, for someone else, full of desire and even hope. There is something so cyrstal clear in this version, it is so raw and honest and real, and overwhelmingly beautiful. Every time I listen to it I remember how much I love this band!

Does anyone else feel this way about One from AB? or maybe another song, perhaps. I feel that many of their songs grow and expand when played live, and not to take away from the magic of playing One live, but so far imo, the album version is the most mesmorizing.

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Show your heart....
Show your heart, and your soul!


*%* U2 Take Me Higher *%*
 
I agree. I wish they'd play live a version truer to the album version (though I still like the live version). I felt that way during the ZooTV shows I saw as well.
 
I have to agree that the album cut of One is simply amazing and the feeling in that recording is something truly special that few live performances (only one that I know of) have matched.

And that one performance is the Warchild version - simply incredible. I remember listening to it the first time and literally getting chills up my spine when the "One love, one life..." line comes in and you can hear the entire audience singing along, even though English isn't their native language. That moment is just incredibly powerful. The only possible fault I can find in that version is that perhaps the strings are a little overbearing in parts. But that's a minor gripe and that version is the finest live version of One ever, I believe.
 
I have to disagree here. Bono's vocals on the album version of "One" irritate the living hell out of me, his singing just sounds too forced and nasally, IMO. Any live version, however, reduces me to tears, especially when Edge starts that beautiful guitar solo.
 
I agree that the album version is the best. I think I has to do with the feeling the band at the time. You know the story of how the band was falling apart at the time and they happend to stumble accross this song and were able to pull it together after that. I think it captures that revitalization of the moment.
 
Originally posted by gherman:
I agree that the album version is the best. I think I has to do with the feeling the band at the time. You know the story of how the band was falling apart at the time and they happend to stumble accross this song and were able to pull it together after that. I think it captures that revitalization of the moment.


which is also what i love about the video for that- with the four of them playing in that room, in a cicle, facing each other. so simple but such a strong, beautiful statement.


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Show your heart....
Show your heart, and your soul!


*%* U2 Take Me Higher *%*
 
I remember when the Popmart Mexico show first came out. I listened to that version of One over and over. You could tell Bono was pretty choked up about Michael Hutchence. Very emotional.

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N A T E


Does love light up your Christmas tree?
The next minute you're blowing a fuse
and the cartoon network turns into the news...
 
I'm not a giant fan of One either in the album or live form, but I agree that I haven't heard a live version that has surpassed the album version. Though it's not really one of my favourite U2 songs, the album version has a real perfection about it. It's one of the most perfectly balanced songs I have ever heard. I don't get that from the live version and there are other songs I get much more emotion from in the live context.



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Your sun so bright it leaves no shadows, only scars
Carved into stone on the face of earth
The moon is up and over One Tree Hill
We see the sun go down in your eyes
 
Given the nature of the band at the time of the recordings in Berlin, 'One' may have been the song that saved them. And maybe some of us as well. You can hear that on the album version, it grabs you and pulls you into it.

For that reason, I think 'One' will always have the signifigance of 'Pride' when played, but I think the never really get there with 'Pride' like they do 'One'. They are both audience songs, IMO like 'Kite'.

Having said that, ZooTV Sydney video performance of 'One' is absolute perfection and their strongest performance on video that I am aware of.
 
ZooTV version of "One" is breathtaking, but for me the "POPMart in Mexico" version is the most heart-breaking performance of that song. Although sometimes it makes me a bit uncomfortable, a bit too much like intruding on somebody's private grief - you can just see that Bono is -that- close to going to pieces during the performance.
 
The version on the ZooEuropa boot from Dublin 93 is also outstanding, still the best live version I have heard.

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Smoke me a kipper
Ill be back for breakfast
 
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