U2’s first three albums get deluxe treatment

I have been listening to a lot of U2 lately. The earliest 3 albums were recently re-mastered with an extra disk of demos, outtakes or live tracks. These are pricey ($30 ish) so I’ll hold off on purchasing but I’ve been cherry picking a few tracks on iTunes. When this charismatic teenage punk band from Ireland began their recording career in 1980 it would take 4 years for me to discover them. Looking back on the first album Boy you can see the best elements of their style, primarily; Edge’s guitar (out in front wailing like a air-raid siren) and the (soon to be) rock solid rhythm section of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. Like Andy Summers of The Police, The Edge adds texture and color over the beat, frequently leaving a song’s melody to bassist Clayton or Bono’s vocal. Larry Mullen’s drum style is aggressive in intensity but he mostly sticks to driving the beat without the use of showy fills. Bono would take a while to find his role. Early on it’s The Edge who translates the excitement of what they are doing (working in a real band!) Key tracks on Boy are I will Follow, Out of Control and 11 O’Clock Tick Tock (check out the Live at the Marquee version). The British album cover with the prepubescent boy has been restored for the remastered version. The original was struck from the US version for fear of accidentally endorsing pedophilia to their gay fans! Check out these guys doing Out of Control in 1981, Bono looks 15 years old and is not surprisingly an insufferable showboat.

Now contrast with the way they tear this up at Slane Castle twenty years later a week after the death of Bono’s father, for my money the best of their concert films:

Wikipedia has an excellent account of this 2001 concert here. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2_Go_Home:_Live_from_Slane_Castle

By the time they got to War in 1983 they were a mature band. This album shows their performing style fully developed. Bono has a grip on his role as front man and his singing is great. The incredible passion in the performance and the improved material really make the album. They are a band transformed after the weak October, during which they actually broke up to get their spiritual act together. War’s political theme added to its appeal and forever linked U2 to social justice issues. Two of my favorite U2 tracks are found here, Two Hearts Beat As One (try the Club Version remix) and New Years Day. These songs are so good you can listen to them repeatedly and concentrate on what each musician is doing individually. The album also features the intense anthem Sunday Bloody Sunday, their first hit to resonate in America, and Drowning Man which is has an atmospheric quality – a prequel to the Brian Eno/Daniel Lanois sound of their next album The Unforgettable Fire.

War would be supported by a world tour, which produced a live album and film Under the Blood Red Sky that was recorded from their show at Red Rocks outside Denver on June 5^th 1983. With heavy rotation on MTV the Red Rocks footage contributed to U2’s growing popularity as a live act.