What do the hardcore U2 fans think?

[eFestivals]

I havent read one bad review of the performance yet so i cant see how anyone can say all the reviews are bad.nme voted it the 2nd best performance of the weekend and also gave it a good review in this weeks mag,the sun,q magazine,the guardian all gave them good reviews.

I read the guardian review of those, and it certainly wasn't only good. Didn't it use the word 'underwhelming' or something similar?

Also e festivals were you only at the set for 3 songs? How can anyone have a such in depth view of the gig when you were only there for 10 minutes?how can you judge something you didnt see?a u2 hater springs to mind!

Oh, the old 'hater' thing, the word that dragged out when there's only empty space otherwise. You must try harder. If I hated them I wouldn't have been within a mile of the place in the first place.

As for the rest ... so someone who sees something, finds it unappealing and leaves can't have an opinion on what he saw?

I made clear that's all I saw, and have said I'd be prepared to accept the view of impartial others if they were all saying something wildly different. Yet I've not read anything that has (I don't read the same sort of shite you seem to).

They were dull in the view of very many. Get over it.

[The Nal]

Never laughed as much as I did with Nal at Barbara-Ann (but maybe Mr. K. Moon has something to do with that).

[ThomThomDrum]

They were dull in the view of very many. Get over it.

[ThomThomDrum]

I read the guardian review of those, and it certainly wasn't only good. Didn't it use the word 'underwhelming' or something similar?

They were dull in the view of very many.

[Mardy]

As regards the unexpected vs expected... I certainly think there is a threshold a performance must reach to avert instant disappointment. U2 did not meet this threshold for me two weeks ago. Springsteen hit the threshold but didnt exceed it. Most shows will plateau at this point where youre "kinda happy"... only that rarest of beasts takes you personally to the next level - and this must be done on an enormous collective level for the gig to reach the rarified history maker gigs (Orbital '94, Stevie, Blur '09, Radiohead '97, Macca, Faithless '02, Pulp '95 to name but a few) that makes Glasto the best in the world.

[eFestivals]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/25/u2-glastonbury-2011-review

Dull from start to finish? Underwhelming? Sorry I must not be able to read gud boss!

That's not the review I was thinking of - in fact I was mistaken, I'd not read that one at all.

But having read it, it's glowing. But with some rather large giveaways as to why it is.

the review I was thinking of when I said The Guardian was in fact The Independent:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/glastonbury-festival-worthy-farm-pilton-somerset-2302552.html

Not so glowing.

[MEGABOWL]

The feeling at Brian Wilson was joyous yes. But there was no pathos. The "darker" songs from Blurs set at GF were what gave it impact. I wasnt particularly _moved_ by Brian Wilson. Never laughed as much as I did with Nal at Barbara-Ann (but maybe Mr. K. Moon has something to do with that).

Stevie is a better comparison mate. I know thats heresy for you to hear, but his cover of Human Nature gave a lot of grown men who should know better a lump in their throats. Blur did the same. "To The End" / "Out of Time" / "This is a Low" / "Tender" it was these songs that vaulted the gig to the top of my list - not bloody "Song 2".

As regards the unexpected vs expected... I certainly think there is a threshold a performance must reach to avert instant disappointment. U2 did not meet this threshold for me two weeks ago. Springsteen hit the threshold but didnt exceed it. Most shows will plateau at this point where youre "kinda happy"... only that rarest of beasts takes you personally to the next level - and this must be done on an enormous collective level for the gig to reach the rarified history maker gigs (Orbital '94, Stevie, Blur '09, Radiohead '97, Macca, Faithless '02, Pulp '95 to name but a few) that makes Glasto the best in the world.

[ThomThomDrum]

That's not the review I was thinking of - in fact I was mistaken, I'd not read that one at all.

But having read it, it's glowing. But with some rather large giveaways as to why it is.

the review I was thinking of when I said The Guardian was in fact The Independent:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/glastonbury-festival-worthy-farm-pilton-somerset-2302552.html

Not so glowing.

[Wooderson]

And so how does one conclude?

Some liked it, some didnt.......It was not an historic Glasto moment, but they did not display a major cock up on stage either........Some had fun, others got wet......

Average to Good gig is how I read it from the reviews I see and read, the posts I read, the reaction around me at the gig and how I personally feel I experienced the gig.......from start to finish!

[ThomThomDrum]

The bigger the band, the bigger the stage or the occasion, the bigger the "bad gig gravity" effect... shows that whimper towards the lacklustre will be dragged down further by this failure to meet expectations in peoples minds.

