Lilith ([email protected])
Wed, 05 Aug 1998 02:48:35 -0400
> Slickest part of Joshua tree tour was when Bono wiped out on rain soaked
> Washington stage, just joking, I guess that wasn't choreographed.
>
You're right, he fell down, thus proving that the JT tour was a totally
stripped-down, simple, spontaneous, non-slick, rough-hewn, humble,
enter-your-own-politically-correct-adjective affair. We all know
_nothing_ ever went wrong in the POPMart juggernaut, it was an
enterprise of soulless, robotic perfection from beginning to end. Guess
that time the Lemon refused to open in (Oslo? Stockholm?) was all part
of THE PLAN.
> Most technologically advanced part of show was the sea of flickering
> lighters in the audience.
>
'Scuse me while I ROTFL. I guess we all DREAMED of all those cameras,
and electric lights, and soundboards, and the BIG VIDEO SCREEN in the
back of the stadium that was for so the people in the back could get
some close-ups of the band.
> For the most part, stage trappings were sparse, lighting was as basic as
> street light illumination, exception would be exit where lights would
> flicker on/off. It was anything but hi-tech, slick and produced.
>
No Rob, they did not "flicker on and off" they were _bright explosions
of light_ that nearly blinded me, as I recall. As for the illumination
being "as basic"as street lighting... the comparison is absurd. It makes
no more sense than to say the stage was lit no better than the average
living room. Quite frankly, I wonder at your criteria for "hi-tech,
slick, and produced" since a) no stadium rock show since the seventies
has been done that was _not_ "high tech" etc, the venue demands it, it
is not a venue for simple acoustic shows. All those speakers, the
equipment, the sequencers (as if they did not use those, _dream on_),
those are "high tech," see? A guy on a bench in front of a country store
plucking a banjo, that is _low tech_. And yes, U2's shows have always
been "produced," that means that they follow a certain plan, that they
have a theme, that there is a song list that they planned out in advance
and follow. There is nothing _wrong_ with that, so your use of the term
as a criticism is absurd.
Despite the added special effects in subsequent tours, the Joshua Tree
tour was to me the slickest, most rigidly-guided and planned tour they
have ever done. A lot was riding on this tour. They had gotten critical
hosannas from the major music publications, such as Rolling Stone (who
had given the Unforgettable Fire merely a lukewarm review, but then they
had gone on to name them Band of the 80's), NME, and Melody Maker (I
have the sycophantic and overblown reviews in my possession if anyone is
curious), and had all sorts of media drooling all over them. This was in
turn a result of the huge response their Live Aid performance had gotten
(as some of you on Wire may recall, Bono thought he had ruined his
career, but it turned out quite otherwise). After that, when they
released JT, it was _very_ carefully calculated to become a major hit.
Gone were the weird experiments like "Promenade" and "Elvis Presley in
America." So the tour had to be a success as well.
The Joshua Tree tour was "stripped down" and "minimal" in the most
calculated way. Are you naive enough to think that it was all unplanned
and spontaneous? After all, it was towards the end of the Reagan Era,
when everything was all glitz and greed and yuppies and conspicuous
consumption. U2 went quite consciously "against the flow"; they knew
that this would be a successful move. And it was.
> Even
> by 87 standards, look at none other than the meterial girl's ciao italia
> '87 tour in turin, slicker than slick, produced and choregraphed by
> professional dancers who incidentally were in the closing credits.
>
Must we really look at Madonna? What does she have to do with any of
U2's tours? We might as well look at Michael Jackson's tours, or Frank
Sinatra's -- or hell, Yanni's.
Then we have this nonsense:
> Bono was alot closer to humble than anything else, the arrogance
> argument seems more like a group conformist attitude, maybe you can
> elaborate on the sources of this arrogance. I don't think excessive
> preachiness qualifies as arrogant.
>
I really, I really don't know what to say to this. Rob, Rob, you have
totally been taken in by the Myth of Bono, which he is still (obviously)
trying to get out from under, and you are one of the reasons he put on
Fly shades. You are the kind of fan that makes people look at me weird
when I say I like U2, and I have to reassure them that I'm not a
fundamentalist Christian and I am not anti-fun.
> JT, the hi-tech, slick, well oiled prodcution, has a weird ring to it.
>
Yes, there is most likely no Santa Claus.
Over and out,
Lilith
-- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame....
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Tue Aug 04 1998 - 23:49:19 PDT