What do the hardcore U2 fans think?

[Wooderson]

I know how much you loved Blur.... so sorry for all that

it just puzzles me...

Wilco have a new album out soon....

[Wooderson]

Blur were TERRIBLE. And you know when the crowd sang Tender? they were all WELL out of tune. Awful stuff.

And that bit during the british gas advert song, where damian allbran shouted "Glastonbury!" well that isnt even in the original lyrics! What an idiot! couldnt even get the words right!

Horrific gig.

If only I'd been at prodigy with the cool kids

[Wooderson]

nope, no tickets yet, just confirmation

[Gregcharlie]

U2 really were dogged by circumstance if I'm honest. I still think it was a great performance but it could have been 'the' Glastonbury performance if it had occured in 2010.

If it had been 2010, they could and probably would've ended with '40', what with it being the 40th anniversary and all. In terms of setlist, I understand why they brought back 'Vertigo' because of how it charted in the UK on release but it really isn't one of their best songs. 'City of Blinding Lights' from the same album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" would've been a better choice as the more uplifting, anthemetic song and would've suited the setting of Glastonbury (as people refer to it as the 'city out of nothing for a week') much better than 'Vertigo' did.

Also if it had been 2010, they would have had the great weather on their side, sound quality would also been better (probably/hopefully). 'Beautiful Day' would have, as other people have previously said, hit home in more dramatic fashion. I also thought the omission of 'All I Want Is You', 'Scarlet' and 'October' were mistakes, and 'Stay (Faraway So Close)' could've been left out, as Bono incorrectly said "it is a folk festival" when Glastonbury is the 'Pilton Pop Festival'.

Real positives were that the setlist was still pretty awesome, 'Bad', 'Out Of Control' and 'The Fly' were good choices.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Gregcharlie

[Bobser]

Good shout, whoever mentioned Larrys drumming earlier. Just watching back over it. He was f**king immense. I just love the rhythm of the drums in WOWY during the breakdown. As ever, reliable as f**k....a proper professional who doesn't get the credit he deserves.

[Buglet]

I've seen U2 a few times but not recently. I thought that their set was immense in a way that I've only seen them be on Live Aid or at red rocks.

But then they pissed away the end.

One massive burst at the end (yes, almost certainly 40) would have cemented it as a classic, the ending we got was a huge 'meh' that kind of tainted the show that had gone before.

[howlin_pete]

When people U2 were the victims of circumstance, do they mean the rain on Friday night(Obviously he injured his back last year, I mean for this year)? I can see why it's harder to connect with a crowd in those circumstances, but Primal Scream has exactly the same conditions on the Other Stage and no one claimed the rain hampered their performance there. Different band/different gig I know, but feel some people are making excuses for U2 when perhaps they just didn't quite meet peoples expectations...

[Bluearsedfly]

Would have like to are a few of their toys make an appearance....

[tevaburger]

Wilco have a new album out soon....

[malfy]

Had a great time watching U2, just a few thoughts of the night..

Maybe i'm in the minority but moment of surrender was one of my Glasto moments

Think its been said previously but Edge came in late on streets so lost its emotional oomph

Regarding surface being like an ice rink, so Bono wasnt as mobile as normal. Surely they have come across this so would assume they have some temp surface to put down.

Encore didn't seem to work in conditions, soon as they left stage first time, loads of crowd exited

[Torcs4]

Think its been said previously but Edge came in late on streets so lost its emotional oomph

Regarding surface being like an ice rink, so Bono wasnt as mobile as normal. Surely they have come across this so would assume they have some temp surface to put down.

Edited July 2, 2011 by Torcs4

[MEGABOWL]

I brought it up because it confuses me how popular blur were, with the awful singing, average songs, and U2 are getting slagged off. Bono's voice was amazing (I was surprised at how good it was), they've a shed load of great songs, a lot of which they played...

The bad press that Bono gets obviously works with a lot of people... how has Damon, who can't sing for toffee, hasn't written one song that comes within a mile of U2's best, become some kind of saint?

[MEGABOWL]

Blur were TERRIBLE. And you know when the crowd sang Tender? they were all WELL out of tune. Awful stuff.

And that bit during the british gas advert song, where damian allbran shouted "Glastonbury!" well that isnt even in the original lyrics! What an idiot! couldnt even get the words right!

Horrific gig.

If only I'd been at prodigy with the cool kids

[The Roses]

End of the day it's not what the crowd think but what you make of the gig. I personally thought they were really good and that's all that counts for me, just because it doesn't go down in history don't concern me, the views of the masses is no concern of mine

[Colin88]

(puts on Prodigy CD)

(shouts "COME ON MY f**kING GLASTONBURY WARRIORS!!!!!")

(pulls face at the camera)

There you go, you were there

[guypjfreak]

can anyone tell me wot time ONE was played

thanks

anyone anyone

Edited July 4, 2011 by guypjfreak

[BlackHole2006]

Blur were TERRIBLE. And you know when the crowd sang Tender? they were all WELL out of tune. Awful stuff.

