Welcome to this week’s podcast of This Week in U2 History. On this week’s show, I will cover U2.com’s members voting opportunity on U22 – The Ultimate U2360° Subscribers Setlist. I will also review this week in U2 news and of course, close out the show with gig of the week.

Here are the songs and locations of recordings up for vote on U2.com:

I always knew that if you wanted to become great at your craft, you had to know the masters, or were lucky enough to be a prodigy. I will say it straight out that I’m no prodigy, therefore, I had to learn my craft of being an art director from the ground up. That’s right, watching Saturday morning cereal commercials, in the mid-70s no less, impeded by cartoons such as Looney Tunes or Hong Kong Phooey. Luckily, my parents, my mom and stepfather, were academics, which lead me to travel and live in Europe as a young kid. Those experiences have stayed with me and helped me build a knowledge base of design. Added to the fact, my father’s an architect and has a voracious, creative appetite. It’s no wonder I turned out the way I did.

I had a pretty good idea, when I filled out my application to the University of Iowa, that I was going to complete my declared major of graphic design. When I got to college, I immersed myself into expanding my knowledge of who the greats were in design, painting and photography. I would emulate them. Well, actually copy them until I found my own style, which I kept pushing as my studies moved along. I found my path being no different than that of my father’s architectural desires or my mother’s love for being a wordsmith. In fact, writing is no different than designing. In order to self-express one’s self, one must read to find out how others before you created their sense of love lost, joyful disposition or contemplation of one’s woes. Bono’s a masterful lyricist who doesn’t carry a degree from an academic institution, but instead has used life’s experiences and the understanding others works in order to master his craft. I find it heartwarming that he comes from country brimming with literary talent– W.B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.

The influence of prose on the lead singer can be seen in U2’s early recordings. The Ocean, on the Boy LP, has a direct reference to Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The fear Bono emulates in the song is he doesn’t want to succumb to the narcissism that comes with being a rock star. The album Boy is about the trials and tribulations of teenage angst. Such a heavy, literary reference such as this seems out of proportion to a rock song, but then again, he’s bringing Oscar Wilde’s 19th century idea into pop culture. I’m not sure how many U2 fans would take this lyric and dig further into it. Do you think most casual U2 fans would go to the library and check out the book as I did? I’m not sure. As for myself, I felt I had to read the work in order to get the whole picture, excuse the pun and I did it later in life. I’m sure my stepfather would be thrilled that I read the work, but upset that it took an Irish band, and not an Irish lit scholar such as himself, to get me to read the great work.

Why am I blabbering about this creative inspiration? Well, I will cut to the chase. Since we’re about to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Achtung Baby, I wanted to touch on some of the songs over the next couple weeks. The first is that very underrated song, Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite tune on the record. I still get it confused with the Rolling Stones song, Wild Horses. I think I’m musically dyslexic that way. However, like The Ocean on the Boy LP, Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses has a literary reference. Unlike the blatant Dorian Gray reference in The Ocean, Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses tucks a Hermann Hesse book reference under the covers of the song. The line, under the trees the river laughing at you and me, is in reference to Hesse’s book Siddartha where the river in the novel symbolizes a teacher. It’s that teacher that Bono is searching for in this citation. In my mind, the teacher could be a religious reference or that of his mother speaking to him from beyond. No matter how you read it, the brilliance here is Bono’s innate ability to reference the old and turn it anew again. Pushing that age-old story about a river into a new dress, which could be “vacant as a parking lot” or “left just out of reach” either way, it makes him a grand lyricist and one who truly is a pundit of life.

I found this photo on-line the other night and have been enamored with it ever since. I think it’s the look, that one split second, between these two great people, which makes the image. If we didn’t know who these two individuals were we would think it was older brother congratulating his youngest sibling, the rock star. We know that not to be the case. It’s an image of the previous leader of the free world and a rocker, who leads his flock of fans into believing they can change the world, greeting one another. Each has their own wishes, wants and desires to change the world. Not at whatever cost, but by empowering others.

I know for a fact the picture was taken before Bono and Edge hit the stage at the Hollywood Bowl last Saturday night. I’m sure it’s a “Go break a leg” statement from the Prez. However, from Bono’s reaction, it feels as though something else is being requested of the singer. Bono’s reply stare could be read as, “I know what you want me to play, Bill, but we’ve already made up our mind,” or, “Bill, no, you cannot sit in and play the sax.” Either way, it’s this imitate moment that I find so appealing, which is made even more emotional by Bill pulling Bono closer into him. It’s the love and respect for each other that allows us to know these two to be old friends.

