Name That Year

As some of you might recall, I’m deliberately attempting to avoid any and all U2360 tour info since late-May (includes spoilers, video, rehearsals, setlists, etc.) To pass the time, I’ve been reading some “old” magazine articles that I’ve been meaning to get to. While reading an article today, there are a few quotes Bono gave that were interesting. Take a guess of the year Bono said these – I’ll give the answer at the end.

Now we play with judo, where you use the force of the opponent to defend yourself. All this sh*t that was comin’ at us – rather than try and pin it down and make sense of it or dodge it, we actually just surfed it, this big tidal wave. That’s what happens when a band starts taking off. You’ve come from a fairly humble background and suddenly you’ve got all this stuff going on in your head and in your life – and we’ve seen what this can do to people – and we thought, ‘No…let’s just surf it. All this stuff that you’re faced with being in a big band, through the media, or whether it’s the economics of it, just let it all be an energy’

And musically, you know, there are some very bogus ideas about what is ‘authentic.’ A lot of people might thing that to be pure you have to, y’know, use a real kit of drums, a Fender guitar, and a cable straight into you know, this whole idea of “This is organic.” And, of course, the irony is that back when Bob Dylan did that it was a heresy ’cause you couldn’t be authentic if you plugged in your guitar. And now, it’s the same thing in a different way. I think we have to get over this idea of what is authentic and not judge things by the obvious measures.”

Later in the article, Bono gives us this gem:

“Another liberation of what we’re doing is not having to apologize for any of it.” Bono explains, “This thing about the typical shy guy in rock…” He laughs, looking down at his lap, whispering, ‘Oh, I’m this shy guy. I don’t know how I got in this really loud kind of band and it’s all a bit much for me and I don’t know how I got signed to this major label…’ I think we’ve gotten to the point now where it’s just, ‘Give us a break,’ you know. ‘F*** off. ‘ If you’re shy, there’s a lot of things you’re gonna be doing, but you’re probably not gonna be the lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band. You’d be a potter or something. I mean, all of us are more comfortable or less comfortable with fame, that’s just part of it. But you join a band to see how far you can take it.”

Any guesses so far as to the year? Here’s one last one that might give it away:

“It’s gonna be extraordinary,” he gushes. “Nothing like you’ve ever seen. Put simply, we’re taking a supermarket on the road with us. It’s really fun. I shouldn’t say too much, but…we found this thing in Hong Kong that we’re using, these large jumbotron screens, but they’ve moved the pixels like four or five inches, so, like, a screen that would be in Times Square….We got quite excited by this. It’s hard to describe, but it’s not so much about images as colors and feelings. We’ve found this extraordinary palette, it’ll be huge, like 150 feet by 50 feet….It’s hard for me to not talk about it, but I guess I shouldn’t give it all away.”

Yup you guessed correctly – 1997. The article was in Raygun magazine.

Even though 12 years have passed, there are a few interesting ironies: first, it seems like Bono and the band have been doing nothing *but* apologizing for Pop and Popmart to an extent, so I’m not sure just how liberating the Pop era really was for them. Second is that Bono was just as excited about the U2 360 tour during the press junkets for No Line on the Horizon’s release as he was about describing PopMart.

Speaking of PopMart, there is something more in common with U2360 than just playing in stadiums with a huge stage. You can *still* find tickets at regular price for almost every North American show on Ticketmaster. This tour has not sold out. To me, I’m dumbfounded that a limited-engagement U2 tour has not sold out in the States. For some smaller markets, like Raleigh and Tampa, you can *STILL* pull four tickets together – yup, that’s right…FOUR! And for both Tampa and Raleigh, it’s not just the $250 range tickets that can still be pulled. I was able to pull four together in the $95 range too.

I know that Matt brought up the sluggish album sales in OTR, but to also see some sluggishness in concert tickets too – the market is soft. And, at least for concert tickets, no one can claim that the sales figures are down because someone ripped off the music. I hope that for these smaller markets, the stadiums aren’t as empty as they were for PopMart.

Anyway, it’s fun to catch up on my magazines…even if I am 12 years behind in reading some of ‘em!

By the way – if you want to follow my (mis)adventures of avoiding U2360 tour news and gossip, I’m tweeting about my experiences. I hope to stay as not-in-the-know until my September show at Gillette Stadium. I’m sort of failing, thanks to people “sharing” spoilers with me forgetting that I don’t want to know…but people are getting better at not letting me in on the news. (Thanks to those who are helping me on this journey.) I’ll write an @U2 article about the whole experience in late September.

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