And that bit during the british gas advert song, where damian allbran shouted "Glastonbury!" well that isnt even in the original lyrics! What an idiot! couldnt even get the words right!

Horrific gig.

If only I'd been at prodigy with the cool kids

[ThomThomDrum]

Reading this now I'm really glad I made the decision to go see The Prodigy over Blur. Probably one of my best decisions of all the times I've been going to music festivals.

[wbarenno]

Nme readers name u2 the 2nd best performance of the weekend

U2,s set was great but not legendary which it had the potentional to be.

[Lubic]

Great performance which I really enjoyed - but yeah the rain definitely affected the atmosphere around the pyramid that day (same for Biffy). Therefore the gig wasn't quite that incredible legendary performance that I hoped it would be.

I didnt really notice many tecnhical problems so that wasnt a big issue for me. Also I liked the fact they were a little nervous - I was a bit concerned they had an attitude of being 'bigger than festivals' and thought they would blow everyone away without having to try. That wasnt the case it seems, and they had really put the thought and effort into the set.

Setlist wise - my only gripe was them not playing New Years Day, but they played Bad which was a great surprise! The end after With or Without You was a little bit anti climactic as well maybe... audience attention seemed to dip anyway.

Overall I'd say it was a very good headline slot, just a little unlucky with the weather, whereas Coldplay had ideal conditions and therefore a better atmosphere. Beyonce too I assume.

Edited July 3, 2011 by Lubic87

[The_Wiseman]

here is the entry on u2.com from Willie Williams the show director - I guess it confirms they were battling technical issues in addition to the weather right through the show. Its a sign of their professionalism that they still managed a hell of a show!

"The day wore on and eventually U2 arrived on site. Edge was in first as he also fancied a poke around, then the others gradually followed. They were in good form, really seeming quite peaceful about what they were about to do. Perhaps like me they felt that they were as prepared as they could possibly be, so we may as well just relax into it. Morrissey took the Pyramid Stage as the drizzle turned into a more committed precipitation and I had a group huddle with the band to show them (via sketches and photographs) what the stage layout looked like, as there would be no opportunity for them to actually see it until they walked out there to play. Then the final set list sign off and we were under starters orders.

Morrissey finished his set, so I had one last look around the stage to make sure nothing was obviously awry and headed for the mix position. The rain was pretty convincing by now so getting to front of house was extremely challenging, squeezing through the bedraggled hordes. I made it and took up my position by Ethan at the lighting desk. There’s no guest platform out front (who’d be brave enough to get there?) but just a few band guests made it to join us, including Damien Hirst who’d come to see the debut of his extraordinary video sequence for Real Thing. The opening of U2’s Glastonbury set was designed to be very video heavy, essentially being half an hour of ZooTV complete with the original visuals from 1992/93, plus the new Hirst piece. We realised that this was the antithesis of the expected ‘Glastonbury Spirit’ where we’re all very lo-fi and camp with the punters, but sometimes you have to swim against the tide.

I’d had a recurring waking nightmare of technical catastrophe that would leave me standing next to Damien Hirst, watching U2 arrive on stage and playing in front of an array of blank screens. Little did I know how extremely close we came to having this vision become reality. Finally, finally, after eighteen months of pontificating, we are all at Glastonbury with the intro tape of Bowie’s Space Oddity playing. This led into the siren sequence at the top of Real Thing and the video screens bursting into life with images of hatching flies in extreme close up (go Damien!) I noticed, however, that the two festival screens which were supposed to be carrying the camera pictures of the performers were black, and remained so as the song kicked in and the crowd went nuts. I’d expected the Hirst visual to appear enigmatic, but seeing it in isolation with no images of the band amid this tremendous sound was bordering on performance art. And was kind of fantastic.

I was to learn later that, almost simultaneously, two massive gig-threatening events had come to pass. Back stage, the BBC have their whole live broadcast set up and also, in a separate trailer, Smasher (our touring video director) had his whole set up to switch the screen cameras and control all the video playback material. Literally at the moment that Larry first started beating the hell out of his drums at the top of Real Thing, the generator powering Smasher’s truck died, dumping his entire system into darkness. Later he told me that he actually thought he was going to have a heart attack (no doubt, like me, having fantasised about worst-case-scenarios). He genuinely thought that U2 were now on stage playing in front of seven giant video screens showing diddly-squat, but then he noticed that the little back-up system he’d brought with him had kicked in and was happily running on its own battery. He stuck his head out of the trailer and could see that there was light blaring from the screens and that all was well. Smasher’s MacBook was running the Damien Hirst piece all by itself, and the day was saved.

