Heading down to Pasadena Sunday for the U2 show. Psyched for the concert, weary of the traffic and logistics as outlined here: http://tinyurl.com/yzpd93j. I have been following the set lists of this tour religiously but felt it was important to give the band the opportunity to gain perspective of what a lifelong fan wants to hear, within reason. The idea is to keep the integrity of their current setlist intact but tweak it to include some gems that the real fans would love to hear.
BreatheI really like the new album, but don’t understand why they keep pushing this song as one of the standout tracks. It was played on SNL a few weeks ago and is probably one of my least favorite songs on the album. Put it this way: I was at that SNL performance and after they performed it my wife looked at me and made a face implying “has your favorite modern band lost their touch?!” Lose the track altogether or bury it later in the set when I will undoubtedly need a beer. Instead start with Magnificent, my second favorite song on the new album that has a rousing anthemic quality we have grown accustomed to hearing from U2.
Get on Your Boots OK but I’ll probably get on my Converse instead.
Magnificent Mysterious Waysreplace with Even Better Than The Real Thing
Beautiful Day So overplayed but unavoidable. Would rather hear Zoo Station or The Fly, perhaps?
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Stuck In A Moment
No Line on the Horizon ElevationFun song live, but let’s pull out an oldie but goldie like Two Hearts Beat As One or Like A Song instead. Seriously, Bono- the place will go apeshit.
In A Little While Unknown CallerGood but not great new song. Let’s hear In God’s Country instead.
Until The End of the World
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I’ll Go Crazy - Remix Sunday Bloody SundayNever need to hear this song again. If you’re looking for me during this song I’ll probably on a bathroom/beer run. Replace with A Sort Of Homecoming.
MLK- followed by Bad, please!!
Walk On
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Encore:
Ultraviolet
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender My favorite song on the new album, and probably the song I’ve listened to more this year than any song from any band. Sadly, I’ll be scrambling to the parking lot during it’s performance. 96,000 cars leaving the stadium at the same time merits sacrificing a song and a half to try to beat the traffic.
Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry- you’re welcome. See you Sunday.
Love
_schnd
Hmmmm….decisions, decisions. I have tickets to the U2 show at the Rose Bowl in LA Sunday night, have been looking forward to the show for quite some time. Off the top of my head, this will be my thirteenth U2 gig, starting with being 9th row center at the LA Coliseum for the Joshua Tree tour and culminating with my attendance for their performance at the premiere of SNL last month (not exactly a proper concert per se, but let’s count it).
With the announcement today that Youtube will be streaming Sunday’s show live, I have a tinge of doubt, however. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still geeked about going, but I went to the UCLA/Cal game at the Rose Bowl on Saturday and I find it unfathomable that the second largest media market in the US (world?) would hold a large gathering of people in such a preposterously inconvenient mausoleum. What a F*@%ing quagmire. I went to the game with my buddy Mike who works out in Pasadena and knows some good short cuts to getting to the stadium, regardless traffic is unavoidable and the last couple miles of the drive probably took us 30 minutes alone. The parking lot at the stadium was designed in the 1950’s to hold, I’m guessing, 20,000 cars- for a 100,000 capacity venue!!! So you are sent to park on the adjacent golf course. It took us a solid 20 minutes to walk from the car to the venue. I think it was a mile walk. Then we got in, and had to walk about half way around the venue to get to our tunnel. By then we were exhausted and sweating like Patrick Ewing in the 4th quarter, and as we trudged up to our seats the only thing on our mind was getting something in a frozen dessert treat. At halftime you are welcomed by preposterously long lines for all food and beverage items, again it was like they designed the concessions to serve 40,000 people while the venue holds 100k. I won’t have to deal with the heat on Sunday night, but still- the entire experience would’ve taken us 6 hours if we didn’t get there late and leave early. Ridiculous!! The politics of stadium construction futility in LA is well documented, but there’s gotta be a billionaire out there who will make serious money by building a state of the art sports complex in LA that can handle UCLA football, USC football, an NFL team, and major concerts like the one I’m about to attend Sunday.
Clearly, even with my high quality computer speakers and large monitor, the youtube experience is not going to hold a candle to experiencing the show live. But it does give me pause. Here’s to hoping for a wardrobe malfunction for show opener Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie to make it all worth my while.
Lance Armstrong shut down traffic in Glasgow, Scotland this morning after he posted a tweet inviting the locals to take a ride with him
“Hey Glasgow, Scotland! I’m coming your way, who wants to go for a bike ride?”
@lancearmstrong
Armstrong had expected a dozen or so to join him on his morning ride, but more than 200 rode in pouring rain when the seven-time Tour de France winner turned up in the Paisley district of Glasgow.
“It’s a chance to meet lots of people,” said Armstrong, who was set to watch Irish rockers U2 play at Hampden Park later Tuesday. “We made up our mind to come and see a show two nights ago and I said, ‘Hey let’s have a bike ride.’”
