Should U2 not try to outdo the 360 tour?

[bethere]

bethere, seriously, why stay on here and continue argueing with every poster? You have replied with the exact same stats and comments for 20 pages. No one is buying what you are selling. You should be able to see that by now.

          All I'm doing is responding and posting like everyone else. I have multiple different comments and stats and have used them where I have felt it is appropriate.  I am simply reporting the facts which so many people do not seem to have knowledge of.

           In any event, were not here to discuss forum members, were here to discuss U2 and related subjects, so lets keep it that way.

[xy]

U2 often builds their setlists around a certain theme. Toss in a complete obscurity and the setlist might not flow.

What was the theme of 360 set-lists?

Space (someone else said it, and it would certainly fit with U2, space as a metaphor for the divine). Even with the milky way ending in MOS, the Bowie space intro  and ISS video people still missed it ?
There was also Bono talking about two parts of the show http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/neilmccormick/100002560/u2-secrets-of-stadium-rock/

If space and travel was the theme of the tour then why didn' they play Fez:BB?

Because they a) wouldn't do justice to the song and mostly, b) it would, IMO, tank, live.

Then again, fan forums cheered at Your blue room and Zooropa (studio songs that don't really work live to these ears) so what would I know.

[xy]

And they don't need an army of additional players on stage like some bands.

Because they don't play entirely live.

R.E.M wouldn't have needed other musicians on stage if they didn't play entirely live, either.

Nothing they've ever played needs an army of 20 or so musicians. In terms of live, U2 has exactly the same output as that certain band they get so many comparisons with...and in fact any 4 piece band.

REM pretty much needed a new drummer, although I wasn't talking about them.

Even with a drummer, if R.E.M played without any additional musicians, then like U2 they wouldn't be playing entirely live.  Which is why they take a keyboard player, an additional guitarist and sometimes even a violinist to perform with them on stage.  Bands like R.E.M, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd etc, have a natural live sound which needs additional real musicians playing real instruments to create, and they have enough respect for those musicians that they allow them to perfrom on stage with the rest of the band, instead of being hidden away from sight like trolls in the underworld.  In comparison, U2 have more of an artificial electronic live sound, which can be easily prerecorded and mixed in with the basic live band on stage. 

Pink Floyd aren't really a band not known for studio experimental sound. Stones are a cabaret, and have been for a while, with an army of extra players. There's a difference between having an extra guitar player/keyboard player/ being forced to get a new player and hiring hordes of extra players. E street band is a better example of a band with a natural live sound.

Plenty of stuff can be, yes, pre-recorded and mixed in with the live performance. What does it take away from U2 members performing live ? Or any band that uses pre-recorded sound for that matter ? Terry Lawless doesn't seem to mind (and has been acknowledged on the DVD credits).

[Tumbling Dice]

Pink Floyd aren't really a band not known for studio experimental sound. Stones are a cabaret, and have been for a while, with an army of extra players. There's a difference between having an extra guitar player/keyboard player/ being forced to get a new player and hiring hordes of extra players. E street band is a better example of a band with a natural live sound.

It all depends on what arrangements an artist wants for their live sound.  Artists with studio sounds such as those produced by Springsteen, the Stones, Pink Floyd, or Prince, will therefore need more musicians and backing singers to recreate that sound live.  If the Stones' touring band is a 'cabaret' then certainly Springsteen's is as well.  Basically, if an artist wants brass arrangements because a lot of their songs require them to do the songs justice in a live setting, i.e The Stones and Springsteen, then you have to have a brass section, or at the very least a sax player.

Plenty of stuff can be, yes, pre-recorded and mixed in with the live performance. What does it take away from U2 members performing live ? Or any band that uses pre-recorded sound for that matter ? Terry Lawless doesn't seem to mind (and has been acknowledged on the DVD credits).

So basically, U2 don't play entirely live.  Strip out the prerecorded sounds and all you have a rhythm section and an effects expert.  And I don't think Terry Lawless has much choice where he plays as he's just a hired musician, but I'm sure he'd welcome getting to play up on stage with the rest of the band, instead of being hidden away like a troll.

[So Cruel]

And they don't need an army of additional players on stage like some bands.

Because they don't play entirely live.

R.E.M wouldn't have needed other musicians on stage if they didn't play entirely live, either.

Nothing they've ever played needs an army of 20 or so musicians. In terms of live, U2 has exactly the same output as that certain band they get so many comparisons with...and in fact any 4 piece band.

REM pretty much needed a new drummer, although I wasn't talking about them.

