Robbie Robinson ([email protected])
Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:23:08 -0800
WARNING, don't believe anything that's said at this stage
of the recording of the new album. Especially by Bono ;)
They've said many times that they never know what the tour
and staging is going to be like until the album is pretty
well done. Also, I think they are trying not to say *anything*
about what the new album or tour will be like to keep the
rumors down. I suspect that's why they have Edge and Adam
doing the interviews for the GH album so Bono won't go spouting
off about what he thinks the next album and tour will be like ;)
Of course they had to have him on the Rockline interview since
people would think something was strange if even Larry was there
and Bono wasn't.
The rumors and the wildly overboard numbers that the people
in the record business were talking before Pop even came out
lead to inflated expectations that that album would be like the
second comming and sell even better than JT did. After all that
unwanted hype (which wasn't from U2 or Island) the American media
gave 'em hell for it not selling like oh, 4 million in the first
week or some other impossible thing like that.
I think they are going to be as closed mouth as possible about
what the album and the next tour is going to be like to keep
the rumors and *unwanted* kind of hype from getting out of hand.
I wouldn't be suprised if U2 do like they did with AB when
they tour the next album. They were on time with AB and had
the chance to see how the album was doing before they started
the tour, they played some arenas to test out the water
in America and wet people's appitites and when the resopnse
was so great, the came back and played stadiums here.
I also think that the fantastic sales on the Greatest Hits
album (already double platanium here and more sales than
any other band's GH album ever) will finally get the always dense
American media to realize that U2 is one of the legendary rock
groups like the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Who and Led Zep. The fans,
most of the rock critics and the media in the rest of the
world have know it for ages, but the American media in general
seems to be wandering around in a fog of ignorance, as usual.
It'd be nice if U2 would get a little respect form them
ocassionally :(
I bet U2 do stadiums again in America (I'm sure they will everywhere
else). The resopnese to the GH album proves they can do it and
I'm sure it's picking up many new young fans for them who'll be
all hopped up to see them on their next tour.
Besides, I didn't think that Popmart was as "fancy" as everybody
else seems to. They had to have a stage that big for a stadium,
every big show has screens now even in arenas (they just got a
really large one ;), and the arch was really a functional part
of the stage. The arch contained the soundsystem and some of the
lighting for the show, they just found a way to disguise it and
make it interesting. The only totally unnecessary "fluff" onstage
was the toothpick and olive, which could have been dispensed with
and never missed, and the Lemon. But hey, the Lemon was fun!
So really, the only extragavant thing about the stage was
the screen being larger than it really *had* to be and the
toothpick/olive. Unlike most people, I always thought Popmart
wasn't any bigger than any other stadium show. The physical
size of the stage wasn't that impressive. I remember watching
them put the stage up before the Los Angeles show and thinking
"hey, it's not really *that* huge." What made it seem larger
than life during the performane was the music and the fantastic
way that the images on the screen complimented and enhanced
the action on the stage and the music. That's what made it
seem a hundred times bigger than life. Next time they could
accomplish the same thing with just a stage and a big screen.
But I would miss the Lemon :(
Robbie
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Fri Nov 20 1998 - 13:52:43 PST