I was just having a conversation about this with my dad yesterday. I know some of you may rake me over the coals for this but I don't care...
So obviously, we can't expect to hear the same vocal strength out of a 57 year old man as we heard 24-30 years ago. He's had vocal struggles on stage for years. Zoo TV/Zooropa is the only Tour I can think of that he didn't lose his voice for a show. Ironic, as he was constantly smoking back then which I'm sure led to his vocal issues during Popmart. Listen to any popmart show when he sings "Mo-Fo!" at the show's opening. He sounds tired & vocally weak. Then, he mustered up some serious strength/energy for the Mexico City show & belted out a nice, passionate, higher range "Mo-Fo!". But then listen to his voice crack during WOWY. I think the smoking during the 90s really took a toll on the voice of a guy who already struggled with vocal issues. Regardless, I loved 90s U2. I felt that the energy & excitement was still there even when his voice wasn't. Elevation had some rough spots vocally but again, very passionate. Vertigo was pretty good vocally. Of course, he had the help of pre-recorded vocals for the higher/harder to hit notes for both of these tours. Don't believe me, listen to some of the IEM recordings of Elevation - the "ooo-oo's" are most definitely a recording. He may be singing over it to double it but trust me, it is recorded. Then listen to Crumbs from your table from 2005-10-04 in Boston. "You speak" & "I need" are recordings. He really let that out of the bag when he sang the wrong part at the wrong time & the backing track kept playing. A funny moment, I'd say. Shows his human-ness. Regardless, I don't think there's anything wrong with using those kind of tools. Some say it's cheating, I say it's a helpful tool. It's not like Milli Vanilli who's whole career was a farce. Anyway, fast forward to 360... a phenomenal tour. Before his surgery, bonos voice was struggling that tour. Listen to "No Line" at the breakdown, for example. But again, the excitement was there. Awesome setlist with surprises on occasion & lots of NLOTH material. Reminded me a bit of Zoo TV. After surgery, his voice was stronger. I read somewhere that he really worked on his voice during that period after surgery. The implementation of Hold Me, Thrill Me & Zooropa about made me piss myself with excitement. Watching him swing around with that dangling microphone... this was the Bono I knew & loved.
I&E was a good tour. However, The energy didn't seem to be there like it was before. I didn't even see that tour. I planned to drive 10 hours to New York and after hearing some of the recordings, I just didn't feel that same excitement as I had before. In other years, I would listen to the recordings and this would give me all excited for whatever show I had tickets to. Honestly, I ended up selling my tickets. It just didn't seem very appealing and honestly, I don't regret selling my tickets. Then came the announcement of this current tour and I was excited about it so I bought tickets on the fan club presale. I ended up not going. I don't know – maybe I'm just getting older and don't have the same sense of adventure as I used to but The idea of spending a ton of extra money on parking, food, drinks, hotel, gas just didn't sound fun. And after listening to the recordings, Bono just isn't bringing it this time for me. He's getting older, yes, and his voice most likely won't get better with age but I just feel like the energy isn't there. Yes, he's 57 and I don't expect him to run all over the place like he used to but I feel like, from what I've listened to, that he's bored with some of those songs and doesn't put any kind of energy into them. Listen to "pride" now.listen to the opening line of "with or without you". He's been singing it that way since the 360° tour. It just sounds like "here we go again – I'm really getting tired of singing these songs!"which, quite frankly, I would be tired of it too. Singing the same songs night after night, year after year would get pretty old. But, that's what happens when you have hit songs. People want to hear that stuff so give it some passion! It just feels like this is a quick make the money and be done tour. Don't get me wrong, I love hearing the Joshua tree from front to back but with the other songs aside from the Joshua tree set, we might as well be listening to U218. I get it – the Joshua tree was their biggest album and if people have only one U2 album in their collection, it's probably the Joshua tree. So even the casual fans associate U2 with the Joshua tree and therefore, probably only want to hear other songs like elevation, vertigo, beautiful day, Sunday Bloody Sunday, etc... you know, the mainstream tunes. Which, if saying was a little more passion, can be excellent! Anyway, I just feel like the level of passion for performing isn't there anymore for Bono. He's 57 and maybe tired, yes. But look at the Rolling Stones – they look dead on stage and yet the energy is still there. And I'm not a stones fan, myself. But they definitely have the energy and those guys are in their 70s! Anyway, not to bash Bono. I know some of you out there can't handle reading a negative word about Bono. I used to be the same way. So please don't hate on me. I'm just sharing my thoughts and feelings.
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