Joining Armstrong on his ride was former world champion Graeme Obree.
“It’s fantastic — I know my friends will be jealous,” said Obree, who broke the 1-hour distance record in 1993 and 1994. “He does have such a draw.”
In a related story, thousands of Philadelphians joined Michael Vick at a cock fight after he posted an invite on his MySpace.
I’m happy to bring you, after a slight delay, a concert review from the first two U2 shows on their current 360 tour from our international music correspondent Nelson Bae. Nellie, thanks for your hard work, and no- we aren’t going to cover the costs of your trip. I’ll let you take it from here…
What? Oh, no, we weren’t there literally. What I meant was we are so there, kind of like when my friend said “Hey we’re going to the Laker championship victory parade, wanna go?” and I said “Oh, I’m so there” I didn’t go to the parade either.
I’ve been to the first show of two of U2’s previous tours, Las Vegas for the Pop Mart launch and Ft Lauderdale for the All That You Can’t Leave Behind tour. I’ve seen the band about 15 times throughout the years. However in these recession wary times, flying out for the launch of the tour in Spain is about as likely as Bill Gates adopting me as his baby and sole heir. Instead I plan to take a bunch of drugs, drink a bunch of alcoholic beverages, watch all of the videos filmed at the show and posted on the web, listen to the songs on the set list really loud on my computer, and in a few years it will be hard to remember if I actually attended the show or not. Might not hurt to catch one of their US shows as well.
Bono dedicated “Angel Of Harlem” to Michael Jackson and sang parts of “Man In the Mirror” and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”.
It Might Get Loud is a documentary from Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) that explores the history of the electric guitar through interviews, with performances by Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge. Pass me the SoCo, it’s time to get wild!
Remember the early days of the web and email when you’d get tons of joke emails? This was in the days before video was easily streamable and youtube didn’t exist. These days people will send around a youtube (or VIMBY) video of something that is funny or cool, but before video on the web it was stupid diagrams with different symbols on your keyboard to design where you should piss in a line of public urinals and other time wasters. Some of your friends and family would abuse their direct line of communication and send you one of these every friggin day, at your office email address no less. The email that I remember most vividly was some variant on the concept of nostalgia, getting old, being born in a certain era etc. “You Know You Were Born In The 80s If…” or “You Know You Are Getting Old If…”, stuff like that. Well if those lame emails were still going around, I would add “you know you’re getting old when all of the iconic albums of your youth start coming out in deluxe anniversary reissues”. If you accept this premise, the last few months are leading me to a premature midlife crisis. Pearl Jam reissues Ten with bonus tracks, a DVD of extras and all of the songs re-mixed by Brendan O’Brien). Radiohead (or more accurately, their old label Capitol Records) reissues their first three albums with all of the b-sides from each album’s era. The Beastie Boys reissue Paul’s Boutique with no new tracks, just a remaster and somewhere online you can get an “audio commentary” of the album from the band. U2 reissued their early catalogue last year. Most of these come with “but wait, there’s more!” variant pricing (i.e. for $12 you get the original album, for $20 you get a double CD, for $30 you get 2 CDs and a DVD, for $50 you get it all on 180 gram vinyl and for $100 you get it all on CD, vinyl, FLAC downloads, and a bonus t-shirt worn by someone who met one of the band members backstage at an Albuquerque radio show).
You may think I’m dissing this process, and by all accounts I probably should- let’s face it, at least half the time the original album would suffice and isn’t going to sound that drastically different from its newly remixed version. Also I think it’s safe to say that 99% of the people buying the reissue have the original, we’re preaching to the converted here. But the #1 way I waste my money, other than on cheap hookers and fantasy football, is by re-buying my CD collection over and over when they put out these reissues. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the new packaging and allure of hearing something that will remind me of the first time I heard one of my favorite albums. The O’Brien remixes give Ten some extra punch, even if the packaging is kind of lame (what’s with the tiny lyrics in the gatefold?!?). The Radiohead reissues are all essential in that they gather all of the b-sides in one place, and they are one of the few modern bands to actually put some thought and care into their b-sides. Pablo Honey is quaint in how they were just an ordinary early 90’s alt rock band then, but it’s cool to see them progress to visionaries from The Bends to OK Computer. I need to do the Pepsi challenge with Paul’s Boutique to see if it sounds any better than the CD that came out 20 years ago, but any excuse to listen to that landmark hip-hop masterpiece works for me. U2’s reissues are all solid in that they put some extra care into the packaging and delivered some stuff that only the hardest of hardcore fans have heard. In today’s dwindling music marketplace, it’s easy to download stuff but reissues like these are really the only reason to purchase a hard copy. No PDF of the artwork will suffice. So go to Amazon, or better yet, get in your car and go to an actual brick and mortar record store if they still exist in your town, and try to remember what it felt like to actually buy an album.
