U2 / You Too

[Gangster Octopus]

Better still, get him to tell us.

[WOM]

I tell it better. Less details, but more heart.

[Sits]

So I decided I should make myself a U2 playlist as I really like some stuff and dislike other stuff.

I've started at the beginning and am surprised to find I prefer October to Boy. I'd always assumed the opposite. Will proceed.

[Snake Plissken]

Something worth remembering about U2 is that there's actually five members, with paul mcGuinness, their manager getting one fifth of the money. He's really important to the whole thing. HIm and adam had to convince the other three to not break up the band after the first album because bono wanted to go off and become some kind of preacher or missionary. I believe he was encouraged by Paul mcguinness to carry on his ministry through his music.

Last Saturday, I went to see Bono doing his one man show as part of his book tour. It was a mixture of him telling stories interspersed with him doing snippets of songs relevant to the story. So for instance, he's talking about trying to tell Edge how to play a riff that he (Bono) has in his head.

"I'm like, gimme the fuckin' guitar and I hammers out the chords and hand it back to him saying 'like that but...not... *trails off* absolute shit'. And he takes the guitar and plays the same thing his way and it doesn't sound shit, it sound more like... *band starts on 'I Will Follow'".

It was a great show. Everything you want to say about Bono you can because it was in that show. He's got a huge ego, because he's a rock star, but his family and doing stuff with his fame and fortune is incredibly important to him. He bangs on about charity from a position of privilege but he's managed over the past thirty years to raise over $700m in aid, debt relief or whatever. He's funny as fuck, very self deprecating and then tells a great story about Pavarotti.

Anyway, to go back to the quoted bit, he tells that story in the show. Basically, the entire band had Got Religion and were considering quitting. Bonos telling of the conversation with McGuinness goes

"So you want to quit the music business then?"
"Yes"
"Because of God? God is telling you to do this?"
"Yes."
"God wouldn't ask people to break legal contracts, would He?"
"Um..."
"What exactly is God's position on legally binding contracts to deliver a second album?"
"Um... don't know."
"Well, they next time you speak to God, why don't you fucking ask Him and then fucking let me know?"

[diggedy derek]

It seems kind of quaint in retrospect that Bono used to be OTF Public Enemy No 1 back in the day.

[Sunderporinostesta]

It seems kind of quaint in retrospect that Bono used to OTO Public Enemy No 1 back in the day.

OTfs getting soft in its old age. There’ll be nowt to look forward too but pipe n slippers if sting ever gets an easy ride.

[diggedy derek]

Mind you, I did try to return to Achtung Baby recently, and though I love it at the time, it just didn't seem to hang together. If you're gonna go grimy and Berlin go all the way.

[Mumpo]

Yeah One is the most conspicuous offender in that respect - better suited to the raucous bombast of The Joshua Tree

[elguapo4]

Amid talk of U2 taking up a residency in Las Vegas, Larry Mullen reveals that he may need to take a year out to have surgery, after 40 years of drumming.