I remember back in 1992, when U2 was on tour in America on the ZOO T.V. tour and they did an interview on Rockline. Somehow, Bono had Bill’s phone number and asked the host to dial up Democratic candidate. I was shocked when they got on the “Gollee” candidate from Arkansas. I had listen to the show countless times and never witness such a thing happen. In fact, it was the only time I listened to the show where it ran over its allotted time. There was a spark between the band and Bill much like the spark captured nineteen years later in this image. Who knew at that time, in 1992, that Bill would not only be president but would also build an amazing post-presidential organization and Bono would take on AIDS relief in Africa under the ONE Campaign. It’s amazing how the two of them have grasped onto the world’s issues and made historic change. I think Bono’s good deeds have hampered the creativity within the band, but that is my own opinion. However, Bono’s betterment for the world philosophy is one I can buy into, even if he is a little soapboxish at times. What I admire about him, and Bill, is that they know what they are talking about and people listen. You can see it in their eyes.

I was cruising the web tonight, visiting the usual sites that I do at 9 p.m., when I found out about Bono’s singing for Desmond Tutu on his 80th birthday. I decided to dig deeper into Tutu’s background by visiting an expansive dossier on Wikipedia. It’s no wonder that Bono gravitated towards him.

What most impresses me is how Mr. Tutu speaks of the good book (some of you call it the Bible). He says that it’s a collection of books filled with words of inspiration. I wonder what he thinks of those who use it as weapon against humanity, like the ones who hold it up in the air and speak of God’s disliking of homosexuality or that women shouldn’t be ordained. I feel Mr. Tutu sees a bigger world outside of the scripture and not stuck in some Biblical mindset of some 2,000 years ago. He’s focused on the realities of the world and how to heal them without beating us over the head with the rule book from the good word. Whether you are religious or not, Tutu’s philosophy of caring for others is paramount as he seeks to end AIDS in Africa, a project close to Bono’s heart.

Sadly, we do not hear of Mr. Tutu’s good deeds on this side of the pond and that is why I have interest in diving into his memoir. When he was a young boy, he aspired to be a doctor, but went on to study theology. He was always at near the front of friction in South Africa like abolishing Apartheid. What we do not hear of his triumphs outside of this major political shift. Did you know he was the first black man to be appointed Anglican Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg in 1972? I didn’t. At what is more fascinating is how South Africa was further behind us in Civil Rights for its own people.

Mr. Tutu is a controversial figure, however he’s a leader from behind the pulpit and one who is aware of the ever changing world around him. Bono singing at his birthday gives us an opportunity to explore this Tutu’s great achievements and the changes in South Africa over the past four decades. An 80th birthday is worth celebrating, along with life’s achievements. It’s sad that the other change candidate in the world, the Dalia Lama, wasn’t allowed travel permission to South Africa. In closing, I feel we should all carry a little bit of this man with us as we travel amongst ourselves as change agents to the world.

I wasn’t a fan of the U2 Special Edition iPod. I felt as though it was another marketing ploy on both sides of the marriage between the band and Apple. U2 was in need of getting in touch with its younger, growing fan base, who barely knew what vinyl was let alone a cassette tape. However, hooking up with the hip device maker Apple and releasing a signature iPod was a no brainer. Apple, on the other hand, was looking to increase brand presence. When the already pop culture icon, the iPod, and an established rock band, U2, joined forces, both sides would be winners.

Steve Jobs wasn’t some kid who easily made his way to building Apple. Like all great inventors, his business started in a garage. As for U2, they started in a kitchen and could hardly play their instruments. Both Steve and U2 knew that they wanted to change the world by chasing a dream. Steve’s was to make a computer for the lay person. That computer, the Apple, changed lives. It became the computer which would become the staple for my field – graphic design. Steve was not afraid of marketing this machine either. Apple will be forever known as creating one of the most iconic Super Bowl ads ever, playing on the idea of George Orwell’s “1984.” Mr. Jobs took risks and changed the world. U2 was not that far behind.