Meanwhile on stage, catastrophe of similar magnitude was simultaneously being avoided by the narrowest of margins. Terry, who on the 360 tour plays keyboards and runs the computer click-tracks from ‘underworld’ beneath the stage, was set up on stage right. There’s no ‘underworld’ at Glastonbury and earlier in the day I’d joked with Terry that he would finally see U2 play live, rather than via the complex CCTV set up we have on the 360 tour. He was set up on Edge’s side of the stage, tucked behind one of the video screens that we’d brought. Between Terry and the front edge of the stage, the Glastonbury DJ had a little set up, to entertain the crowd during the changeover periods. Said DJ had decided to stay there to watch U2 and, going with the festival spirit, nobody objected him being there. Not, that is, until U2 kicked into Real Thing and this guy started dancing and jumping about like a lunatic, knocking over Terry’s computer rack in the process. Many songs are played in a manner we call “off the grid”, i.e. it’s just the four of them playing at whatever tempo Larry is beating out, but songs that play over loops or effects (e.g. With or Without You or I’ll Go Crazy), or that have synchronised video content, need to stay exactly in sync and so are played over a click track (that the audience don’t hear). All of this comes from Terry’s computer set up, and so do all of the video triggers that launch the visual images at exactly the right moment. You can imagine that this is not an uncomplicated set-up, and I’m sure poor Terry saw the whole thing in slow motion, as his central nervous system crashed to the floor.

Thank the universe that, just prior to hitting the deck, Terry’s machine had sent the trigger to Smasher’s video playback system so the Damien Hirst video sequence had launched. Literally seconds later, both Terry and Smasher’s set-ups had both been rendered useless but by then the gig had started, the band was playing and the visuals were running themselves from the back-up laptop. If you listen back to the BBC broadcast you can hear that during the first verse of Real Thing Terry’s “weedly-weedly” keyboard runs are missing because he wasn’t able to play them at the same time as scraping his computer off the floor.

On stage, of course, the band had no idea that any of this was happening but were facing challenges of their own, not least that the persistent rain had turned the stage surface into an ice-rink. Not only were the musicians finding themselves in entirely unknown physical territory but also in a situation where they had no idea what might happen if they attempted sudden movement. All of us then found ourselves in extremely challenging circumstances but by this time the rocket was launched and the energy of the moment carried everything. It turned into a great gig and the audience, gawd bless ‘em each and every one, managed to remain energetic and rowdy throughout even though I’m sure they were in considerable discomfort. I did have to laugh at one point. 'Elevation' is a useful gauge of crowd energy and I looked out of the mixer tower at this point to survey the field and see how they were doing. There was lots of hand-waving but I was surprised that there wasn’t more jumping up and down. I realised then of course that the reason they weren’t jumping up and down was because they couldn’t… 80,000 pair of wellied feet, sucked into the mud, so hand waving would have to suffice."

[eFestivals]

here is the entry on u2.com from Willie Williams the show director - I guess it confirms they were battling technical issues in addition to the weather right through the show. Its a sign of their professionalism that they still managed a hell of a show

<snip>

I did have to laugh at one point. 'Elevation' is a useful gauge of crowd energy and I looked out of the mixer tower at this point to survey the field and see how they were doing. There was lots of hand-waving but I was surprised that there wasn’t more jumping up and down. I realised then of course that the reason they weren’t jumping up and down was because they couldn’t… 80,000 pair of wellied feet, sucked into the mud, so hand waving would have to suffice."

Hmmmm .... "A hell of a show"? And ... blame the mud, why don't you.

Of course, none of the reaction - or lack of it - had anything to do with U2 giving what's been widely regarded as a rather dull performance, and giving nothing that deserves them a 'best band in the world' title.

[Wooderson]

Hmmmm .... "A hell of a show"? And ... blame the mud, why don't you.

Of course, none of the reaction - or lack of it - had anything to do with U2 giving what's been widely regarded as a rather dull performance, and giving nothing that deserves them a 'best band in the world' title.

[eFestivals]

The tone of the piece to me reads like an acknowledgement that it was a fairly subdued affair that can't be helped now, but that neither WW or U2 themselves are altogether satisfied with.

Really?

It reads to me like a puff piece that's been written by a PR man who is talking it up as much as he can while ignoring the downsides. Stuff like...

"... was bordering on performance art. And was kind of fantastic."

"... as the song kicked in and the crowd went nuts...."

"... the video screens bursting into life ..."

"... the moment that Larry first started beating the hell out of his drums...."

"...but were facing challenges of their own..."

If that's really the guy's own writing then I can only think he's been hired because of that writing and not because of anything else he does for the band. Cos the likes of U2 are bands whose success comes more from PR than it does from what they can actually deliver themselves - as that Friday got to show.

I think that "was bordering on performance art" line gives it all away. After all, what he's calling "performance art" is actually just a band playing on stage without all of the props they normally use. Were there 2,000 other sets that were similarly "performance art" over the weekend in that guy's eyes because they didn't have props either? Or does such high praise only go to U2 because for once they had to play their instruments without mummy holding their hand?

[russycarps]

that's your (and many others... apparently) opinion. I thought they were great, and the rain and mud DID play a massive part in subduing the punters. I didn't think it was dull