1. Tough one, I really can't decide... They're a central part of my life since so long ago that I become very very sad when I see their nowadays failures and mistakes...
  2. Originally posted by KaiserJose:This just happened to be the last question in that 10 minute survey going around and I thought it was a fairly valid one.

    On a scale of one to ten how satisfied are with whatever the band is doing currently - one being on the verge of never listening to them again and 10 being you've never been so happy with the band and have no (major) complaints?

    Also for whatever your number is, is it a recent thing or have you felt this way for a while?



    I'd give them an 8 right now.
  3. I think I'm a 7.

    Sadly though, I think this is as low as I would ever go, so it's not necessarily a good thing.

    They have been, are and will continue always to be, my favourite band. There is too much output that exceeds all other for me for that not to be the case.

    Also, I thought 360 (actually being there) was the best tour in a donkey's age and certainly since Popmart.

    I really liked and continue to like NLOTH.

    However,

    other music excites me more at the moment. Particularly Gaslight Anthem and Muse. This may, in part, be due to nothing new having been heard for a while.

    Why is there such a massive hiatus on the tour? Is this normal? It's led to a massive dead patch with nothing to excite.

    The singles releases from NLOTH were the worst in living history (not the songs themselves - more the B-sides and promotion etc). The band need to take back a bit more control on this and not let the A&R man have so much say.

    U2.com continues to astound me in its ineptitude and I do really think the band should do more about that. They do, after all, include it on all their publicity material, CD's, adverts etc.

    I'nm looking forward to seeing and hearing the DVD. I'm intrigued about what's going to come on the tour and whether we'll hear new material. I'm just in a lull I think.
  4. I'll say what I said in the recent survey going around that at the moment it's about a 6 although I'll boost that to a 7 now that I think about it. The shows have been good so far, nothing like groundbreaking but definitely interesting to hear and watch what we in Australia and others who haven't seen 360 have as well. Stale setlists don't bother me - if it works for them then it works for me.

    I'm a bit disappointed in their attitude to everything they're doing recently. Not Songs Of Ascent. After all, they go on about putting an album of brand-new material literally after the album has just come out - Bono said less than a week after HTDAAB that they wanted to get a brand-new album out 'as soon as possible'. It didn't happen, and if it never materialises what have we lost? It's more the singles - singles are a great way to get your music out there, and I know they've had impact in the clubs and dance venues, but for the rest of us, remixes are boring - we need new songs like you keep saying. NLOTH wasn't that good for them because more than likely it only moved 5 million copies. In today's day and age, that's not bad - considering their more popular album which was alright but not great did 10 or 12 million.

    I'm like Dan. I'm just bored with them and after a while I found NLOTH boring - it's the same shit just slower. I didn't get that with HTDAAB or ATYCLB or even the B-sides on 1990-2000 which I became a fan because of. I find myself going back to Zooropa and even Achtung (that should never happen) and discovering new bands - it's just gone dead quiet. He also bought up U2.com - that is absymal. It may as well be closed and go back to Propaganda. Just a waste of time. You'd think your official home on the web would be, y'know, up-to-date and actually worth it. I never thought I'd see a worse site than gunsnroses.com but apparently there is. It's a waste of money, time and just seems - well, worthless.

    Someone interested in U2 at this point just getting into them would pass them on by - because it is so quiet and boring. We see the band members in Nairobi and wherever else in the world, but that just doesn't interest me.
  5. I said 6/10
  6. Originally posted by drewhiggins:I'll say what I said in the recent survey going around that at the moment it's about a 6 although I'll boost that to a 7 now that I think about it. The shows have been good so far, nothing like groundbreaking but definitely interesting to hear and watch what we in Australia and others who haven't seen 360 have as well. Stale setlists don't bother me - if it works for them then it works for me.

    I'm a bit disappointed in their attitude to everything they're doing recently. Not Songs Of Ascent. After all, they go on about putting an album of brand-new material literally after the album has just come out - Bono said less than a week after HTDAAB that they wanted to get a brand-new album out 'as soon as possible'. It didn't happen, and if it never materialises what have we lost? It's more the singles - singles are a great way to get your music out there, and I know they've had impact in the clubs and dance venues, but for the rest of us, remixes are boring - we need new songs like you keep saying. NLOTH wasn't that good for them because more than likely it only moved 5 million copies. In today's day and age, that's not bad - considering their more popular album which was alright but not great did 10 or 12 million.

    I'm like Dan. I'm just bored with them and after a while I found NLOTH boring - it's the same shit just slower. I didn't get that with HTDAAB or ATYCLB or even the B-sides on 1990-2000 which I became a fan because of. I find myself going back to Zooropa and even Achtung (that should never happen) and discovering new bands - it's just gone dead quiet. He also bought up U2.com - that is absymal. It may as well be closed and go back to Propaganda. Just a waste of time. You'd think your official home on the web would be, y'know, up-to-date and actually worth it. I never thought I'd see a worse site than gunsnroses.com but apparently there is. It's a waste of money, time and just seems - well, worthless.

