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U2: Stage And Studio
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U2 Magazine - No. 5
U2 MAGAZINE NO: 5 - NOVEMBER 1982 U2 are currently adding the finishing touches to the new album, before going out
the road to preview some of the new songs. The tour dates are: Glasgow Tiffany's December 1st, Manchester Apollo 2nd, Leicester
De Montfort Hall 3rd, Birmingham Odeon 4th, London Lyceum 5th, London Hammersmith Palais 6th, and then following some dates
in continental Europe, they continue in Ireland with Cork City Hall 18th, Galway Leisureland 19th, Belfast Maysfield Leisure
Centre 20th, Dublin TV Club 22nd, 23rd and 24th. After New Year, the band plan another tour through North America. A new single
is scheduled for release in January, followed by the new album which is provisionally titled 'War'. The album is produced
by Steve Lillywhite. There will be a lot more info and news in the next issue. In the meanwhile, U2's record label in Ireland, CBS, have issued a retrospective
four-pack of singles, called '4 U2 Play', which includes the U2 Three E.P., Another Day, 11 O'Clock Tick Took, and I Will
Follow all in their original picture sleeves and in a special pack. An added attraction is that the singles have been pressed
in colour vinyl especially for this limited edition. We have a few sets as prizes for a new competition - see further on in
this issue. With U2 about to set out on a new tour of the U.K., Europe and Ireland. here are
some recollections on their very first trip through Europe from Mike Gardner. Contrary to the popular consensus of those who have seen U2 in concert or heard the
masterfully executed 'Boy' album, the band cannot run faster than a speeding bullet, stop express trains with their bare hands
or leap tall buildings with a single bound. What they can do is far more impressive. The band take the conventions of straightforward
pop, strip it bare, leave the essence of that accessibility in that music and then build, with atmosphere, raw emotion and
a forceful passion, a sound that's as sturdy and powerful as it is fragile and moving. The sound is epic without being lumbering, yet flexible enough to swell to mountainous
emotional highs and swiftly but delicately shade the evocative quiet. The whole affair is conducted with an inventive infectious
attack. To call them refreshing is an inadequate description for music that inspires the lift and optimism U2's work can release,
whether in their erratic, chancy live experience or on the elegant 'Boy'. It was after a five hour haul through the motorways of France, Belgium and Holland
that photographer Virginia Turbett, Neil Storey and myself end up cruising the streets of the picture postcard Dutch town
Appledoorne looking for the penultimate U2 venue on their first European jaunt. We make one circuit of the main streets and
are then stuck at some traffic lights, trying to find a native who can direct us. A gaggle of males approach us and shadow
gives way to the features of Larry, Adam, Bono, The Edge, manager Paul McGuinness and sundry crew. The usual pleasantries
and greetings are interspersed with directions until the group saunter off towards the venue. In the dressing room the band are warm and hospitable, more than eager to break the
ice which they do with an abundance of enthusiasm and interest. Neil has brought the first finished copies of 'Boy' with him
for their inspection and there's the expected glee at holding the proof of the band's growth to date. The hall is small and seedy and totally at odds with the ambiance of the neatly pressed
town. But as the aching strains of The Edge's guitar pieces, the soft lull of Larry and Adam's rhythm pattern on 'The Ocean',
the large adjoining bar is left unpropped. 'The Ocean' segues into the latent intent of the intro to '11 O'Clock Tick Tock'
which explodes into the colour and passion that makes U2 in flight as potent and dramatic as an eagle swooping on its prey.