Even with a drummer, if R.E.M played without any additional musicians, then like U2 they wouldn't be playing entirely live.  Which is why they take a keyboard player, an additional guitarist and sometimes even a violinist to perform with them on stage.  Bands like R.E.M, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd etc, have a natural live sound which needs additional real musicians playing real instruments to create, and they have enough respect for those musicians that they allow them to perfrom on stage with the rest of the band, instead of being hidden away from sight like trolls in the underworld.  In comparison, U2 have more of an artificial electronic live sound, which can be easily prerecorded and mixed in with the basic live band on stage. 

Pink Floyd aren't really a band not known for studio experimental sound. Stones are a cabaret, and have been for a while, with an army of extra players. There's a difference between having an extra guitar player/keyboard player/ being forced to get a new player and hiring hordes of extra players. E street band is a better example of a band with a natural live sound.

Plenty of stuff can be, yes, pre-recorded and mixed in with the live performance. What does it take away from U2 members performing live ? Or any band that uses pre-recorded sound for that matter ? Terry Lawless doesn't seem to mind (and has been acknowledged on the DVD credits).

Pink Floyd aren't really know as an experimental studio band? Is this in some bizarro world? They've always been known as one of the most experimental bands around.

[JTBaby]

Beware the double negative.

Another Example. It's not true that the 360 tour didnt end up being a nostalgia tour due to casual fan apathy towards the new material.

[bethere]

Beware the double negative.

Another Example. It's not true that the 360 tour didnt end up being a nostalgia tour due to casual fan apathy towards the new material.

            If that were the case then you could lable every U2 tour a nostalgia tour. Both the UF and War tours only played 6 songs from their respective albums while the 360 tour played 7 songs from NLOTH.

            The POPMART TOUR had more hits from the 80s than the 360 tour did!

[Tumbling Dice]

Beware the double negative.

Another Example. It's not true that the 360 tour didnt end up being a nostalgia tour due to casual fan apathy towards the new material.

            If that were the case then you could lable every U2 tour a nostalgia tour. Both the UF and War tours only played 6 songs from their respective albums while the 360 tour played 7 songs from NLOTH.

For half the tour, 360 didn't have seven songs from NLOTH.  It had considerably fewer.  A larger portion of a War or TUF show was made up of new songs than 360 was, even before the cull.  360 didn't start out simply as a nostalgia show, although it was the nostalgia element which attracted most of the fans, but it evolved into a greatest hits/back catalogue show, so that by the end they were playing more songs from an album released twenty years earlier than they were from their latest album that you say they were supposedly 'promoting.'

            The POPMART TOUR had more hits from the 80s than the 360 tour did![/u][/i][/b]

FACTually wrong!

[bethere]

Beware the double negative.

Another Example. It's not true that the 360 tour didnt end up being a nostalgia tour due to casual fan apathy towards the new material.

            If that were the case then you could lable every U2 tour a nostalgia tour. Both the UF and War tours only played 6 songs from their respective albums while the 360 tour played 7 songs from NLOTH.

For half the tour, 360 didn't have seven songs from NLOTH.  It had considerably fewer.  A larger portion of a War or TUF show was made up of new songs than 360 was, even before the cull.  360 didn't start out simply as a nostalgia show, although it was the nostalgia element which attracted most of the fans, but it evolved into a greatest hits/back catalogue show, so that by the end they were playing more songs from an album released twenty years earlier than they were from their latest album that you say they were supposedly 'promoting.'

            The POPMART TOUR had more hits from the 80s than the 360 tour did![/u][/i][/b]

FACTually wrong!

             The point remains though that they played more songs from NLOTH on 360 than they played from UF or War on their respective tours. The video of the Red Rocks show, Under A Blood Red Sky has less songs from war, than U2 360 at the Rose Bowl does from NLOTH.

           The early UF tour shows in fact had less than 6 songs from the UF album. Also, both tours, War and UF, finished within 10 months of the release of the album, which is why there were no major changes in the number of songs played from each respective album. The biggest changes to the 360 tour occured 29 months after the release of the album largely because of the 12 month delay in one of the tour legs. The end of the promotion period for the album plus the 20th anniversry of Achtung Baby led to those set list changes. With WAR and UF tours though, your dealing with tours that were completed within 10 months of the release of the album.

            60% of the songs played at the Rose Bowl were songs released after the year 2000. That is the opposite of a nostalgia tour.

FACTually wrong!

Well lets look at the Rose Bowl 360 VS Mexico City POPMART:

Rose Bowl 2009 80s songs:
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Unforgettable Fire
I Still Haven't Found...
With Or Without You
Where The Streets Have No Name

POPMART Mexico City 80s songs:
Desire
All I Want Is You
Sunday Bloody Sunday
New Years Day
Pride
Bullet The Blue Sky
I Will Follow
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Where The Streets Have No Name
With Or With Out You

             So, just songs from the 80s thats 10 to 6 in favor of POPMART. In terms of hits its 9 to 5 at best.