[Wooderson]

Perception in fairness. I believe the "bad gig gravity" is greatly increased for you due to your personal expectation and the standing you have of U2 in your mind as a U2 fan. Unfortunate as it maybe for you it does not translate across the board to the larger audience at a Glastonbury gig. Not everyone else in that field would have had the same expectations as you, but in saying that I still believe most peoples expectations were not met by the gig........only yours where perceived not to be met by a long way........not so for a lot of others........

[eFestivals]

I believe the "bad gig gravity" is greatly increased for you due to your personal expectation and the standing you have of U2 in your mind as a U2 fan.

I'd say the complete opposite.

To any mega fan of any band, that band can do no wrong - or at least, they can't be said to do wrong by anyone that said fan considers to be a lesser fan than themself.

[ThomThomDrum]

I'd say the complete opposite.

To any mega fan of any band, that band can do no wrong - or at least, they can't be said to do wrong by anyone that said fan considers to be a lesser fan than themself.

Edited July 5, 2011 by ThomThomDrum

[Wooderson]

But Wooderson is a fan (if he wants to term himself a mega fan then thats up to him) and he was disappointed. I think you speak of a mindless fanatical fan..for whom which I have little time for as there is no debate with them........

He did not let the fact that he is a fan cloud his judgement. In fact, he may have had a different, less negative experience if he wasnt such a fan and put so much expectation on this gig. After all it was always going to be different from any other U2 gig he has experienced and its setting was the best stage in the world.........the potential was there, and he knew it. He most likely thought this could have Glasto moment all over it........but sometimes when you expect them they dont come.......thats what makes them Glasto moments.......they are dictated to you by the festival and not how you think they should be.......you cant really chase Glasto moments. They come to you.

If we were all blown away by U2 I dont think many would of said........hmm, fancy that.....but we were not........and some expected it to be nailed on.......unfortunately

[strummer77]

As someone who is fairly impartial to them here's my opinion:

It wasn't spectacular but was fairly enjoyable. They started off big but quickly let that momentum slide with some song choices and some nervous stage presence. Got it back with a few singalongs but then did a slightly bizarre encore that included a rubbish Coldplay moment and two songs which made the set finish with a bit of a damp squib after a good With or Without you.

Apparently also the sound was hard to hear further back whilst the weather didn't help. Was about a 7/10 I thought. It wasn't special when it could have been for a variety of factors.

[eFestivals]

you cant really chase Glasto moments. They come to you.

oh, absolutely - I know this.

Yet some U2 fans have chased it anyway, and from some posts in this thread they believe they found it, or something so near to it that it simply can't be said that they were pretty dull.

They'll get over it.

[strummer77]

oh, absolutely - I know this.

Yet some U2 fans have chased it anyway, and from some posts in this thread they believe they found it, or something so near to it that it simply can't be said that they were pretty dull.

They'll get over it.

[ThomThomDrum]

I don't remember reading anyone saying it was a show that will be remembered as a great one

[Walter Sobchak]

Mate of mine who is a massive U2 fan(seen them 12 times) thought they were superb 8 or 9 out of 10.

[JayJay314]

Apologies beforehand for the long post but I thought people may be interested in Willie Williams diary entry on U2.com. For those who don't know he is basically U2s show director....

"Glastonbury festival. Show day.

I got a pretty good night’s sleep, getting up in time to catch the end of breakfast before heading back into the Glastonbury festival site around noon. There wasn’t going to be a great deal that I could achieve as other bands are playing on ‘our’ stage all day, but I wanted to have an opportunity to walk around the site, soak up some of the atmosphere, gauge the mood of the camp and maybe even see some bands play. Festivals are also the great crew crossroads of the world so I guessed I’d run into a hundred people that I know.

The mud was still pretty challenging but we all had our wellies so it was negotiable. The Glastonbury site is vast, and the further away from ‘downtown’ you get, the more out there and interesting it becomes. ‘Lost Vagueness’, ‘Shangri-la’, the healing fields, installations, encampments – there’s a whole section of festival-goers who will never make it anywhere near the Pyramid Stage. I wandered by the ‘Other Stage’ and saw a band called “The Naked and Famous” who turned out to be neither but sounded quite interesting in a minimalist electro-pop kind of a way. Further out at the ‘Spirit of ’71 Stage’ I saw the Noel Harrison trio playing a delightful folky set to about two dozen people, at which point I felt like I was getting somewhere into the heart of the festival.