U2 came upon the scene just about the time Apple was taking over the personal computer sector of the business in the early 80s. They too had to prove themselves to the grander world of music. It would take four albums, but the work created at the beginning has stood the test of time. Boy, War, October and The Joshua Tree are so independent of one another in terms of sound, yet they are intertwined in their evolution. Much like Apple’s growth, U2 had to change within themselves to become more successful. As for Steve Jobs, he had to leave his company and then come back with new ideas. U2 did the same thing as they left the 80s behind and welcomed the new decade with their albumAchtung Baby. The Irish quartet moved away from their safety net, yet embraced the change in music at that time. Steve Jobs followed later. He created what people wanted and that was a computer which could easily be used to cruise the ever burgeoning interest in the Internet.

In closing, it’s sad that people of such great talent leave us too soon. I’m sure fans of Apple are asking what’s next for the company. I would say to them not to hold their breath and worry about what is yet to come. Relish in how our lives have changed in the past thirty years thank to Mr. Jobs. Relish that this man will stand tall amongst other inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Think of Steve Jobs as one who made our lives more pleasurable and for that I say thank you as I write from my MacPro. Every time I fire it up and hear that famous tone of welcome, I will remember the man that reinvented the world.

In this celebratory year of U2’s 20th anniversary release of Achtung Baby, I wanted to focus a couple blogs on songs that sit under the waterline on the record. The first of which is the song So Cruel. As most U2 fans know, this song is about Edge’s divorce. It’s probably the most gut-wrenching lyric ever written in any U2 song. The funny thing is that Bono, who has the most long-standing relationship with his own wife, probably wrote it. However, he gets it right when it comes to love falling apart.

Pretty much anyone can identify with this song. We have all been in relationships that have fallen apart or have come to a close, whether we wanted the finality or the other person wanted to call it quits. So Cruel gets it right. It speaks to the human frailty of relationships. Once one gets into a lovers bond, you give of yourself. You sort of melt into the other person whether you want to or not. It’s that self-extraction, when the relationship ends, that makes it very difficult and painful to move on.

What I like about So Cruel is its simplicity. The song rests in the middle of an album filled with texture, loops and newfangled sounds. The opening piano lulls you in to Larry’s drum tapping. Bono begins, almost in a spoken word style, about the recognition by the protagonist that something has gone wrong in a relationship. It is an amazing set-up as we move into the second stanza where Bono begins to lull us into the story. Much like the Siren’s song, we want hear more. Sirens usually sing songs of beauty yet this is not beautiful song, however Bono makes it that way with his new found falsetto. When he mentions wearing “love like a see through dress,” we can identify with the pain because love is suppose to be thick and in this situation, it’s painted thin.

As the song closes out in the third stanza, the orchestra crescendos there’s no turning back. The relationship that was splitting at the seams at the beginning of the song has now come to an end. Bono speaks that “in love there are no rules.” He verbalizes the harshness of love and not the beauty of it. Bono brings us to the finality of this relationship by ending the song with “Sweetheart, your so cruel.” The shattered glass of a relationship can never be put back together. It’s time to move on. So ironic, on this unrelenting emotional roller coaster of an album, that the next song on the record is “The Fly,” which has it interpretations in some corners as a “Bar Fly.”

I actually should call this my U2 year, but that would be too high and mighty of me as I am one who tries to be down to earth. However, it has been a great summer and one I will cherish for some time to come.

It started on the second Tuesday night in June at a Chicago bar called the HopLeaf. I was going to read a chapter from my memoir, however I couldn’t choose which one. I had only seven minutes to present my work and I didn’t want to bore the audience. Luckily, I had a section just long enough, and with just he right mount of humor, to hold any unlucky soul’s attention. I wanted to share with everyone my afternoon of a tough decision, back in the winter of 1992, buying scalped tickets and going to see U2’s Indoor Broadcast of ZOO TV with a gal whom I had no interest in going with. I really wanted to score tickets to the sold-out show and take my then girlfriend who had no interest in seeing U2. I knew the chapter of my “Tough Decision” would hold the audience’s attention as they sipped, or gulped, their craft brewed beers.

