Another Time, Another Place
Tuesday, November 16th, 1999
These days, U2 fans are divided into two distinct camps: those who love the tortured, self-righteous Bono and those who love the rich, mega-rock-star Bono. There may well be some fans who love both the “old" and the “new" U2, but I think there are a larger number of people who don’t even realize that U2 made any album before The Joshua Tree.
I am used encountering rolling eyes and disgusted sneers when I loudly and proudly proclaim that I am a staunch fan of the tortured, self-righteous Bono. I just can’t help myself. I started listening to U2 when I was 14, and in all the formative years following that, it was the self-righteous Bono who “spoke" to me. He sang about things that mattered in a way that made me care about those things, too. I never found him irritating or self-important. He always just sounded like he meant it, man, and I liked that.
It was, of course, The Joshua Tree that got me interested in U2. I distinctly remember buying the album (and I mean album - I bought the vinyl), taking it home, putting it on my parents’ stereo, popping on some headphones and being overwhelmed.
There was a dreamy, distant organ sound, pierced through by a jangly guitar which was far-off at first, but which moved closer and closer to the front of the mix until the bass slid in saucily, the drums thundered onto the scene and the cymbals crashed and shimmered euphorically. Bombastically, some might say - but I didn’t think it was bombastic. And really, I still don’t. I felt I was in the presence of something magical and holy. A U2 fanatic was born.
I didn’t own any U2 album besides The Joshua Tree for a very long time. I didn’t feel I needed any other album. Eventually, though, I did work my way back through their older albums, starting with War. My acquisition of War coincided with a lot of upheaval in my life (moving - new home, new school, new friends), and I think I felt that the anger and indignation of the album reflected what was going on inside me at the time. I had War on cassette and, because it’s such a short album, both sides of the cassette were the same. That was perfect for me: I would listen to the album once through, then flip the tape over and listen to it all again.
I bought The Unforgettable Fire on vinyl as well. I found it rather inaccessible when I first got it. I loved “A Sort of Homecoming”, and I did like the rest of the album, too. But in a way it disturbed me, and in a way it just wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the time. It was too psychedelic, not angry enough. I just didn’t “get" it. It’s only now, years later, that I realize what a great album it is, balanced as it is on the cusp between the really old U2 and the newer U2 of The Joshua Tree.
Moving back even farther in time: I checked Boy out of the library in my town, and was quite taken aback when I first heard it. It grew on me, though. It’s one of those albums that has the ability to immediately transport me to a specific time and place - namely, to my bedroom on the top floor of our house in a little German town called Ballersbach, with me lying on my bed and staring at the posters on my walls and wondering why life as a 15-year-old seemed so much more difficult than life as a 14-year-old.
Boy is a funny album. It’s so young sounding, so naive and poppy and 1980’s. Today I find myself wondering if Bono and Co. cringe when they hear it. Part of me cringes when I hear it, but then, the album is almost 20 years old and I still listen to it and sing along, so it can’t be all bad.
The other albums didn’t move me so much. At some point I did have Under a Blood Red Sky, and I bought October and never listened to it. Then Rattle and Hum came out. I bought it the day that it was released, I rushed home and - I tried to like it. I really did. Some things on it I did like, but generally it was just so American somehow, so optimistic in a way, so pieced together from various bits that didn’t really seem to fit. Perhaps I should have realized it then: it was the beginning of the end.
Jumping ahead several years - it was 1991, my first year at college, and my fanaticism for U2 was already gradually being replaced by a fanaticism for industrial music. But still, the day Achtung Baby was released, I rushed out and snatched it up - and I tried to like it. I did like it in a way, I suppose, but I certainly didn’t love it. I’m afraid I would have been happy (for a while, anyway) if U2 had continued to make Joshua Tree copies instead of trying something new. I appreciate innovation and the need to push your artistic boundaries and all that, but the self-importance and self-righteousness was gone, and I missed it.
I did get to see them live after Achtung Baby came out. Despite everything, it was unspeakably amazing to be in the physical presence of the band that I had worshipped for so long. I was at the side of the stage closest to the Edge, and when they first came out onto the stage, it literally took my breath away. I was in the presence of greatness.
