U2: Stage And Studio
Home | About This Site | Articles / Features | Icons of Music Auctions | Photos | Propaganda | U2 Magazine | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame | U2:360 tour | U2 Producers | U2 Remasters Releases | Music Rising | Related Links | Video Links | UPCOMING / LATEST ALBUM INFO
U2 Magazine - No. 9

U2 MAGAZINE No. 9 - NOVEMBER 1983

U2 NEWS - UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY

A live mini-album from U2 is due for release on 21st Nov. The title is 'Under A Blood Red Sky', and will be released at a special price, likely to be only £2.99 in the U.K. The mini-album includes eight tracks all taken frog 1983 shows in Denver, Boston and Rockpalast at Loreley, and was produced by Jimmy Irvine and mixed by Shelly Yakus. Full listing is:
Side One: Gloria (Denver), 11 0'Clock Tick Tock(Loreley), I Will Follow (Boston) and Party Girl (Boston).
Side Two: Sunday Bloody Sunday, Electric Co, New Year's Day, "40".(All from Loreley).

A U2 video, also entitled 'Under A Blood Red Sky' will follow, but at present there is still some work to be done on this. It will consist entirely of footage from the show at Denver Red Rocks Amphitheatre and as previewed on Channel 4 TV. If you saw it, you'll already know the excitement and atmosphere this film captures.

U2 IN JAPAN
U2's long-awaited dates in Japan have now been finalised - unfortunately they won't be able to get to Australia on the same trip, but will still be sorting out an Australian visit as soon as they can fit it into the schedules. They depart 13th Nov, flying first to Honolulu, Hawaii for a one-off date before continuing to Japan where they play Osaka 22nd, Nagoya 23rd, and Tokyo 26, 27, 29, and 30th November. These dates complete the current touring schedules under the 'War' banner.

OTHER NEWS
The band have donated the white flags stage backdrop from their U.S. tour to a special exhibition at the Peace Museum in Chicago, entitled 'Give Peace A Chance', which will run until the end of next January..... Following a chance meeting between the two on a flight to Dublin same time ago, Bono has been invited by the Irish Prime Minister Garrett Fitzgerald to join his Select Government Action Committee on Unemployment......... Peter Rowan, featured on both the 'Boy' and 'War' sleeves, now 9 years old, is to star in a new film, 'The Perfume OF Old Memories' with Betts Davis and Peter Ustinov, and filming began in September in various parts of the world..... U.S. Funk band 'War' have "retaliated" in a friendly way with a track on their new album called "U2"!..... Edge has been doing some production work lately, for a band called Blue In Heaven which some of you might have seen live, and is also the first of the guys to be involved in a release outside of U2's own work details below.

SNAKE CHARMER by JAH WOBBLE/THE EDGE/HOLGER CZUKAY
Francois Kevorkian, the New York-based dance mixer who successfully adapted 'New Year's Day' and 'Two Hearts Beat As One' for the 12" remix versions, was asked if there were any other Island artists he wished to work with, and he mentioned Jah Wobble, the bassist formerly with P.I.L. He told U2 about the idea and found The Edge particularly interested in the project.

It was the start of a strange collaboration. Wobble brought in Holger Czukay and several others, plus his own group Invaders of the Heart Band. Francois Kevorkian was at the controls, aided by Paul 'Groucho' Smykle, the reggae dub mixer acclaimed for his recent work with Black Uhuru

There's some superb slide guitar from Edge, but it is an experimental project so don't expect it to sound like U2. It's an intriguing collaboration - and well worth looking into.

U2 LIVE - PHOENIX PARK FESTIVAL
SUNDAY AUGUST 14th 1983
By Colm Kavanagh, Arklow, Co. Wicklow, Eire

A say to remember? It certainly was! Over 20,000 people from Ireland, Britain, the Continent and even America made their way to the Phoenix Park to celebrate the homecoming of U2.

