lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
I’d really like to POP one of you.
WAIA gotta be like that?
I’d really like to POP one of you.
This thread got really interesting for a while. Now it’s gone stupid.
So it's about time for the band to deliver something new. Next week sees the 3-year anniversary of SOE. Would be nice to get some rumours the band planning a new release, knowing that it will take at least another year for a release...
A bit of self respect would be decent by ditching Ryan Tedder and his rent-a-choruses and rehiring Eno - or at least somebody with a sense of artistry. Best Thing About Me, the uninspiring rent-a-chorus from The Blackout, the utter shite that is Song For Someone - that's just the surface. Never should U2 resort to such cheap and shoddy artistically bankrupt idiots like Tedder.
It's cringeworthy and downright embarrassing that they've resorted to such artistically bankrupt producers/songwriters like Tedder. Utterly embarrassing.
Bono is lyrically uninspred, with cliched platitudes all over the place on their collaborations with Tedder too. Songs of Innocence is Bono's worst effort lyrically - just really shallow. It's supposed to be autobiographical but never has something that is supposed to be intimate come off as so bland and cliched.
It's clear there's no creative muse in U2 to guide them now. Somebody like Jon Landau would point Bruce Springsteen in the direction of books and films to be inspired by. Tony Visconti would do similar with Bowie. U2 are so uninspired and that screams when they're hiring some shallow bubblegum pop stooge like Tedder.
They're just not taking it seriously enough anymore. That's fine, what we've got is more than enough with the sheer depth of greatness from them but they really do risk harming their legacy by continuing with such folly.
Something to consider:
Touring ZooTV again is a lot more complicated logistically than what they were doing with JT30, which was essentially just the one big screen. I have a hard time believing they would replicate the hanging Trabants, the multitude of various screens, etc. and take it across the U.S. and Europe, let alone the other markets in Asia, South America, Australia.
However, the inability of bands to mount tours in the foreseeable future presents an interesting opportunity for U2, something that has been proposed before in different guises for different album promos, and akin to what some other bands, including C*ldplay, have done before.
The internet and streaming have replaced satellite TV as our main media interfaces in this century/millennium, the old channel surfing gimmick of ZooTV is a bit outdated for most people. So why not embrace this and do a single live performance to commemorate AB and the tour, and stream it worldwide via one of the bigger services, like Netflix, HBOMax, Amazon Prime, or AppleTV+, YouTube? This way they can set up as many bells and whistles as they want to because it's a one-time only show and they won't have to lug the stuff around the world from city to city. If they really wanted to go meta, they could do it in an open stadium and park a bunch of old Trabants inside that selected fans/celebs could sit in for the safe, "drive-in" concert experience, with appropriate social distancing.
They could also find a way to make it interactive for those who watch it live, or accept requests/fan video messages in the weeks leading up to it? So maybe in-between sections of the show they could put up people's memories of the tour and album, or maybe you even have public figures/fellow artists contributing? You'd still be able to deliver a multimedia presentation that would update the original show's approach.
Just a thought. It's going to be a while before huge shows, especially ones with GA floors are going to happen again, and I imagine if U2 tours again they would want to do it with whatever new material they're working on. A livestream concert would be a brilliant move in terms of appearing vital and current with what artists are doing now, and be in keeping with the spirit of what they're commemorating.
Whatever real touring they have left in them, I'd like for as little of it to be nostalgic as possible. I'll save ZooTV for if/when consumer level time travel becomes a thing.
unless the band has been secretly recording all this time.
A ZooTV refresh in 2022 wouldn't shock me.I’d prepare for 2023 earliest unless the band has been secretly recording all this time.
Ok so what was the basis / catalyst for JT 30? Nobody here probably wanted it either.
I’m sure U2 took note. Put on a lazy show, by their standards, and you can sell out stadiums. Why wouldn’t they do it again?
At the time the rumour was that they shat the bed with their album plans and decided to do that instead?*
Like with many decisions the band makes, I'd love to be a fly on the wall to understand reasons for them, alternative options they considered etc. Time is not on their side as things stand, I'd much rather see them make & tour new music, but you're right, if someone is willing to drive another truckload of cash to your house for touring an old album rather than writing and rehearsing new stuff, it must be tempting right?
* I may be totally forgetting the chain of events that led up to the JT tour, but that's as I remember it ������
Was SOE delayed to make way for the JT Tour?
Or did the JT Tour happen because SOE was delayed?
...
I believe that SOE was pretty much finished by late 2016, but they held it off because the JT Tour seemed like a better move, financially. And since the anniversary was in 2017, they had to act then.
I couldn't get tickets to i+e (ditto e+i, eventually), so was extra pumped about JT30. Exit was worth the price of admission, the rest was an exceptional cherry on top. It was also 20 years to the day since I first saw them at Popmart in Philly.
Watch them do ZoomTV next year, or something else as cringey as it is endearing.
. listen, it was awesome for me to finally see a bunch of Joshua Tree album cuts live, ok?
That all being said, if they do go ahead with this AB30 show, I will be buying tickets to multiple shows, and have a great time. Finally seeing that Love is Blindness guitar solo is definitely a bucket list item for me!