Word: bandness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...also taking on distinct phenomenological proportions. Even in Arizona, in the earliest stages, with Bono's voice raggedy from overrehearsing and with the band searching for a solid connection with both the audience and one another, there was a final fusion of performer and spectator that is one mark of great rock 'n' roll. Some of the songs, especially earlier efforts, can get tongue-tied by the unwieldy ambition of their lyrics and the discursiveness of the melody line. The audience shares a devotional intensity, however, that anchors the concert as a whole experience even when the tunes range free...
...Bono, however, that all eyes stay fixed. U2 carries the day, but he carries the show. That has always been the way, ever since the band's first scuffling days in Dublin during the punk whirligig."They were very bad," admits Manager McGuinness. "But it wasn't the songs that were the attraction. It was the energy and commitment to performance that were fantastic even then. Bono would run around looking for people to meet his eyes...
...existence. A U2 tune like Running to Stand Still, with a trancelike melody that slips over the transom of consciousness, insinuates itself into your dreams. Patty Klipper, from Parsippany, N.J., says, "First they opened my mind to their music. Then their music opened my mind to the world." The band's official fan magazine, called Propaganda and edited by their tour lighting director, is a neatly turned out publication that features the usual inside-band stuff as well as some unexpected calls to political action. Fan publications usually urge readers to stay in touch with the musicians. Propaganda urges them...
...Excellency is not likely to invite the band to fall by for plum brandy and cabbage rolls, and U2 is probably not at the top of the White House invitation list, either. They are dead serious about their liberal activist politics although careful not to be sanctimonious. Clayton talks worriedly about some fans turning to the band "needing to be healed," and Bono says," I would hate to think everybody was into U2 for 'deep' and 'meaningful' reasons. We're a noisy rock-'n'-roll band. If we all got onstage, and instead of going 'Yeow!' the audience all went...
...things but don't express ourselves in the same way." This, along with Clayton's inborn rebellious instincts and up-tempo temperament, caused some intramural tension that has only lately been resolved. "I was in the wilderness for a few years, so there was a natural antagonism within the band that people picked up on. Now the spirituality contained within the band is equal to all the members." Clayton, tan and muscular, with an army recruit's haircut and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that makes him look like an insurrectionist with a bass instead of a bomb, remains...