The evening went off without a hitch as I championed my own work and readied myself for even more public exposure at my first bookstore event. The excitement to stand up and talk about my worked scared the shit out of me, but I took it on knowing I came from a lineage of those who had defended their doctoral thesis and eventually went on to write great books on feminism and Joyce. So, I had faith I could do it and when my box of books arrived at home, from my self-publisher, for my reading, excitement and skepticism filled the air. I was hoping many would come, but reality set in and I had a little more than a handful of attendees. It didn’t matter as I plunged through my presentation, sweating profusely. I was nervous, but not trying to show it as the bookstore didn’t have air condition and everyone was in the same uncomfortable boat as me.

Although I didn’t pack them in at the Winnetka bookstore, I was feeling confident because my next promotional adventure was to take place on the day of U2’s Soldier Field stop on their 360 tour. I had everything in place. I had Cliff bars wrapped in faux cover of my book with info about my book and me. I knew how hungry fans can get waiting to see the Irish boy wonders. I also had a set list of people, whom I met on Facebook, and wanted to meet personally plus give them complimentary copies of my memoir. And then the phone rang five days before I was to crawl through the General Admission line outside Soldier Field.

“Hello?” I said.
“Eric, it’s Andres from U2 tourfans.com,” Andres said in a hurried introduction.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I sat at my freelance graphic design gig trying to be professional.
“I have a question. Can you cover the U2 press conference on Thursday at Soldier Field?” he asked.
“You mean in two days? Let me see.”
Andres interrupted my thought and said, “You’re in Chicago and I need coverage.”
“What time is at…..”

The conversation moved forward. All of a sudden the biggest day of my life had suddenly shifted from the concert to the press conference. I was going to be privy to asking questions to U2 tour’s director about the tour, the stage and questions all fans wan to know ‘ have you ever caught someone sneaking in for a peak of the massive structure?” No, Bono et al wouldn’t be there, but that wasn’t the point to the event. I was asked to represent U2tourfans.com and the opportunity to be one of the few who would get an inside view to U2’s tour world was about to launch my ego through the stratosphere, but I wouldn’t let it happen. I cooled my heels and said to myself “this is what patience gets you.” My U2 summer was about to come full circle.

Within six days after that fateful phone call from Andres, I went to the press conference, met Andres personally, handed out 50 books in line and took in U2’s 360 event for the final time. It was a grand U2 summer and one that I will cherish. While all of this excitement was happening, my mother whom I dedicated my book too, was slowly slipping away into the night’s sky. I wish I could have shared in the U2 revelry with her, but I can’t. I can say this. The people I met this summer, thanks to my book and the doors it opened, have been supportive of my project and stood in where my mom once was. She may have not seen me interviewed on WGN about my memoir but I’m she felt the energy.

I was rummaging around our second bedroom last week, looking for some guitar picks when I came across a photo envelope from Eckerd drug store. I forgot I had brought it back from mom’s house when I visited her this past Memorial Day. The envelope, filled with old photographs from over the years, contained my first ever letter to the editor. Ironically, I wrote it in college within a week or so of U2’s release of The Joshua Tree.

I stopped my search for the guitar picks and began to read the Xeroxed letter. It was not my best composition. However, it was my first published piece in a newspaper where I gave the editorial department at the Daily Iowan, our student newspaper, my two cents worth about their review of such a brilliant album. I have since had other letters to the editor published in Vanity Fair, Spin and Rolling Stone to name a few, but that’s not what is important here. Nor is the content of the letter, which tries to convince the paper that the reviewer overlooked key items on U2’s masterpiece. What’s important is that I found this in a scrapbook that my mom kept, which included almost all of my correspondence to her from college.

It’s interesting what you find in your parent’s keepsakes of your young life. Yes, there are the paintings from the refrigerator, a clay sculpture from a Saturday art class and yes, a letter to the editor. All of which are items of your past that you barely remember executing until you find them years later. Some of these things, at the time of their creation, were inconsequential pieces of your life but they became treasures to your parents. My mother obviously knew how important U2 was in my life when I was in college and this Xeroxed newspaper clipping is a reflection of her understanding of my fandom. I’m happy she knew how much they meant to me and even more so, how much she means to me. I think she knows, as she slips into the winter of her life, that she was the guiding spirit to this book project.

I read an article this week in the Denver Post about how important Colorado has been to U2.  Much like Chicago and Terri Hemmert, who took the band to see the Unforgettable Fire exhibition at the Peace Museum, Denver has always been a place of welcome for the four Irishmen.