The music started with Dublin Duo Pat 0'Donnell and Steve Belton. They were followed by the Northern Irish band Perfect Crime. Led by Gregory Grey they gave a good show before departing the stage. After an hour of reggae from Steel Pulse, the Scottish connection started when Big Country came on stage. They brought a bopping crowd to life with an excellent set including 'Fields Of Fire', 'In a Big Country', 'The Storm', and their new single 'Chance'.

After a set from Eurythmics, the next band to appear were the excellent Simple Minds who left the crowd feeling drained. On a radio Program during the week Jim Kerr paid U2 a compliment. He said he had an advantage over Bono in that he aid not have to follow him. Anyway, they gave an excellent performance, the highlights being 'New Gold Dream' and 'The American'. When then left the stage, everyone pushed forward to get nearer to it. All of us up front were being crushed, but it vas worth it!

The MC came on stage and to quote him, "Are ya happy? D'ya wanna hear the best in Irish music? Last December was the last tine Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry played in Ireland. In six short months U2 have conquered the world." Too right!!

The band appeared on stage. The crowd roared its approval. Flags flew high in the sky. U2 kicked off with 'Out Of Control' which had the crowd going wild. 'Twilight' was next. Bono then dedicated a song to Jim Reilly whose brother was shot in Belfast the previous week. Before playing 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', Bono noticed an Irish flag in the crowd. He asked for it to be passed up to him, and he tied it to a white flag onstage. "This is not a rebel song," said Bono, giving it everything he had. 'Surrender', 'October', 'New Year's Day', 'Gloria', and many more classic tracks continued. Bono told us it was Edge's birthday (which it wasn't, it's Aug 8th) and the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

The band made their exit but it wasn't long before they re-appeared. The crowd went wild yet again to the beat of 'll 0'Clock Tick Tock' which was followed by 'Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl'. The band left the stage again, but the crowd weren't finished yet. They wanted more, and that's what we got. They played the old favourite 'I Will Follow' which had the exhausted crowd bopping endlessly. The final song of the evening, or rather, night showed how such U2 are respected and loved by their fans. "40" was the song, and long after it had finished and the band had disappeared the crowd just stood there singing "How long to sing this song?" for ages and ages. We even sang it on the way out. U2 had just proven to the people why they are the best band around.

U2 and the U.S.A.
When 'Boy' was released in America in early 1981, Bono proclaimed, "I feel that we are meant to be one of the great groups. There's a certain chemistry that was special about the Stones, the Who and the Beatles, and I think it's also special about U2".

Shortly before 'Boy's release, manager Paul McGuinness received a letter from the A&R dept. at Warner Bros. Records, the company that distributed their label, Island, in the States. "I had sent Warner Bros.'a demo tape several months earlier before we had been signed by Island," McGuinness explains, "and they returned it to me with a curt letter saying they weren't interested in us." So he quickly fired back a response. "I thought they might like to know they were releasing our album in a few weeks."

The LP sold nearly 200,000 copies, but U2 was still far from being a chart-topping act in America. So when 'October' was released early the following year. Paul came up with an idea for a promotional gimmick - get the band a float in the massive New York St Patrick's Day Parade. An Irish band. An Irish Parade. Hundreds of thousands of people would see them. Genius, right?

Well, not exactly. After McGuinness had made all the arrangements to land the band a spot in the parade, he found out that there was a possibility that the honorary marshall was to be Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who had starved to death the previous year. Both Paul and the members of U2 had grown disillusioned with the incessant fighting between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and felt the IRA's terror tactics were definitely not helping to bring about peace. Surely, the parade's organisers would understand if the group no longer wanted to take part in the festivities...

So Paul called the friend who had helped the band get the float in the first place. The two got together in a bar in New York, but McGuinness soon got in a rather heated debate about the IRA. "He kept telling me to keep my voice down," he recalls. "The place was full of New York policemen - Irish cops - and he thought I was going to get us killed."

As it turned out. U2 didn't ride up Fifth Avenue on a float. Instead, they played a show at the Ritz, one of New York's rock halls, that St Patrick's Day. But the whole experience was to have a profound effect on the direction of the band's music.

