No spoken words
Blue Crack Supplier
"I'm an Irish pitcher, I just got called up from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Like most cities, it has its good, and it has its bad.....this is a song called Bad"
They're at a fork in the road....
I think we can all agree is that the last thing Bono needs is access to more forks.
...You've just summarized the entire forum in a single sentence. Well done.At the end of the day, people like to bitch.
The band is in such a fucking crisis that I might have to fly to Minneapolis to lend some assistance.
Then which BANDS have done so?
Which bands have even tried? Thought it was generally accepted around here that they're shooting off into fairly unique/uncharted territory now. I can't think of a band that has succeeded or failed... can't think of one that has tried.
corianderstem said:So I'm trekking out to the middle of nowhere to catch the last show of the tour, because I'm an aging fan and they're an aging band, and a lot can happen in 4 or 5 years.
No spoken words said:attendance figures
Irvine511 said:I think we can all agree is that the last thing Bono needs is access to more forks.
Crisis has several defining characteristics. Seeger, Sellnow and Ulmer[1] say that crises have four defining characteristics that are "specific, unexpected, and non-routine events or series of events that [create] high levels of uncertainty and threat or perceived threat to an organization's high priority goals." Thus the first three characteristics are that the event is
1. unexpected (i.e., a surprise)
2. creates uncertainty
3. is seen as a threat to important goals
Dear cori,
Please refrain from posting like this in the future, as it makes me want to use the last money I have to fly overseas.
No spoken words said:I can't call myself a fan if I don't try to bolster their attendance figures in this, their greatest time of need.
Well, I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Lot's of thoughtful posts and a lot of wit. (It's great to see some of the FYM heavyweights bringing their genuis to the table here. . .hats off to you guys, you are brilliant). I'm trying to think whether I have anything to add to this thread that hasn't already been said and said better.
In regard to the issue of relevance: U2 has achieved timelessness--they live in the rarified world of the Beatles, Elvis, and yes, the Stones among a few others--artists that are of their time but transcend their time as well. That to me is the ultimate in relevance. The hit single, being of the cultural moment is mercurial--by definition it cannot last. The observations about the state of music today are astute, but in a sense it's always been this way--relevance by topping the charts has always been a short term thing--now, it's even more so. But if you can achieve the kind of permanent cultural relevance that U2 has achieved, well that is something.
For that reason, U2's so-called crisis is non-existent. Some of their FANS may be in crisis, but the band itself. . .I don't think they could do much to damage their ultimate legacy at this point. I agree with Earnie that this is an important pivot point for them though and I'm curious to see what happens next.
What do I want them to do next? They can either play it safe or take a risk. Either way there will be haters--there were always haters, there will always be haters. And a lot of them are fans. I should know, I was one in the 90's. I became a fan with AB in the early part of 1992 when I was a senior in high school. I loved JT, R&H. My freshman year in college a diehard fan introduced me to UF and the earlier stuff and I loved it all. But I was utterly bewildered by Zooropa, and at the outset of my fandom pretty much decided that the bands' best days were in the past. Pop did little to change my opinion--indeed it only confirmed it. For me U2 was like the Beatles, a great band that no longer existed. I wasn't until probably the mid-2000s that suddenly I "got it" with 90's U2 and Zooropa went from being an inscrutable, unlistenable mystery to one of my top three U2 albums of all time and the title track being one of my favorite songs ever. And despite all the flack it gets, I feel that Pop is one of the most interesting albums they've ever recorded.
I know that many U2 fans who came up with the band in the 90's were equally horrified by their shift with ATYCLB. The fact is that if the band takes risks and really changes things, it will upset some people. And if they play it safe and keep doing what they're doing that also upsets some people.
So in the end, I think they should take a risk--an artistic risk--they have a luxury that few stars in the world of entertainment have--the luxury to pursue their artistic interest and vision more or less at their leisure and more or less without consequence to either their liviliehood or their legacy. Sure they may piss off a bunch of people on the internet, but so what.
Yeah, I'll call that jettisoned. I bet the Stones play 3-4 songs off their new album when they go out.
Outlaw Pete
My Lucky Day
Night
Out In the Street
Working On a Dream
Johnny 99
I Ain't Got No Home
(Woody Guthrie cover)
Good Eye
Radio Nowhere
Candy's Room
Because the Night
Mary's Place
The Wrestler
This Life
Long Walk Home
Surprise, Surprise
Badlands
No Surrender
Encore:
Hard Times Come Again No More
(Stephen Foster cover)
Mustang Sally
(Wilson Pickett cover)
Thunder Road
Born to Run
American Land
Seven Nights to Rock
(Moon Mullican cover)
Wrecking Ball
(with Curt Ramm)
The Ties That Bind
Hungry Heart
Working On a Dream
Blinded By The Light
Growin' Up
Mary Queen of Arkansas
Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?
Lost In The Flood
The Angel
For You
Spirit in the Night
It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
The Promised Land
Restless Nights
Surprise, Surprise
Green Onions
Merry Christmas, Baby
(Johnny Moore's Three Blazers cover) (with Curt Ramm)
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
(J. Fred Coots & Haven Gillespie cover) (with Curt Ramm)
(I Don't Want To) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes
(Chuck Willis cover)
Boom Boom
(John Lee Hooker cover)
My Love Will Not Let You Down
Long Walk Home
The Rising
Born to Run
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
(with Curt Ramm)
I'll Work For Your Love
Thunder Road
American Land
(with Curt Ramm)
Dancing in the Dark
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
(with Curt Ramm)
Higher and Higher
(with Curt Ramm and Willie Nile)
Rockin' All Over The World
(John Fogerty cover)
Rough Justice
Live With Me
19th Nervous Breakdown
She's So Cold
Dead Flowers
Back Of My Hand
Ain't Too Proud to Beg
Infamy
(Keith Richards on vocals)
Oh No, Not You Again
Get Up, Stand Up
(Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
Mr. Pitiful
Tumbling Dice
Brown Sugar
Encore:
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Start Me Up
You Got Me Rocking
Rough Justice
Ain't Too Proud to Beg
She Was Hot
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Can't You Hear Me Knocking
I'll Go Crazy
Tumbling Dice
You Got The Silver
(Keith Richards on vocals)
Wanna Hold You
(Keith Richards on vocals)
B-Stage
Miss You
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Honky Tonk Women
Sympathy for the Devil
Paint It Black
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Encore:
Brown Sugar
An what the hell:
A Bigger Bang tour night one:
Last night of the tour:
Compare that to the first night and last night of POPMART
You mean the tour where they dropped 3 by the time they reached the end?
So they've only really dropped one more album cut on this tour. BUT they've given us how man new songs? How many never played(or only played few times) songs?
of course popmart had more pop songs by the end, the tour was built around the damn things.
serious question though, how many achtung baby songs played on night 1 of zoo tv were not played on the last night of the tour? i can only think of ultraviolet off the top of my head,
corianderstem said:Well said.
After I don't know how many bitchy posts I directed at you lately (sorry, man), I think I'm finally realizing we're more or less on the same page.
Niceman said:Compare that to the first night and last night of POPMART or ZOOTV. I guess you're saying that it's cool for U2 to do it since its how the Stones do it? To my mind, calling U2 the Stones is not a compliment to U2. Yeah, the Stones wrote some damn good songs, but only about a dozen that I've gotten into. (No, that's not ignorance, that's my opinion.) And they've toured for a few decades now based upon nostalgia and not their current work. I liked "Mixed Emotions," but that's the most recent song of theirs that got my attention, and that was the 80s. The last thing I want U2 to do is to be like them. They're kind of a joke.