    Someone interested in U2 at this point just getting into them would pass them on by - because it is so quiet and boring. We see the band members in Nairobi and wherever else in the world, but that just doesn't interest me.


    good points all around
  7. during the survey I've given them a 10, fair enough. For me, everything they do is perfectly alright. I get all I want as a fan. It's a very personal question, so the views on this may vary a lot. For me, they're top lately
  8. Solid 7, but by far the fav band of mine. 'Just' a 7 because the lack of change during the tour and the disappointing decisions by the band / management (album, singles promo)
  9. I understand everyone's points, but I think I'm not that critical of a person, so I gave them an 8/10, the -2 points come from their tease of Songs of Ascent. I'm overall very satisfied with the band. I just can't expect them- even though they say they will- record a quality album, even while they're doing a worldwide tour.

    The 360 tour continues to give me bone chills every time I watch a youtube clip. The show that I saw in Chicago was one of the best. It certainly helped being just inches from the band; probably one of the highlights of my year being so close to a band that you put so much time (riding my bike 1 hr and 1/2 just to see the stage set up at Soldier Field), energy (waiting in line for 10+hrs for GA), and...well, money into.

  10. My current score would be an 8/10. Let me tell you why

    Became a fan in 1983 (I was 17 back then) after hearing NYD on Dutch radio for the first time. I scored U2 10/10 all the way until (and including) Zooropa. But then Pop came out.

    That period was a low for me, I think I would have scored them 6/10 back then. And ATYCLB didn't do the case any good. Too middle of the road for me. HTDAAB made the score go up to 7/10, NLOTH made me come back up to 8/10. I'm positively surprised I still play NLOTH a lot, a year after its release. That didn't happen with the previous few albums...

    I know I'm gonna sound like an old man now, but In the olden days (before the internet), all I had was the irregular release of Propaganda, so very little news about my favourite band.

    Compared to those days, we now know "everything" about the band and their day-to-day-whereabouts. And I don't necessarily find that a good thing. In the olden days we wouldn't have known about a possible album coming out soon (SoA), now we're disappointed that it doesn't seem to come out anytime soon.

    Only a few months ago, after having been a fan for nearly 27 years, I decided to get a Joshua Tree tattoo (that being my favourite album of all times), something I wouldn't do with any other album/band. So I guess they can basically do whatever they want, they're gonna have a hard time getting rid of THIS fan!
  11. It's hard to put a number on it, but I imagine it would be quite low. Expectations are part and parcel of having a long-term interest in a band. I agree with something DrewHiggins said re: new fans. I cannot see how a new fan would stick around based on the new material. It's just very poor. After all, to paraphrase Bono, "when all the artifice is stripped away, it's about the songs". And the songs are not very good anymore.

    I agree with some of the earlier posters concerning SoA. bono always comes out with the same crap when an album is released about the next one coming out quickly, etc. I wasn't expecting it out, but did live in hope.

    U2.com subscription is a total joke for the money. You are basically paying €30 for an album of remixes. The pre-sale codes are worthless to me. Nobody can convince me that the fee is value for money. Free will accepted, but U2 are taking advantage of fan loyalty in knowing that people don't always exercise good sense when subscribing to a band's site. People follow their heart not their head when they subscribe to fansites. U2 know this. However, maturity and a growing awareness that U2 are now a business as much as a band means I won't lose too much sleep over it. We have to relalise that the scale of the operation means we can't feel 'close' to them.

    My difficulty with U2 is that they continue to try too hard to be the 'big' band with the hit singles, big tours etc. and their recorded output is suffering as a result. Although maybe, as fans we should just appreciate them for their back catalogue and accept that U2 are well down the slide on their creative decline. NLOTH was a major disappointment in my book. There is really nothing to recommend it. It's an album made by committee lacking cohesion, but mainly lacking any decent tunes. The writing was on the wall with HTDAAB.

    On the upside, the show that I saw in Croke Park was entertaining. It looked and sounded better than the Vertigo effort. I'm hoping that the jeopardy of U2 at Glastonbury will bring out the best in the band and they might surprise us all with some interesting new material this summer.

    There is so much great music being made at the moment that is so easily accessible like never before. U2 are just not doing it anymore. The truth is bitter, but has to be accepted. Luckily, we have U2start's archive of shows to keep our U2 interest sated until Bono and the boys create something worth listening to again. I'd like to commend U2start for allowing this topic as some fansites are often reluctant to allow members suspend their critical faculties where the band is concerned.
  12. Well half of the (crew-) members are critics. But we are the easiest critics, most of us can handle a bad album or two. I completely agree about NLOTH, it is a decent album. But U2 knows we expect the best

    We buy albums, dvds, tickets. And U2 gets free constructive feedback, what more can they ask for ?