Several months after that concert at the Ritz, U2 was onstage in Belfast. Partway through the set. Bono took the mike to introduce a new song. "Listen, this is called 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. It's not a rebel song. It's a song of hope and a song of disgust," he told the audience, most of whom no doubt identified the title with the day in 1972 when British troops opened fire on a group of unarmed Catholic demonstrators, killing thirteen of them.

Then Bono read some of the song's lyrics - lines like "Broken bottles under children's feet/Bodies strewn across the dead end street/But I won't heed the battle call/It puts my back up my back up against the wall" - before continuing "We're gonna play it for you here in Belfast. If you don't like it, you let us know." The band pounded into the song, and when they were done, the audience wildly cheered its approval.

"It was very emotional," says Larry of that performance. "It's a very special song, because it's the first time that we ever really made a statement."

It had been the band's experience with IRA supporters in New York that prompted them to write 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. (In fact, the original lyrics to the song began 'Don't talk to me about the rights of the IRA') "Americans don't understand it", says Larry, "They call it a 'religious war', but it has nothing to do with religion. It's like the Dylan song 'With God on Our Side'. During the hunger strikes, the IRA would say, God is with me. I went to Mass every Sunday.' And the Unionists said virtually the same thing. And then they go out and murder each other. It's very hypocritical."

In fact, the key lines in 'Sunday bloody Sunday - lines that critics who have viewed the song as purely political have missed - are those at the ends: "The real battle just begun/To claim the victory Jesus won/On a Sunday, bloody Sunday."

As the Edge, who initially came up with the idea for the composition, points out, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is not a song in which U2 takes sides with either faction in Northern Ireland. Instead, it's about the futility of war: "There's many lost," sings Bono. "But tell me who has won?" Though U2's members haven't personally experienced the violence between Catholics and Protestants In the North, they have witnessed the segregation that exists between the two religious groups in their homeland. Indeed, a mixed marriage like that of Bono's parents - his father is Catholic and his mother was Protestant - is still scorned by many Irishmen.

"In their relationship, they ware proof that the bitterness between these two communities is ridiculous," Bono says of his parents. "I see in both of their churches aspects of things I don't fully like. But I like to think that I'd be able to able to a Catholic church or a Protestant church."

Bono was the first member of U2 to embrace Christianity. "When I was very young, I experienced death, and that can wake you up to certain facts," he says, referring to his mother's death when he was fifteen. It wan also a death in the family that turned Larry to God; his mother was killed a few years ago in a motor accident.

But the band members shy away from discussing their beliefs in public. "It's a personal thing," says Larry. "If you talk to a person about it, you should be telling him, not the public at large. It shouldn't be an angle." "People would love to sensationalise our beliefs until they meant nothing," adds Bono. "Three of us are committed Christians. We refute the belief that man is just a higher stage of animal, that he has no spirit. I thank when people start believing that, the real respect for humanity is gone. You are just a cog in a wheel, another collection of molecules. That's half the reason for a lot of the pessimism in the world."

And though the band members had religious upbringings - Larry case from a Catholic family, while the Edge and Adam had Protestant parents - they don't like to refer to their beliefs as a religion per se. "All religion seems to do is divide," explains the Edge. "I'm really interested in and influenced by the spiritual side of Christianity, rather than the legislative side, the rules and regulations." So the members of U2 aren't regular churchgoers, preferring to meet together in private prayer sessions.

TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE (U2)

I don't know
I don't know which side I'm on
I don't know my right from left
Or my right from wrong

They say I'm a fool
They say I'm nothing
But if I'm a fool for you
Oh that's something

(Chorus)
Two hearts beat as one
Two hearts beat as one
Two hearts.