By 2.30pm a gentle but insistent drizzle began to fall and at this point I realised that I’d forgotten to bring along the sodding umbrella that I’d dragged all the way from London. The punters didn’t seem greatly fussed by the rain. There was enough ‘first day’ energy in the air to keep spirits up and besides it wasn’t raining with any great conviction. I really wanted to see The Vaccines, as I love the album so was keen to see if they were any good live. I found my way to the ‘Other Stage’ just as they were starting up and allowed myself to be a punter for while. They were pretty good – took a few songs to warm up but that’s entirely fair enough at a broad daylight festival slot. After half an hour I began to feel the effect of standing still hatless and umbrella-less in the rain, so headed back to central command to dry off and warm up. That was pretty much it for my festival experience, but it was better than nothing.

The drizzle continued all day without ceasing which eventually started to become a drag. I retrieved my umbrella at least and also discovered the BBC compound (managing to blag yet another wristband pass to get in there) which is quieter and marginally drier than the Pyramid Stage backstage compound. It struck me for the first time that a real detrimental side-effect of the rain for the masses out there, aside from the obvious feeling permanently cold and damp, is that there’s nowhere to sit down. There’s very limited seating at the food and drink vendors (practically none undercover) and you’re not about to lounge on the ex-grass. Also, the energy required with every step just to lift your foot out of the mud becomes increasingly like boot camp.

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.

We made it through to Moment of Surrender and the last little treat of Out of Control (oddly my favourite two songs of the night), before retiring to the backstage compound to fall in a heap. I looked at my phone and saw I’d had texts from twenty-one people during the show, all raving about what they’d seen on TV, so at this point I finally gave myself permission to relax. Mission accomplished, captain. For once we didn’t do a runner but stayed at the gig to join the party. There was a hog roast (in a large tent, as it was still raining) where we ate drank and were merry. We laughed because, surveying the room, from the waist up it looked like the most A-list celebrity hang-out you can imagine, but from the waist down it looked like a farming convention.

At godknowswhat hour we did finally leave and headed for the town of Bath where we were to spend what remained of the night. I’d been warned ahead of time that I’d been bumped from the Hotel Fabulous to Mrs. Miggins’ B&B down the road, due to a rash of last minute guests and family. I didn’t mind as it was so brief a stay, and I could appreciate that these were unusual circumstances (plus Tour Management now owe me big time, which never hurts - I can feel a suite in New York coming on.) However, on arrival at 4am I discovered that my room at Mrs Miggins’ had been cancelled. I was face to face with the night porter who was highly accomplished at that particularly English art of giving the appearance of falling over himself to be helpful whilst actually being controlling, obstructive and all the while letting you know just how inconvenient the whole situation is for him in particular. I just said “Look, I’m going to take a seat over there, so when you’ve got a key, come and give it to me.” Some while later he did just that, and I headed up to the fifth floor. The key didn’t fit the door"

[Kernow_Lad]

Interesting story from Willie.

I'm a big U2 fan seen every tour since Joshua Tree (bar Achtung Baby) - i'd rate it as a 7 / 10. An enjoble show but seen better - mainly due to the weather imo.

Mates of mine who were there like them but aren't huge fans thoroughly enjoyed it and thought they were great.

[the_hedge]

Interesting story from Willie.

I'm a big U2 fan seen every tour since Joshua Tree (bar Achtung Baby) - i'd rate it as a 7 / 10. An enjoble show but seen better - mainly due to the weather imo.

Mates of mine who were there like them but aren't huge fans thoroughly enjoyed it and thought they were great.

[happinessisawarmgun]

I'm not the biggest fan, but know and sort of like all the hits, and I think Bono and The Edge are both total bellends.

So I'd have thought I was pretty much average for the crowd.

My expectations weren't particularly high, and I thought they were very good and I had a great time. Might have been partly due to the bottle of red wine i'd necked before, possibly because weirdly I seem to like bands more when it's pissing it down. Either way, thought it was a very good show.

[the_hedge]

I'm not the biggest fan, but know and sort of like all the hits, and I think Bono and The Edge are both total bellends.

So I'd have thought I was pretty much average for the crowd.

My expectations weren't particularly high, and I thought they were very good and I had a great time. Might have been partly due to the bottle of red wine i'd necked before, possibly because weirdly I seem to like bands more when it's pissing it down. Either way, thought it was a very good show.

[ThomThomDrum]

.........it just seemed that the hype got too much for The Hype