 "Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there." I saw U2-3D last week. It is an awesome achievement both technologically and performance wise. I was totally captivated by the sound the band was making, so powerfully captured, and by the fact that Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. seemed to be playing just to/for me. They were staring me in the face, floating at my eye level just a foot or two in front of me (the HD-3D effect is astounding!) Still I was, somewhere in the back of my mind, distracted thinking of all the people who will not experience this rare magical spectacle because they've bought into some ridiculous anti-hype that U2 are a bunch of phony heart sleeves. Believing that Bono is just another rock star with a ridiculously over-inflated ego scratching and pawing for any deeper lasting recognition i.e., Jon Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, etc. is just another indication of how truly dumb people have become. Not thinking anything through nowadays it seems like everyone is just gut re-acting to something they heard or saw on t.v. what could Bono or U2 as a whole gain from their activism other than the humanitarian goal they claim to be after? It obviously hasn't made them more popular. That's why I'm writing this after all! I guess what I'm getting at is that whether you like or agree with their politics or morals they are a spectacular pop group. If you like pop and rock and roll music in the family tree branches of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Ramones, 60s Girl Groups, Bruce Springsteen etc. you probably would like U2. If you don't and it's purely a musical reason, well then you're just crazy, but not dumb! My problem is with people who are so jaded (read: BORING) that they just go along with this idea that it's insincere to have a band and a belief. The two can't coexist? Why not? It's what most everyone loved about most if not all of the bands mentioned above. The dreaded Hippies! Were peace and love not beliefs? But that was then and this is now. Now we're jaded, bitter and well, like I said, BORING. It's so boring to me this point of view. It just doesn't add up. I've always felt this away about the favorite whipping boys of the "hippie" band era, The Grateful Dead. I grew up in the 1980s and 90s. I got really into music, learning to play and discovering groups my brother was into, when I was about 9 or 10. At that age I started listening to groups like The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Misfits, The Dead Kennedys and The Dead Milkmen. So, I grew up a punk rocker. With all that great music and terrible close minded baggage of "who's more punk than who" and what does "punk" mean. Needless to say I hated "hippies." Though I didn't actually know what any of that meant! Then sometime in my early twenties my best friend Adam Garbinski played me the album American Beauty. Just the opening music of Box Of Rain told me what I needed to know. This was music from an era that I already had grown to love. By the time the singer was delivering the first line I knew I had to re-think some things. I spent 4 years of my young life in a rural trailer park in Indiana. From about age 9 to 12. We lived right next to a camping ground and were only one exit down the highway from the big outdoor amphitheater where The Grateful Dead would play 2 or 3 nights every summer. By mid July the gas station convenient store inbetween our trailer park and the camp ground was flooded with weird businessmen, probably doctors and lawyers, who were sporting their tie-died garb and following the dead for their summer vacation. I was already told earlier on that I couldn't like The Dead because they were dirty hippies, but I was still yet fascinated by the spectacle of it all. Remembering all this as I'm listening to the band for the first time with Adam I realized that the myth and fans and subculture surrounding the thing doesn't necessarily have a thing to do with the art itself. I still don't much care for The Grateful Dead as a subculture. I don't even get the big draw to their supposedly great live performances, but I love those early classic albums from the late 60s and early 70s. because they're full of harmony and meaning and compressed drums and guitars and plate reverb! I can smell beer, cheap wine and grass smoke when I listen to them! It's the same sensation when I listen to The Beatles and Stones and Love. And I feel like I can stay up all night drinking whiskey and having meaningful conversations about changing my life when I hear U2! Good music makes you wanna sing along and dance and feel like anything is possible, right? That's what I want my music to make people feel! And if I'm ever in a position to have a platform to change something in my world for the better I hope I'm brave enough to accept the challenge and inevitable criticism and questioning of motive to follow. But I hope that the fans of what I do are smart enough to not give up on a connection to some chords and melodies I've written even if they don't like my position on political and humanitarian issues. And if I ever make an album even as close to the greatness of American Beauty or a state of the art film that ushers in a brand new technology that anyone with a pulse and eyesight can appreciate that they'd have the individuality of thought and balls to go and listen or watch it! Give themselves a chance to enjoy it. To go past dumb popular opinion. A middle finger to "the suede-denim secret police!" So, there's my extended thoughts on U2-3D! go see it! It's the best thing I ever saw! It makes you feel invisible, like you're a ghost hovering above and all about the stage. You could never actually experience a concert like this in real life. It's even better than the real thing!!! "The universe exploding 'cos-a one man's lie." Labels: Idiots, The Grateful Dead, U2 |
| Saturday, February 16, 2008 | dave the SLAVE! | 0 Comments |
