By: Eoghan O’Neill
It was 1984, I was 12 years of age and I wanted to be cool. To be frank though I was struggling. My main interest at the time was chess and no matter how rewarding my flourishing Community Games chess career was I soon realised that it was unlikely to elevate me to the ranks of cool.
From a distance pop music with its proven street credibility seemed to be a more promising diversion. However my rational chess-centric mind had first to overcome its disturbing inability to work out what made one chart hit better than another. But help was at hand in the form of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1984 summer hit “Two Tribes.” As soon as I heard it I realised I had discovered what was — obviously — the greatest song ever written.
Having safely overcome my deficiencies in the fine art of pop song appreciation I was quickly transformed into some sort of pre-teen, parental nightmare of a pop fan. My well-thumbed copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess was quickly replaced by Smash Hits magazine and soon I was able to breath a sigh of relief — I might finally have a fighting chance of becoming something vaguely cool.
But the “Frankie” chapter was to be short-lived. Unknown to me at the time, a Dublin band called U2 was holed up that same summer in Slane Castle recording some songs that would radically alter my teenage landscape. It all started in September ’84 when I heard the first fruits of those recording sessions — the single “Pride (In the Name of Love).” The effect was dramatic. My musical allegiance was not only immediately re-aligned but a potent passion for U2 quickly revealed itself, a passion that has somehow lasted to this day.
Almost 17 years on it intrigues me to look back and recollect how, in the early days of that passion, nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — counted in my little world but this new band. Their spirited, earnest music coupled with the fact that they hailed from my city proved an intoxicating cocktail to my twelve-year-old self. With this new vital soundtrack knocking around in my skull everything suddenly seemed more vivid.
By my 13th birthday I had fulfilled all the classic fan criteria — a bedroom covered with posters of the band, frantic weekend searches in record shops for rare singles, hours locked in a bedroom listening to their records, and so on. It wasn’t long before people in my company would be heard muttering the words “obsessive” and “freak” in the same sentence.
Fortunately the obsessive streaks were eventually reeled in. Nonetheless flights of madness on occasion did assert themselves. There was the winter of ’86 when, in an attempt to meet U2, I’d skive off school every Friday afternoon and hang out outside their recording studio as they recorded The Joshua Tree album. I still hadn’t learnt my lesson ten years later in April 1997 when U2’s PopMart tour opened in Las Vegas. Allow me to elaborate.
From PopMart to Elevation
Can U2 finally get the balance right?
In April 1997 on the eve of the PopMart gig in Las Vegas I found myself sitting alone on a nearly empty 747 en route to the gambling Mecca. Getting slowly drunk on the airline’s bad wine I started to ponder the wisdom of my decision one month earlier to travel to U2’s sold-out Vegas gig without a ticket.
However with a bit of beginner’s luck I managed to overcome the heavy odds of this gamble. The first step was to book myself in to a cheap room in the pyramid-shaped Luxor hotel, the same hotel the band were staying in. Then at 8 o’ clock on the morning of the gig I called the hotel switchboard. Chancing my arm I asked to be put through to a fellow hotel guest called Paul McGuinness. The operator, to my astonishment, obliged and a few seconds later I hear the plum, but clearly groggy, tones of U2’s manager at the other end of the line. Realising that I had just woken him up I quickly launched into the pathetic story of my mini-odyssey, placing a particular emphasis on my non-ticket holding status. It would seem that my timing was immaculate because, in an apparent flush of misplaced early morning pity, he immediately arranged a ticket for me for the gig.
And an unforgettable gig it was but, alas, for all the wrong reasons. Yes, the beast of PopMart that was revealed in Las Vegas was a dazzling, jaw-dropping vision peppered with an oversized lemon and, of course, memorable music. However at the end of the concert as the flood-lit stadium emptied I found myself staring at the imposing stage trying to reconcile the evening’s unprecedented spectacle with my unexpected disappointment. Despite everything there was something deeply unsatisfying about the whole affair. The band’s insistence on pop kitsch, multiple costume changes and the latest visual media technologies was a massive distraction from what it was that brought 50,000 people to a stadium in the middle of a desert — the songs. Somehow while pushing the technology envelope U2 neglected to notice that scribbled on it was an address different to their intended musical destination. The shift of emphasis from music to spectacle that started for the band with 1992’s Zoo TV tour was now finally signed, sealed and delivered.
So when U2 announced earlier this year that they would be going on tour to promote their latest album All That You Can’t Leave Behind I was a bit apprehensive. After the multi-media excesses of their previous 3 tours one sensed their credibility was up for serious scrutiny. Would an infatuation with visuals get the better of them again? Or would the songs be allowed to do the talking? Fortunately I this time managed to keep my curiosity in check and stayed on this side of the Atlantic when they opened the Elevation tour in Miami last March. Nevertheless at the beginning of July I hopped on a plane to Copenhagen to check out the first concert of the European leg of the tour. Old habits after all do die hard.
Comparing the Copenhagen concert with the Vegas outing is difficult because, put simply, there was no comparison. With the band evidently more relaxed on the Copenhagen stage, it soon became clear that back-to-basics ethos underpinning the new album was echoed in the Elevation live show. Gone was the visual assault of the senses, out the window flew the costume changes and, thankfully, the mammoth mirror ball lemon was let out to rot somewhere. Instead we got 4 guys, a bunch of amps, a heart-shaped ramp and — center stage — some great tunes. Yes, there was some visual stuff going on but it was mostly discreet and it perfectly complemented the music. The songs were again allowed to breathe.
On balance it may be a creative success, however the tour is not immune to criticism. On the North American leg of the tour a very significant proportion of tickets each night sold for a face value of $130. Such an inflated asking price can only sit uncomfortably alongside Bono’s persistent calls for Western governments to curb their self-serving greed and cancel third world debts.
Nonetheless the concerts in Slane will no doubt form a special bookend to the Elevation tour, a tour that time may judge as U2’s most satisfying and musically complete. Despite the statement of intent in the tour’s title U2 will probably not elevate anybody lucky enough to have a Slane ticket. Instead concert-goers will experience something a little closer to earth — 2 unique hours of spirited and, on occasion, genuinely moving rock and roll.
One final note: any chess-playing U2 fans who one day find themselves crossing Bono’s path should challenge him to a game. A competitive chess player before joining U2, he usually carries a portable chess set and, word has it, he relishes a spontaneous game with a willing challenger. Chess, it would seem, may not be so uncool after all.
© O’Neill / Cluas, 2001. All rights reserved.