But that was it for me. Zooropa, Pop… forget it. I never bought a U2 album after Achtung Baby (I did, however, go out and buy The Joshua Tree, War, The Unforgettable Fire and Boy on CD). For a while after Achtung Baby came out, I remember there was a debate raging amongst U2 fans as to whether or not they had “sold out.” Selling out is irrelevant. I just thought - and think - that they were “better before.” And it makes me feel very, very old when I realize that most of the people who listen to U2 today don’t even realize that there was a “before."
I am no longer a U2 fanatic, as such, but I still like the band, and the music still moves me. When I picked up the guitar several months ago and started to make a concerted effort to learn how to play it, it was U2 songs that I tried to learn first (before I realized that the range of Bono’s voice is a tiny bit bigger than the range of mine).
And not so long ago I was in the car with my mother, riding through the Arizona desert in the evening to a little town called Sonoita. The Joshua Tree was playing in the car stereo, the sky blazed orange and red at the horizon and the stars were just coming out over the scrub-covered mountains. Dusk crept up the road and neither of us said a word. We simply listened to the music that seemed to have been created with just such a landscape in mind. The music came alive for me again that evening, and I wouldn’t trade that moment in time or that place in the world for anything at all.
Comments
1
I saw U2 on The Unforgettable Fire tour and was awestruck at the emotion and intensity. Next time on the Joshua Tree tour, that personal touch and sincerity seemed to have been replaced by this new big rock star arena act. By the time Achtung Baby was released, I had taken to calling this new group U3, because they certainly didn’t seem like the same group that sent shivers down my spine with the first three chords of October (Give that one another chance, BTW, I don’t know why but it seems to touch me more than any other U2 album).
2
You make me laugh.
3
Jessica, Ever heard ‘out of control’? I thought I might have played that once for you, but perhaps you forgot (lots of good reasons to forget those times) Anyhow, it was the album before Island Records came along, it was on CBS of Ireland, it it’s very PUNK POPPY - but damned good too. It’s like seeing them, young and rough…I can smell the teen spirit! If you heard that bootleg "Early Cure" (MeatHook, I want to be old, etc), it’s pretty much the same feeling.
I also still like October. In fact, I think it may be my favorite U2 album. But it’s the only one that can actually _get_ me depressed. Now, I listen to a heck of a lot of music that people would call depressing (Joy Division, Death in June, etc) but this album and Pink Floyd’s "Animals" are the old ones that actually depress me. But sometimes I just need to revisit the time that that album marks, just as I revisit the other times with other albums.
U2 brings back a Hell of a lot for me…a lot of it bad. Which is why cannot listen too much.
I still have some of the old vinyl & tape. not a single CD.
tschuss, Bob
4
I have been listening, no, make that, feeling the music of U2 since 1985 when I recieved a tape cassette of "Rattle & Hum" by accident. Over the last 17 years, my stockpile, sorry, my shrine to U2 has grown to include every single tape cassette, CD, DVD, and book available in Australia and New Zealand. Bono may not be able to sing a note, but he sends a message that is worth listening to, in the bad and good times. I once listening to "I still haven’t found what I am lookin for" 26 times in a row. And my wife has learned to turn up the car radio when U2 come on…
5
Plain and simple: The only U2 people should pay attn to is the U2 from 1979-1984…
Listening to "Gloria" on October is totally an out of body experience. Their BEST SONG EVER!!!!!!!!!
6
My first exposure to U2 was in April 1981 at the local Co-op Records in Marshalltown, Iowa. Mark Hudson, the manager, said I should check out this new album, Boy. The band was scheduled to play Friday, April 10 in Ames, Iowa that week. I bought the album, and it overwhelmed me!! Rushed back the next day to buy 2 tickets to the show. The Club was called The Filmore, and it was a popular dance spot. When we got there, we were DEVASTATED!! They had covered the dance floor with folding chairs!!! The opening act was called Jonesen, and they could just as well just had a radio on, because the bands were on opposite ends of the spectrum. If you liked U2, you probably wouldn’t like Jonesen, and vice versa. We suffered through the first act, and when U2 came on, I think they opened with "I will Follow". It took about 20 seconds for us to all fold our chairs and set them to the side!!! The dance floor was reclaimed, and we danced our asses off!!! The next day, I went back to the record store, and grabbed the small poster billing "Warner Bros. New Wave Recording Artists (from Ireland) U2". It still hangs in my office with the two torn ticket stubs. I’m glad I have proof that I saw them in a Bar, cause no one would have belived me.
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