The band play with tension as the bass pins down the flighty skinwork of drummer Larry with the shadowy stabs and prickles
of The Edge's guitar simultaneously dancing and slicing through the throbbing power while the expressive and expansive Bono
commands, focuses and embodies the energy. 'I Will Follow', a passionate but impressionistic examination of the loss of security
thunders while the Dutch heads nod and bodies succumb to the insistent rhythm. The fluid but latently evil 'An Cat Dubh' has the loping bass and forthright rhythm
igniting the spiky fretwork of The Edge while Bono calls on and articulates the hidden terror of the temptation and seduction
the song speaks of before journeying to the moving 'Into The Heart' which is committed without stifling the spark that makes
it their most vital composition. During 'Twilight' there is a re-enactment of that hoary old Hollywood scene where the starlet
is thrust into the spotlight as the lead actress is ill and the hostile audience are broken down one by one by the natural
charm of the newcomer until they rapturously accept her. The Appledoorne crowd need no such bait as one by one they physically
start bending, moving and bopping to the music. By the helter skelter effervescence of 'Out Of Control' they are totally in the grip
of the U2 magic. Their applause and appreciation is, at first, muted and restrained but they end up fighting to snow the band
that a few encores wouldn't exactly bomb. The next day is changeable varying from a dank grey drizzle to a warming sunshine
that settles for drizzle the closer we get to Brussels their last date before to Britain and Eire. There in only time for
a quick lump of cheese and a few snapshots around the hotel before we pile into the van with the ever-increasing U2 family
and head for the gig five miles away. Nearly two hours and numerous wrong turns later we arrive, thoroughly exhausted, at
the Klacik club, Bono's sniffles have taken on a more sinister tone and road manager Tim Nicholson is considerately concealing
the fact that flu will knock him flat on his back within the next six hours. The sound check is a weary affair, with the usual
mixture of laboured graft and mischievous tedium. Everybody wanders aimlessly, searching the nooks and crannies of the club
while the Bromley boys who came over for the gig sit and stare intently at the stage while the band play half-hearted fragments
of their set. We are all more than pleased when it's over and we can go and hunt for a proper meal, since it been some 10
hours since breakfast. We settle in a restaurant and on goes the tape recorder... "The Dutch are a very interesting people. They are very aware of British music,"
claims Bono. "We played the Milky Way in Amsterdam which is seriously in the sixties. it hasn't changed. It's a time warp.
Outside a girl collapsed in front of me and smashed her head on the pavement. Her boyfriend didn't seem to mind. He was smashed
too. They were junkies just hanging around... a very sick sight. "You can see the sordid side to Amsterdam. At first sight it's beautiful, innocent,
even a naive city. There's shop window prostitution and it's the European centre for the drugs market. It's like one of the
songs on 'Boy' called 'An Cat Dubh' which describes the cat as a symbol of temptation. At first beautiful, the shape, you
know, seductive. In the daylight it destroys a birdnest. Not for food, but for enjoyment and at the same time it comes up
to you and strokes the side of your leg. Amsterdam is like that. It's beautiful, it's people are beautiful, but..." "They're surprisingly well informed," interjects Adam. "By no means, at this stage, have we cracked England. Even for a band with our present
status in England we've done surprisingly well. They know about us, they've heard our records, they've seen our pictures and
they want to know more." "I think they thought U2 were a post industrial funk band, very arty, very cultural
but when they saw us as an aggressive performing act, when they saw the explosion of our personalities and our instruments
on the stage they ware taken aback," says Bono. Part of what makes U2 so important is a determined belief in their destiny to become
a noted and powerful force in contemporary music. "I believe that we combine the aspects of contemporary music that I find
exciting," opines Bono. "Which is performance, aggressive live rock music, that is at the same time lyrical, because we mean
what we say. We are talking. We are not just writing on topics, like say XTC, we come from the heart. "Our overall impression is optimism, uplift, power, elation which very few acts,
like The Who and Springsteen, possess. I believe we should be there because there's a lot of dross, a lot of unworthy music
in our place. There are a lot of bands who should finish now." U2 have an unswerving faith that they have the right to the Madison Square Gardens
and saturation of the airwaves that success will bring eventually and while that sounds more than a little immodest, a little
naive to others, the sentiments do strike a chord with those who have sampled the character and sturdiness of their chosen
type of musical expression. "Some have raid that U2 music is for the head and the feet," recalls Bono, "but I
think it's music for the heart as well. It combines the three. Every night is a struggle to communicate . We try but that
can go wrong, can go over the top." The precarious nature of their music does add the vital edge as they search and invent
with sometimes too much enthusiasm and the occasional lapses of confidence. Their ambition is to become successful in terms
of bringing out the best in each other for the collective good rather than the usual material acquisitions. They are steadfast
in their belief that their music is wanted by the people as much as by themselves and point to the fact that they have virtually
strolled away from their home base whereas the Rats used a vigorously strong determination to leave Dublin. The focal point of the band, as Adam points out, is Bono's lyrics and melodies. So
why the success? "It's a real emotion," explains Bono. We aren't used to real emotion. Contemporary
bands sell their emotions on pieces of plastic at supermarkets and then bend their emotions to suit a market and only the
rare bands feel emotion like Dylan, Leonard Cohen, The Who, Springsteen, and The Clash. "We are four expressive people and it had to come out somewhere. I'm an extrovert.
The most powerful contemporary expression that we have today is rock music. Music is a very important part of our everyday
life and it's only natural and logical that people will turn to this medium to express themselves. "The Irish knock themselves too easily. They have an inferiority complex because
of their inheritance of being under an English landlord and then after that a Priest. They didn't develop as a business race,
but as a creative race lacking ambition in commerce. The Irish are naturally musical, it's a musical environment." Manager Paul McGuinness interjects, "There are more musicians in Ireland. The population
can support more working musicians because of the Irish tradition of going to concerts and gigs. People won't buy records.
