Yes. Its mission is twofold:
1. Determine what beloved U2 single The Hive should disregard this year.
2 . Decide who will be bringing the refreshments for the annual Achtung Baby Celebration Year.
Judging from the web site, this thing sounds awful. And, at best, silly.
Don't get me wrong....I have no problem with U2 fans getting together for a convention...listening to U2, watching the vids, buying stuff, getting drunk and hooking up, just like at a Comicon.
However, as far as the over serious, academic nature of this event...give me a break. Reminds me of those "U2 and Philosophy" books you seen in the remainder bin at the book store. It's rock music for crying out loud, and as such any academic study of it is just silly. Something tells me U2 would agree.
Bill Flanagan would disagree!
"The aristocrats who fall on the floor writing and swallowing their tongues when writers put rock & roll into the same boat as high art, poetry, philosophy, and other university subjects should get out [of this book, U2 at the End of the World] now. You won't like it here. But if you want to understand U2, you have to understand how they draw from the highbrow stuff as well as the dumb things down in rock & roll's designated station."
U2 has reconstructed their images over time as individuals and a band, on artistic, professional, and political levels, raising questions such as, but not limited to:
What is the nature of this metamorphosis?
How and where are these conversions evident?
What effect does U2’s changes have on their audience and the audience have on U2’s changes?
How does the band translate its experience of contemporary Ireland and the world into its music and tours?
How has U2 mediated other artistic and music genres into its work?
How does the band negotiate the boundaries of its subject matter and audience?
How has U2 maintained relevance within a changing music business?
When and how has U2 transgressed a boundary, and to what effect?
In what ways does the U2 fan and concert experience rise above the corporeal, liminal, and temporal?
I actually find the academic angle to be somewhat interesting, although easy to take to ridiculous extremes. But I do find that U2 often produces music that can truly be thought about, sometimes for its societal music, reflection, or other such value (the Zoo era is especially heavy on this for me).
I'm interested in a lot of stuff and I'm glad and proud to be fan of a band that delivers some serious thought material.
I don't know if that's fair- understanding the deep philosophical ideas within U2's music, relating them to your life and discussing with other fans is different than devoting an entire conference to the academic discussion of those ideas, complete with itineraries and structured lectures.
Just because I think it's overkill doesn't mean I don't feel and understand the music on a deeper level.
But like I said, if a conference like this floats your boat, then enjoy-
The first conference was amazing. It also took place the weekend of a U2 show in proximity to a U2 show. Bono even gave us a shoutout from the stage. I'd say it changed my life for the better.
Some of us make our living writing poems, studying poems, writing books, studying books. U2 are already all of these things = literature, art, poetry, theology, politics. When I was a teenager, we got advice about literature, art, poetry, theology, politics from U2. Some of us still do.
There's an old saying about "contempt prior to investigation," which is perhaps where the negativity comes from in this thread. Surely, it's not for everyone, but for those of us who work and write in the university context, this is by no means out of league.
He would play the drooms!!!!
Axver said:That said, if they were to put me on a plane to talk about setlists, then sure.
I think the flabbergasting thing about the idea is that it would have to be nearly the nerdiest thing in history?
Didn't U2 call you to their headquarters in Dublin?