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  1. Originally posted by Blue_Room:[..]
    Actually he had not learned how to sing. That is why he kept losing his voice on this tour. He had to see a vocal doctor during Lovetown (which it is rumored the soundboard recordings from Dublin came from) who told him he needed to change the way he sang because he was hitting notes 4 or 5 times in a song that opera stars like Pavarotti hit 1 time per show. He basically was destroying his vocal chords on this tour. Listen to God Part II Amsterdam 1989. Ouch it makes my throat hurt just hearing it!
    It was a great tour and there are great bootlegs as a result. But Bono could not sustain singing like that.
    Yeah. It's obvious that during the 80s he was still pretty "untaught", and that led to his most passionate vocals, but also an unsustainable standard of performance.

    It's why I love his ZooTV vocals so much. It's controlled, the passion is still there, but it took a different shape. It's more of a conversation filled with emotion and less of a proclamation every time he opens his mouth It's Bono being able to use his voice to really convey a multitude of things, whereas in the 80s, it was a little more limited.

    I will say that songs that REQUIRED that "80s passion" did suffer a bit. Bad was never the same, for example. I do still love performances of it that feature a more restrained vocal, though. Santiago 1998 comes to mind, as do the performances on the ZooTV tour. I'd say 2001-on it was a pretty healthy balance, at least based on what Bono is capable of now.

  2. To me it wasnt, there where shows where he had problems. Also he started to get a whispering hoarse sound in the background of his voice.
    1989-12-18 Amsterdam was canceled because of his voice.

    Also he strained his voice alot when trying to hit notes, take Wide Awake in Bad for an exampel, instead of singing it he screamed.It much more easy to scream than hitting a note correct.

    Just compare the Wide Awake (5:18) :


    to (5:57)


    To me Bono was far better on COH tour, he had the rawness but could still hit the notes.

  3. For me Lovetown marked the end of U2 Concerts where anything could happen, Zoo TV marked the beginning of the U2 Show, pretty much tried and tested every night. Kind of summed up in the U2 book Show as there is not much pre ZooTV coverage
  4. as simple as the element of surprise in the opening song.
  5. Originally posted by Peterrrrr:[..]

    To me it wasnt, there where shows where he had problems. Also he started to get a whispering hoarse sound in the background of his voice.
    1989-12-18 Amsterdam was canceled because of his voice.

    Also he strained his voice alot when trying to hit notes, take Wide Awake in Bad for an exampel, instead of singing it he screamed.It much more easy to scream than hitting a note correct.

    Just compare the Wide Awake (5:18) :
    [YouTube Video]

    to (5:57)
    [YouTube Video]

    To me Bono was far better on COH tour, he had the rawness but could still hit the notes.

    [YouTube Video]
    Oh, c'mon man - that post is 4 years old!

  6. Lovetown was incredible U2 were the biggest band on the planet and this tour was basically an extension of TJT tour going to countries they missed plus a few European cities ,U2 were never as loose or spontaneous again although the internet wasn't around to tell you what was played the previous concert, U2 playing with just a basic backdrop is when they are at there best now they seem addicted to big productions which can sometimes distract from the power of the music .People go on about Zoo TV and how amazing it was but for me that production swallowed them up at times as did Popmart the less is more approach is always more powerful.
  7. Because it's that fucking great!
  9. I think it was Larry who said that on the Lovetown tour he felt like a living jukebox and I get it.
    In 1987 they were touring an album, exploring new grounds musically, where Lovetown was just a bunch of shows with just a bunch of songs.

    I love those Dublin shows/bootlegs, but in Dortmund I left the Westfalenhalle slightly disappointed two times. The energy at the shows was high, but for me it lacked a "message". I missed SBS, Electric Co. & Exit. The stage was colourful, the stage clothes were "ugly by design" - i prefered black and white-U2 back then.
    The band and the show looked so much older than in 1992. With Lovetown they had entered a dead end street and they knew it.
    How they emerged from that and reinvented the band and themselves is still a miracle to me and continues to amaze me.