Friday, July 28, 2006
If It's Friday Night...
...then Tintara's flowing, the head's a buzzing, the YouTube's a posting, and the brain's engaged...
Here's a great vintage U2 clip of "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
Here's another one...U2 was so much better with mullets, n'cest-ce pas?
This was America's real first introduction to Paul Hewson, David Evans, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen...it ranked 11th on my previous top 5 lists of musical events/eras I wished I experienced. Although, when I was 10, I saved up my paper route money and bought the Red Rocks concert on VHS and watched it until it broke.
Combining a top song and a top show - Live Aid 1985 - here is U2's version of the song at this world-changing event
Here's that 1987 clip in Denver, where Bono went off...there was never a more empassioned rendition, as you can tell by his "Fuck the Revolution" cry. I only wish I witnessed it first-hand.
It makes you wish that the song was never written, that there was never ever any reason to have it written. And then you think of the current world and how shampooed it is...how there are scores of Arab and Israeli versions of this song...how 9/11 could spawn a box set...how 7/7 in Madrid...and the Bali bombings...and all of the World's Troubles.
Bono wrote this song about the Irish troubles...Kids, there are global troubles. I bow my head in graceful remorse and peace. I am childless now. But my hope is to have sons and daughters and grandchildren and sit them down and talk about how the World changed for the worse and...hopefully...how it turned back for the good.
It's too easy to hate. It's a fucking cop-out to hate (apologies for the sans shampoo...but this is the politically impassioned me). Make an effort to love. CNN shouldn't be a bloody horror story.
Ok, back to the song...is it different now? Yes. BUT... The band never takes it for granted. In fact, after the show in Denver they stopped playing it until late in the Popmart tour. To me, this song is like Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done" in that the band NEVER EVER half-asses it. Maybe a monologue midway through but it's never shite. It can't be. There's way too much riding on it.
You want proof of that? Here's a clip from the "rediscovering" of the song during the Popmart Tour... It's acoustic. It's just the Edge. Doesn't matter. It's still empassioned. U2 never missed a beat.
Here's a clip from a show in Dublintown on the Vertigo tour, circa 2005. Yep, still relevant. Still got it.
When 9/11 happened, yeah, all of us folks who were 25-26 at the time knew that life would be different. It affected everyone, obviously, but for my particular age-group at the time...life as we knew it was all up for grabs.
Our age-group - those who are 30-31-32 right now - we have a very unique place in this world. We're the computer programmers who remember what it was like to not have email or internet until their junior years in college. They remember how to actually have to do stuff without Google.
Our age-group, those were the folks working from floor 75 and above...or climbing the stairs as members of FDNY trying to help those affected by the planes...or they were on the planes... (Shawn M. Nassaney and Lynn Goodchild, United 175, RIP)
Like our parents before us, who all remember where they were when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, we all remember where we were when our world stopped twice before 9 a.m. on that faithful day.
Has it started again? Good question. Certainly a subjective question. If you ask that cu(shampoo)nt Ann Coulter, we're all attention-seeking whores. But for me, and I can only speak for me, no...the World has not started again. It continues to go down a path of destruction, but it has not ever kicked back into gear. Not even after five years.
The pessimist says it won't. And frighteningly enough, I'm not one of them.
I hope we can all just get on...I want to have kids. I want them to live, learn, and work toward the next logical step. But the way things are going, I just want them to experience something. Anything. At this rate, that's no guarantee.
Your humble & obedient servant,
Here's a great vintage U2 clip of "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
Here's another one...U2 was so much better with mullets, n'cest-ce pas?
This was America's real first introduction to Paul Hewson, David Evans, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen...it ranked 11th on my previous top 5 lists of musical events/eras I wished I experienced. Although, when I was 10, I saved up my paper route money and bought the Red Rocks concert on VHS and watched it until it broke.
Combining a top song and a top show - Live Aid 1985 - here is U2's version of the song at this world-changing event
Here's that 1987 clip in Denver, where Bono went off...there was never a more empassioned rendition, as you can tell by his "Fuck the Revolution" cry. I only wish I witnessed it first-hand.
It makes you wish that the song was never written, that there was never ever any reason to have it written. And then you think of the current world and how shampooed it is...how there are scores of Arab and Israeli versions of this song...how 9/11 could spawn a box set...how 7/7 in Madrid...and the Bali bombings...and all of the World's Troubles.
Bono wrote this song about the Irish troubles...Kids, there are global troubles. I bow my head in graceful remorse and peace. I am childless now. But my hope is to have sons and daughters and grandchildren and sit them down and talk about how the World changed for the worse and...hopefully...how it turned back for the good.
It's too easy to hate. It's a fucking cop-out to hate (apologies for the sans shampoo...but this is the politically impassioned me). Make an effort to love. CNN shouldn't be a bloody horror story.
Ok, back to the song...is it different now? Yes. BUT... The band never takes it for granted. In fact, after the show in Denver they stopped playing it until late in the Popmart tour. To me, this song is like Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done" in that the band NEVER EVER half-asses it. Maybe a monologue midway through but it's never shite. It can't be. There's way too much riding on it.
You want proof of that? Here's a clip from the "rediscovering" of the song during the Popmart Tour... It's acoustic. It's just the Edge. Doesn't matter. It's still empassioned. U2 never missed a beat.
Here's a clip from a show in Dublintown on the Vertigo tour, circa 2005. Yep, still relevant. Still got it.
When 9/11 happened, yeah, all of us folks who were 25-26 at the time knew that life would be different. It affected everyone, obviously, but for my particular age-group at the time...life as we knew it was all up for grabs.
Our age-group - those who are 30-31-32 right now - we have a very unique place in this world. We're the computer programmers who remember what it was like to not have email or internet until their junior years in college. They remember how to actually have to do stuff without Google.
Our age-group, those were the folks working from floor 75 and above...or climbing the stairs as members of FDNY trying to help those affected by the planes...or they were on the planes... (Shawn M. Nassaney and Lynn Goodchild, United 175, RIP)
Like our parents before us, who all remember where they were when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, we all remember where we were when our world stopped twice before 9 a.m. on that faithful day.
Has it started again? Good question. Certainly a subjective question. If you ask that cu(shampoo)nt Ann Coulter, we're all attention-seeking whores. But for me, and I can only speak for me, no...the World has not started again. It continues to go down a path of destruction, but it has not ever kicked back into gear. Not even after five years.
The pessimist says it won't. And frighteningly enough, I'm not one of them.
I hope we can all just get on...I want to have kids. I want them to live, learn, and work toward the next logical step. But the way things are going, I just want them to experience something. Anything. At this rate, that's no guarantee.
Your humble & obedient servant,