I can't stop to dance
This is my last chance
I said I can't stop to dance
Baby this is my last chance

(Repeat chorus)

Beat on black, beat an white
Beat on everything don't got it right
Beat on you, beat on me, beat on love

I don't know
How to my what's got to be said
I don't know if it's black or white
There's others see it red

I don't get the answers right
I leave that to you
Is this love out of fashion
Or is it the time of year
Are these words distraction
To the words you want to hear

(Repeat chorus)

I try to spit it out
I try to explain
The way that I feel
Oh yeah
Two hearts

I can't stop to dance
Baby this is my last chance
I said I can't stop to dance
Baby this is my last chance
I said I can't stop to dance
Baby this is my last chance
I can't stop to dance

RED LIGHT (U2)

I talk to you, ooh walk away,
You're still on the downbeat
You say you don't mind
But you get hurt scared
If you're running from yourself
I give you my love
I give you my love
Give you my love
Still you walk away, well

It's your own late show
As you jump to the street below
But where can you go
To leave yourself behind
Alone in the spotlight
Of this your own tragedy
Give you my love love love...

In the heart in the heart
In the heart of the city, see me

Calling, calling, calling
See me calling
I spend my life just calling you
And I'll bring you
And I'll bring you
I'll give you my love

Give you my love
I'll give you my love
Give you my love ...
Love love love love ...

THE REFUGEE (U2)

Wa War She's a refugee
I see her face
I see her starin' back at me
Wa War She's a refugee
Her Mama say one day
She's gonna live in America

In the morning
She is waiting
Waiting far her ship to sail
Sail away

Wa War Poppa go to war
He go to fight but he don't know what for
War War Poppa go to war
Her Mama say one day
He's gonna came back from far away

In the evening she is waiting
Waiting for her man to come
And take her by the hand
And take her to this
Promised land

Wa war She's a pretty face
Born at the wrong time, in the wrong place
Wa War She's a pretty face
Her Mama say one day
She's gonna live in America (Yeah, America)

Wa war She's a refugee
She'll come and dance
She'll come and keep you company
Wa war She's a refugee
Her Mama say one day
She's gonna live in America

U2 PEN-PALS/SWOPS AND TRADES SECTION

To contact other friends and fans of U2, send in your name and address and we will include it here. You can also include U2 items that you're offering to swop if you wish, like the early deleted singles, etc, but please keep the listing fairly brief.

Maria Ludvigsson, Linjestigen 8, 58266 Linkoping, Sweden.
Jacqueline Dixon, 13 Wood Close, Hatfield, Herts AM 8TU.
Paula Treacy, 6 Castleknock, Ballincollig, Co. Cork. Eire.
David Leppard, 12 Tytheing Close, Newton St Cyres, Exeter, Devon EX5 5DB.
Ced Teague, 42 Buckingham Street, Redfern, 2016 N.S.W., Australia.
Claudia Katarajn, 28 Buckley Ave, N Sunshine 3020, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Catherine Povey, 17 Weighton Road, Harrow Weald, Middx HA3 6HY.
Paul Copeland, 5D Broom Grove, Wivenhoe, Essex C07 9QU. Would like any U2 live tapes
Kevin Haney, 16 Throstle Ave, Wigston, Cumbria CA7 9QZ. Would like to hear from U2 fans in Dublin or New Zealand.
Duncan Framer, 21C Park Road, Aberdeen, Scotland AB2 1NY.
Julie Jones, 89 Charles Street, Tonypandy, Rhondda, S.Wales CF40 2AW.
J. Spurgen, 20 Manby Road, Great Malvern, Worcester, Worcs. Wants tapes of Hammersmith 82, Rockpalast 83.
Terry King, 248 Cambridge Road. Woburn, MA 01801, U.S.A.
Steve Jack, 487 Heather Court, Collydean, Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland.
Siobhan Kennedy, 33 Seaford Road, Harwood, Bolton BI2 4BX.
Joanne Payne, 4 Wingard Close, Uphill, Weston-Super-Mare, Avon. Looking for U2 video VHS.
Sandi Anne Skies, 452 3rd Street, Blakely, PA 18447, U.S.A.
Sharron Roberts, 25 Lea Crescent, Newbold, Rugby, Warks CV21 1EX.
Ellen Dahl, 309 North Grand Ave, Monrovia, California 91016, United States.
Vicki Stevens, 646 Wagon Wheel Lane, Marysville Ohio 43040. United States.
Maureen Marr, 75 Frampton Road, Walton, Liverpool L4 SRN.
Jancy Jacobs, 17 Curtis House, Morecambe Street. London SE17 1EB.
Helen Youlten, 47 St James Court, St James Road. Croydon. Surrey CRO 2SF.
Allan Hamilton, 2 Edward Ave. Renfrew, Strathclyde. Scotland PA 8QN. Wants to swop tapes
Leon van den Berg, Kapellerlaan 43, 4702 JN Rosendaal, Holland. Has Dutch 7" 'I Will Follow (live)/Gloria' to swop for 7" 'A Celebration'. Also wants to swop live tapes.

