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2015-06-12 - Montreal
 Tour: Innocence and Experience tour
Songs played: 25
Audio recordings: 1
  2. A lot of errors yesterday, not only in Stuck, but in EBTTRT, Troubles, WOWY, etc.
  4. Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:The way I see, do it or don't. Don't half ass it. I think with the current tour they've sort of got that conceptual thing halfway and then they sort of drop it in favour of playing certain hits that would'nt fit into the narrative they establish in the first half. How do you go from playing Raised by Wolves and Sunday Bloody Sunday the way they are and mysterious ways a little while later? There's no flow at that point to me.

    I think it's very obvious that Bono took many ideas from The Wall. I read an interview with them and he mentioned seeing roger water's show and said it blew his mind. The Wall is like the epitome of a concert with subject matter - I would've loved to see U2 do an entire show like that.

    Does it mean they have to? No. But if you are going to do that, make a great show out of it and make it sensical.
    Very fair points Alex, I love this post. I guess you're entirely right. That's probably why ZooTV succeeded so well, at least from my point of view...the theme was underlying, so that the subject matter in the songs didn't mean as much as the visuals...pretty much every song was supplemented with content overload and gave the show a "feel" rather than a story.

    I still maintain that they'll drop the opening 10-suite, at least structure-wise, when they take this thing outdoors. Honestly I'm not sure how they'll use that screen in an open-air stadium. They'll find a way, I'm sure, but the tour has to evolve. I suspect something Vertigo style, where the arena show setup is drastically different than the outdoor one.
  5. Oh my bad, hahaha, I was thinking night 3.
    But they did a lot of mistakes on night 4.
  7. Originally posted by MattG:[..]
    Very fair points Alex, I love this post. I guess you're entirely right. That's probably why ZooTV succeeded so well, at least from my point of view...the theme was underlying, so that the subject matter in the songs didn't mean as much as the visuals...pretty much every song was supplemented with content overload and gave the show a "feel" rather than a story.

    I still maintain that they'll drop the opening 10-suite, at least structure-wise, when they take this thing outdoors. Honestly I'm not sure how they'll use that screen in an open-air stadium. They'll find a way, I'm sure, but the tour has to evolve. I suspect something Vertigo style, where the arena show setup is drastically different than the outdoor one.
    ^ I was thinking the exact same thing about how they will make that screen work in stadiums!

    As far as the show goes, I think they are surrendering to the hits and crowd pleasers more the 2nd half of the show, rather than the original concept of innocence and then experience... just my take.
  8. Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]
    Just to add to your point:

    People can blame certain audiences or countries for Pop's flop and U2's lack of experimentation to that degree since then, but the thing is, that's how the recording industry works. U2 could have kept getting weirder and weirder and pushing the boundaries of what they could do, but from their perspective their audience didn't like where they were going.

    I recently watched a video of John Mayer giving a workshop at Berklee (where he went to school for a couple years) and the presentation was basically given to a bunch of up-and-comers like John Mayer once was. At one point he asked the question "how many of you think the casual music listening audience is dumb? It's okay, raise your hand" - a few people did. He basically ended up making the point that the music listening audience is WAY smarter than the artist, and it all comes down to how they're going to receive the art you're creating. You might think you have the biggest hit, and when an audience thinks it's garbage, it IS garbage - that's the way it works.

    The point I'm making in relating this to Pop isn't that Popmart and Pop were garbage, but it was a direction that U2's audience didn't ultimately like. Even if Pop is regarded by the hardcore fans as challenging and awesome, and I've read articles since about how it's U2's last great album, it doesn't matter. They were losing sales, they could see the reaction to their direction in the lack of crowds every night, and basically they probably thought "we've gone too far from what connected us to our audience." Hence All That You Can't Leave Behind. Even though many around here consider it a success, it doesn't matter. It wasn't. You can't call the majority of U2's concert or album-buying audience dumb or conservative when they had such a massive impact on the flop of that campaign. Just because we like Pop, doesn't mean that everyone else did, or more importantly, should.

    I also love the fact that U2 refused to believe that ATYCLB was a step back. I love that they've never said that they made a simpler album because Pop was received badly. The way they see it, it was the next step on their journey, and I agree with that.

    Thanks for this post, I totally* agree with it.

    *the one thing I disagree, is in the use of "casual/hardcore" fans. I've used several times before, but now I'm convinced that it's a very very misleading/false dichotomy.

    ===

    On the other subject, I plainly disagree... I believe the narrative holds water and the innocence vs experience theme has been very consistent throughout the shows. Maybe they'd need to make it more explicit, but I still think it's pretty clear.
  9. The screen in outdoors... if they don't raise/lower the screen it could still work. The stage should be at midfield across the width of the pitch, instead of in one of the goals/ends.

    Lowering/raising the screen could be a problem because the lack of a ceiling, but other than that, they could just adjust the moments where they walk below the screen to either walk inside it, or around it, widening the catwalk for this purpose.
  10. Originally posted by Bloodraven:The screen in outdoors... if they don't raise/lower the screen it could still work. The stage should be at midfield across the width of the pitch, instead of in one of the goals/ends.

    Lowering/raising the screen could be a problem because the lack of a ceiling, but other than that, they could just adjust the moments where they walk below the screen to either walk inside it, or around it, widening the catwalk for this purpose.
    good idea.
  11. Originally posted by Bloodraven:[..]

    Thanks for this post, I totally* agree with it.

    *the one thing I disagree, is in the use of "casual/hardcore" fans. I've used several times before, but now I'm convinced that it's a very very misleading/false dichotomy.

    ===

    On the other subject, I plainly disagree... I believe the narrative holds water and the innocence vs experience theme has been very consistent throughout the shows. Maybe they'd need to make it more explicit, but I still think it's pretty clear.
    ^ maybe i put it across wrong. i think they could tie experience segment in better. i think the innocence part is spot on.
  12. A couple of weeks ago, there was this interview (now I don't remember where), when they talked about the i-stage as "home" and the e-stage as "the world", the catwalk being the journey from home to the world.

    The Wanderer (I went out there in search of experience, to taste and to touch and to feel as much as a man can before he repents) + Invisible (there is no them, there's only us) right after the end of innocence and right before they reach "the world", makes a lot of sense.

    And the whole sequence of Wave-Bullet-Hands-Pride and even #19-WOWY makes total sense in the narrative.

    The only part that seems forced -but still makes sense to me- is the part where they are experiencing and enjoying "the world" (aka the e-stage), that's #12 - #15.

    But again, I think it all makes sense as a concept show.
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