It's a respectable job unlike in England where it's considered a total waste of time." "We will never leave Dublin, the people we trust and love are there. It works out
much better for England. When we come over for a month's tour we put all our energies into that period. We come in like a
fist, like a punch to the gut, BOOM!, and then we leave and take it out," continues Bono. The 'fist', the passionate naivity, the forceful maturity of U2 has needed some help
from this side of the Irish sea to aid the nourishment of their work. Not least was Island Records. "A lot of people came
with money", says Bono. "Island was the only one that talked in terms of music. A lot of companies are like the Civil service,
like CBS or EMI. It's like a factory and the people themselves become part of the machine and they tend to lose personality.
But Island are more like people working in a factory." "The sticking point was always whether they'd let us deliver the records without
any opportunity to refuse them and there are large companies that just can't handle that, the whole corporation has a hiccough,
They imagine the worst,'' adds Paul McGuinness. "The album is totally our own design, even to the labels in the middle. No company
at this stage of economic hassle would do that for you. Why Island? Because 99% of the company have made the effort to see
us. Sure they are a company, money is the root of what they are going for. They have to make money or they don't exist. We
are aware of that, that's the game we have chosen to play," continues Bono. "We are not like naive children putting up their
hands to big daddy. We tell then what we want and they do it and it's a good working relationship." The other partnership U2 have entered into were those with producers Martin Hannett,
who produced their first English single '11 O'Clock Tick Tock', and Steve Lillywhite, who takes the production credit for
'Boy'. Bono again flicks out the opinion. "Hannett brought Hannett's sound and it was a struggle to make it U2's but I think
we did it on '11 O'Clock Tick Tock'. Steve Lillywhite brought us the brains of the technology to get what we wanted out of
the studio. Steve was an open enough personality to tell us how to do what we wanted, so that 'Boy' is exact ly how we wanted
it. Hannett's sound would have been an easy road to take but we had to do it our way. So what is your way trying to achieve? "We want to beat the music business at its
own game by being successful and important within the industry without sacrificing one ounce of integrity or our honesty by
doing it our way." The Edge puts it more succinctly: "You could say that we want to beat the music business at OUR own game." There's a place I go when I am far away There's a picture book, with colour photographs Stories for boys, stories for boys, There's a place I go and it's a part of me Stories for boys (repeat) AN CAT DUBH (U2) Really still Woah -oh-oh And in the daylight And when she is done Woah -oh-oh INTO THE HEART (U2) Into the heart Into the heart Into the heart OUT OF CONTROL (U2) There was one dull morning I was having feelings Boys and girls I was having feelings Copyright 1980 Blue Mountain Music Ltd. A DAY WITHOUT ME (U2) A day without me A day without me I started a landslide In my ego I THREW A BRICK THROUGH A WINDOW (U2) I was walking, I was walking into walls, No-one. no-one is blinder, I was talking, I was talking in my sleep, Reproduced by permission U2 PEN-PALS/SWOPS AND TRADES SECTION Mary Dunne, 33 Bushmore Road, Hall Green, Birmingham B28 9QU. This listing will be continued in each issue, so if you wish to be included just
send in your name and address or details of swops, etc and it will be listed next time. 'U2 - 82' COMPETITION The purpose of this competition is to do a review of one of the dates on the new
tour or if the tour doesn't reach you until next year, write a short article on how you interpret your favourite U2 song and
what it means to you. It's your personal ideas that are important, and as mentioned previously we have some of the limited
edition Irish-only release U2 singles packs as prizes. Entries must be in by the end of January. Good luck! RECORDS: Better Scream - Wah! Heat, In The Grey Light - Virgin Prunes, Theme
from Midnight Express, Theme from The Good The Bad And The Ugly, 0l' Blue Eyes - Frank Sinatra, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) -
John Lennon (my first single), Hello Hurray - Alice Cooper (my second single), Alternative Ulster Stiff Little Fingers, Faithfull
Departed - Radiators From Space, The Wild The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen. If you have any questions about U2 we can answer them here in this section. If you
wish to write to Bono, The Edge, Larry or Adam personally we can pass your letters on to them, or write direct to SISTER
SISTER 10 St Margarets Park, Malahide, Co. Dublin, Eire. Dear Geoff, 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 at Island Records, Jane at Island Music. Photography Pennie Smith, Colm Henry and others. FROM A BOY TO A MAN... |
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