As the band toured in a white van crisscrossing the United States in those early years, fan attendance was low and the venues they played in were quite small. All of that changed when they made the WAR tour stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater, which put U2 on the map in the 80s. The event, as we all know, was taped for a live album release Under A Blood Red Sky as well as recorded to film for a VHS release. Both recordings became a foray into how the band played live. Thanks to U2’s release of the videos to MTV, we got our visual answers to all of the rumors we heard on the street “…you gotta see this band out of Ireland, U2.”

Now, I wasn’t a U2 fan at the outset. I will be honest. When I was introduced to the Boy LP, I excused it for all the things I didn’t understand. I was into AC/DC and The Who. What I didn’t know was the album was actually speaking to me as I grew up in a similar home as Bono, broken. I was very antagonistic towards my pal who made the U2 introduction to me. The Northside Dubliners were taking over my peers, but, as I said, I didn’t find comfort in the first listening to their music. It took me a few months to get the courage to seek the band out on my own. The purchase of, and constant listening to, Under A Blood Red Sky, on cassette, was my self-discovery that grew my U2 fandom into what it is today.

A few years later after my initial emersion into U2, my dorm-mates and I ventured to the local movie theater to see Rattle and Hum, U2’s Joshua Tree road movie. It opens with the band covering The Beatle’s Helter Skelter, which was shot live and onstage in the old McNichols Sports Arena in Denver no less. Rattle and Hum took off where Under A Blood Red Sky ended. Instead of the being filmed in color, the band was captured in stark black and white as they played their classics in that fabled sports arena – Sunday Bloody Sunday, Exit, Silver and Gold and Pride (In The Name of Love). U2 must have known how special Denver had been to them as they returned to film their historic Joshua Tree tour stop in the Mile High state.

Although both films/recordings are well over 25 years old, they still stand the test of time and both cemented our band into history. I like to go back to these videos every so often to relive my youth. I just happen to be one of the lucky ones who attended the Joshua Tree stop in Iowa City. Lucky, because it was a change of venue and not on the initial tour list of cities. Rattle and Hum keeps those memories alive for me. I am grateful that U2 filmed that tour. Not just for me, but for those who followed behind me in fandom.

Moncton, Canada seems like the most unlikely place for a U2 tour ending destination, considering the Unforgettable Fire Tour ended in Wercheter, Belgium, the Joshua Tree Tour ended in Tempe Arizona and Zoo TV landed its final night in Tokyo. I know these tours in the distant past, but they all ended on a pretty high note. It seems as though the ending of 360˚ Tour in the remote town of Moncton, Canada seems a little off the beaten path. I would say more than beaten path since it is a six-hour drive from Augusta, Maine, the nearest American state capital. Even better, Moncton has a population of 126,424 people, which could all be dwarfed by The Claw in one sitting.

Now that I have given you a history lesson and directions, my wonderment comes in because I have no idea where, how or who decided this small, northeastern Canadian city to be the final resting place of this humongous tour. It still stupefies me that no major United States city, like New York or Boston, was considered. I guess someone must have put a map up on the wall, blind folded each band member and then gave them a solitary dart with the simple directions “launch it towards the wall.” From all four darts, they found the epicenter in Canada which means Larry or Edge’s dart had to have landed in Greenland or the middle of the Atlantic.

Nevertheless, this great, worldwide tour, which started in Spain, will dwindle to an end in the far reaches of Canada, playing songs, all along the way, from the vault like Scarlet, Silver and Gold, and Zooropa. For me, I cannot complain that the ending is in Moncton because it really has no effect on me. To those pinning for it to end in Dublin, I am sorry it isn’t. My gut feeling is that this Canadian town needs a bridge to nowhere and U2 will donate the stage, much like the Stones donated their stage to Japan after the Steel Wheels Tour, in order to build it. How prophetic would that be?

In any case, 360˚ is coming to an end. It has to and like always, once it it is gone, we await for another outing. Maybe the band will be more modest and go back to the stripped-down, arena shows the next time out. Or, maybe they will start busking on street corners as the Dalton Brothers. Anyway, none of this matters as we the 48 + Canada + Mexico relish in the final stages of U2’s ambitious outing named 360˚ without a care where it will end. We hope it goes off in peace.