U2, Berlin, Virgin Prunes

Signing, of course, was heavily in the air where U-2 were concerned. With yet another deal imminent, and this time even more securely grasped than the others which all somehow seemed to slide away like a bar of soap just at the last minute, they knew that they were to some extent on trial. I’d previously only seen them in Dublin, and not since September at that, and at that stage I’d still felt that there were residual twinges of the Dublin disease, a slight lack of conviction, of urgency. Their stint here late last year has jettisoned any such quibbles this time around, however. Live at least, though not yet quite on record, they’re now a fully rounded unit playing to, rather than against, their strengths.

Some of the music has been given a bit of a spring-clean, too — for example the revised rhythm of “Stories For Boys.” I still think there’s something wrong with the internal dynamics of some of the songs: “Another Day,” for instance, definitely loses pace in the middle. Bono is starting to move a little too much like the Ian Curtis/Numan school, but it’s probably unintentional.

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