[So Cruel]

bethere, you don't make sense.

1980's U2 is not their only music that can be considered nostalgia. In 1997 U2 were only 7 years on from the 80's; in 2009 they were 19 years on from the '80s and had 3 more albums after Pop that they played music from, so of course there may not have been as many songs from the '80's on 360

[boom boom]

Beware the double negative.

Another Example. It's not true that the 360 tour didnt end up being a nostalgia tour due to casual fan apathy towards the new material.

            If that were the case then you could lable every U2 tour a nostalgia tour. Both the UF and War tours only played 6 songs from their respective albums while the 360 tour played 7 songs from NLOTH.

For half the tour, 360 didn't have seven songs from NLOTH.  It had considerably fewer.  A larger portion of a War or TUF show was made up of new songs than 360 was, even before the cull.  360 didn't start out simply as a nostalgia show, although it was the nostalgia element which attracted most of the fans, but it evolved into a greatest hits/back catalogue show, so that by the end they were playing more songs from an album released twenty years earlier than they were from their latest album that you say they were supposedly 'promoting.'

            The POPMART TOUR had more hits from the 80s than the 360 tour did![/u][/i][/b]

FACTually wrong!

             The point remains though that they played more songs from NLOTH on 360 than they played from UF or War on their respective tours. The video of the Red Rocks show, Under A Blood Red Sky has less songs from war, than U2 360 at the Rose Bowl does from NLOTH.

           The early UF tour shows in fact had less than 6 songs from the UF album. Also, both tours, War and UF, finished within 10 months of the release of the album, which is why there were no major changes in the number of songs played from each respective album. The biggest changes to the 360 tour occured 29 months after the release of the album largely because of the 12 month delay in one of the tour legs. The end of the promotion period for the album plus the 20th anniversry of Achtung Baby led to those set list changes. With WAR and UF tours though, your dealing with tours that were completed within 10 months of the release of the album.

            60% of the songs played at the Rose Bowl were songs released after the year 2000. That is the opposite of a nostalgia tour.

FACTually wrong!

Well lets look at the Rose Bowl 360 VS Mexico City POPMART:

Rose Bowl 2009 80s songs:
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Unforgettable Fire
I Still Haven't Found...
With Or Without You
Where The Streets Have No Name

POPMART Mexico City 80s songs:
Desire
All I Want Is You
Sunday Bloody Sunday
New Years Day
Pride
Bullet The Blue Sky
I Will Follow
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Where The Streets Have No Name
With Or With Out You

             So, just songs from the 80s thats 10 to 6 in favor of POPMART. In terms of hits its 9 to 5 at best.

Bottom line things have got to change this tour.  No matter how many new songs they sing even if it is the whole album it will seem to be nostalgic if they keep relying on the usual staples as this article would suggest http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/13-tours-wed-like-to-see-in-2013-20121012/u2-arena-tour-19691231.  People are tired of them.  Take the time to learn how to play some new songs from your back catalog.  Have faith in it, because if they continue with the same old same old no matter how fancy they make the production and how many new songs they sing from the new album it will just feel dull and lifeless.  Hopefully they will inject some new life and some freshness to the setlist.  I think the last line in the article really says it all: At this stage in U2's career, it might be tempting to just keep flogging the same old hits in stadiums for enormous sums of money. They need to resist that temptation at all costs.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/13-tours-wed-like-to-see-in-2013-20121012/u2-arena-tour-19691231#ixzz2HZPXaTbY
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

[JTBaby]

bethere, you don't make sense.

Agreed.

[sw]

Rolling Stone magazine lists the 13 tours we'd like to see next year and they say that U2 should do an arena tour and have mixed setlists like Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen.  Does everybody else feel that way (I know that I do).

Yes, exactly.

[Bads316]

Rolling Stone magazine lists the 13 tours we'd like to see next year and they say that U2 should do an arena tour and have mixed setlists like Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen.  Does everybody else feel that way (I know that I do).

Yes, exactly.

I think it's what we all want, I dare say even those who unequivocally loved 360 would welcome this.   

[sw]

Rolling Stone magazine lists the 13 tours we'd like to see next year and they say that U2 should do an arena tour and have mixed setlists like Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen.  Does everybody else feel that way (I know that I do).

Yes, exactly.

I think it's what we all want, I dare say even those who unequivocally loved 360 would welcome this.   

Yes, again.