As someone who is not a big fan of earnestness, surely I cannot be the only dweeb to think that U2 Under A Blood Red Sky, named after a line from ‘New Years Day’ would actually have been better named from a line from ‘Party Girl’ instead?
I’d much rather be reviewing U2 I Know a Boy Called Trampoline, You Know What I mean. True story.
I was never/am not a fan of early U2, unlike almost everyone I was at school with* but I liked some of their later stuff, peaking with Zooropa^ and then got very bored when they then relapsed into a slough of arid self-regard that they have yet to pull themselves back out of. I picked up Under A Blood Red Sky in 1995 from Chester market on the same day I picked up a copy of Dwarves Blood, Guts & Pussy; I listen to U2 more, mostly because I don’t have to hide the LP cover to protect my children.
I’ll stick my neck out and say that Under A Blood Red Sky is one of my fave live LPs^^ ever, top 3 easy. The band are absolutely electrifying, recorded across three gigs in 1983, cutting loose from all production shackles, resolutely gimmick and (mostly) guitar pedal free. You can just hear them firing on all cylinders, giving it their all and feeding off the crowd’s energy. U2 sound young, like they still had adrenal glands.
Opener ‘Gloria’ just rocks, explodes right out of the gate, all adrenalin and whoosh! It slows down for the post-punky ’11 O’clock Tick Tock’, which isn’t much of a song; that’s fine because it is followed by an absolute TUNE. ‘I Will Follow’ is just superb, harder rocking than a lot of rockers I liked at the time – the bass work is particularly great, it sounds exciting – something U2, good though they were later, never quite did so much again.
‘Party Girl’ was an interesting choice, a B-side only with a Police feel, utter doggerel for lyrics, some great audience shouting along-y bits and a guitar solo that I reckon I could play without practising. It shouldn’t work at all, especially as it lowers the tempo again, except, somehow, it really does.
I Know a Boy Called Trampoline, You Know What I mean serves us up ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ as side 2 opener and again, the band play it like they really mean it. There’s genius of a kind in the soaring melody and that stuttering, militaristic drum beat. Non-album single, ‘The Electric Co.’*^, is another, umm, convulsive rocker, Adam Clayton again giving it loads of bottom end. It sounds a bit like the Skids to me.
This tees us up for the grand finale of ‘New Years Day’ and ’40’, both perfect examples of the sort of overarching grandeur U2 always strove for, hitting this time. ’40’ is a great closer for Under A Blood Red Sky, a relaxed, confident crowd singalong with the band leaving the stage one by one.
Under A Blood Red Sky is a great live release, properly capturing a band who were desperate to break through, still really passionate and energetic about what they were doing. The level of artifice involved is interesting too, if you look at the actual set list around that time the LP’s track listing starts with the 13th song played**, not to mention the seamless blending in of three performances. Producer Jimmy Iovine does a superb job here and a lot of the credit for just how exciting a document this is falls to him.
The cover image is superb, taken of Bono up in the lighting rig during ’11 O’clock Tick Tock’ at the almost-total-disaster-but-miraculously-pulled-off concert at the half-empty Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
I Still think it would be better called I Know a Boy Called Trampoline, You Know What I mean.
994 Down.
*and Mrs 1537, who tells me she collected tokens from egg cartons to get Under A Blood Red Sky, way back when the world was young.
^I am officially the only person in the world who rates Zooropa as his/her/its’ fave U2 album.
^^technically mini LP, but at 34 minutes it clocks in at 1.5 Van Halens^*.
^*the internationally recognised unit of short album measurement.
*^named for electro convulsive therapy and not, I now know, for my favourite utility on a Monopoly board.
**the sequence is 13, 15, 16, 14, 7, 8, 10, 17. Next week’s lottery numbers? you read them here first.