Colm Kavanagh
, 182 Fernhill, Arklow, Co. Wicklow, Eire.
Louise Smith, 38 Winkfield Row, Horndean, Portsmouth PO8 9TL.

On the next page are the answers to the 'Another Time Another Place' quiz from Barry Cross, who was also responsible for the sketch on the left.

Below is a new quiz, a U2 Wordsearch put together by Selma Malik. The idea is to find the U2 song titles listed and these can be vertical, horizontal or diagonal on the grid, eg.

                     

N

 

E

H

C

U

0

T

         

A

   

R

                 

E

     

I

               

C

       

F

             

O

           
           

E

             
         

H

               
       

T

                 

The song titles to find which are all included in there somewhere are:

A Celebration, A Day Without Me, An Cat Dubh, Drowning Man, Endless Deep, Fire, Gloria, I Fall Dorm, I Will Follow, Into The Heart, Is That All, Like A Song, New Year's Day, October, Out Of Control. Red Light, Rejoice. Scarlet, Seconds, Shadows And Tall Trees, Stories For Boys, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Surrender, The Electric Co, The Ocean, The Refugee, Tomorrow, Touch, Treasure, Twilight, Two Hearts Beat As One, With A Shout.

Thanks Selma. Solution will be printed next time.

U2 WORDSEARCH

I Z G A R M T E S L A R E Y A D N U S Q
S W E N C A S E G D E S W Y E A R C U S
T T 0 H 0 E I F H D W R R 0 S R A E D Y
H Y M L A S L R N 0 E R U C G R S N U T
A Y A 0 L U A E 0 F A E T S L L 0 X U T
T A D R 0 0 R E B L A H G E A C L 0 H I
A R A E D R F S K R G T T U E E H E F S
L S E D U N S L E I A P H S F S R A A E
L T E S A A 0 0 L F L T A G A E L T 0 N
V 0 T E J Y N I E I K P I H I L R S J 0
L R D S R 0 W E B P W S T 0 D L A E Y S
O I N R M T C I W 0 E I X 0 N M D A H A
R E I U 0 1 L W T Y W E W S E T 0 E Z T
T S 0 W 0 W 0 L T H E N D 0 T E U G R A
N F J J C R N C A 0 0 A U S I N T O Y E
0 0 E S R D E I T T Y U R E S X 0 H T B
C R R 0 H W X D N 0 D X T S H E F B B S
F B M W E A W A T G B N E M D T L U 0 T
0 0 S N C 0 D N C 0 N E A L E A R D Y R
T Y L A R E A 0 F U U A R S W 0 Y T N A
U S V D W E S N W T 0 R N 0 W N A A E E
0 0 V 0 C H N C E 0 U T U U N 0 Z C R H
X E M 0 Z T 0 N I F Y C E S 0 B D N I 0
A 0 E I N T 0 T H E H E A R T F W A F W
T H C U 0 T P 0 C C I R T C E L E E H T
T W Y A D N U S Y D 0 0 L B Y A D N U S

THE SHINING OPENING!

Orly Klein, Kingsway, London NW9.

There's a place I go and it's a part of me. Like a surging surf. Somewhere in there, somewhere in the drowning rhythm, they drown the beating heart. Pulse.

The flower grows.

  A story
to
tell your
children:
   
     

Once upon a
time there was
a boy
Larry.
And there were
others after.

The Edge Adam Bono They
formed a freaky rock
band to hit our
senses and move our
      minds.
The flower opened.  
listen: I am the drown. Next to me in another time she is drowning by my side. In a corner of the world, a spark glows and a green golden flame bursts: heat and light with shining strength.
One of them says: This is a night you're never going to forget.
  We forgive him

The indelicacy: This is after all a world event, a delicacy of delights
  Deep in the heart. Pulse. 1 2 3 4 and recognition shines so, so hard. Out of control breaks and strains, a ritual bass keeps a killing tempo like a bird that soars with silver-edged wings. Edge's guitar scythes away and OUT! towards me and

 

he is beside me. Our bodies beat the tattoo. We echo the landslide of a day without me. She mouths the words. Pulse. Several fall down.
Julie, say something.

  There is more: A brief D
   

I

    P into
a pastoral melody. the autumn season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; October when the red gold leaves lie still on the ground. Then the spark flares up
  We're back with: Urgency. Pulsing in and out of the shadows. Thesongsvitalas love spilllikenewacornsoneafteranother likeblackcherrieswithnonorespite twilight
  BUILDS as the voice of Bono falls
back and back to reappear clinging desperately to the sound wavewail of larry and the edge
We are now deep
  within
the world. Outside is grey.
  In here is
The shuddering, grasping TRUTH. 
The she cat's tail is ruffled. I delight in its evil. More pure than compromised good. The music breaks the line of necessary temptation. Bono's voice, a hushed whisper so loud you better scream: Pulse. I journey into the heart of a boy whilst around me there are gulping tears. It is unbearable here. But he is beside me.
        We know: Gloria in real life speaks of other things, of our deeper moments, of the glowing jewel on her shoulder, of Steinbeck's power of glory but with no pretentiousness. No crap: I rill follow is perfect, an ABC of faultlessness. That intro: Rhythmic pulse: and tune: are only a glancing
measure of
This music!    
  It proclaims: Follow me and we will move mountains, peaks that climb on and on. New Years Day
and Electric Co. with that shout:
Boy! Stupid Boy!
  Direct arrows mean more and strike hand. Somesay Fire lacks the Touch
      but in the gulping NOW
It    
  TRANSMUTES toachant:

a roaringravingtidaltribal
furiousflounderingseethingswaying
vibrantpaeantoyouthanditsfire
canonlybe
movedbyacelebrationwhich
ismuchmore

Some don't understand U2, they see them as
        naive optimists
Can you see the heart? Don't you wanna
        change the world? We finished with the clock and cooled out on the
  cool hip
  blue hep
o c e a n. It was enough ...

FOR
NOW


SOME OF THE EDGE'S RECENT FAVOURITE TRACKS .... The Stand - The Alarm, Chill out - Black Uhuru, Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) - Talking Heads, State of Independence - Donna Summer, Fields Of Fire - Big Country, Someone Somewhere In Summertime - Simple Minds, Anything by King Sunny Ade, Holidays In The Sun - Sex Pistols, My Jamaican Guy - Grace Jones, Theme From Harry's Gene - Clannad.


If you wish to write direct to the band personally, we can pass your letters on, or write direct to Sister Sister, 39 Chestnut Grove, Kingswood, Clondalkin, Co. Dublin, Eire.


Compiled and edited by Geoff Parkyn. Published by U2 INFO SERVICE, P.O.Box 48, London N6 5RU, England. Please remember to include return postage for personal replies to any correspondence.

Special thanks to Paul McGuinness. Neil and all at Island Records, N. Stewart and Blue Mountain Music.
Cover photo and full page live photos by Antoine Moonen from Toronto May 83, other photos Anton Corbijn, Steve Rapport, Alison Turner.
Also thanks to Colm Kavanagh, James Henke, Selma Malik, Harry Cross and Selma Malik.
And thanks to U2 - and you too: Best wishes,
Good luck in Japan!

goybmike2.gif

Subscribe to U2_recording
Powered by launch.groups.yahoo.com