aditya kumar's weblog

Few days ago, was introduced to an initiative taken up by Gul Panag about getting U2 to perform in India (Thanks to fellow blogger Shradha Revenkar for that). The soaponline.in website had a comment board setup and for starters, I put a comment there too (here, somewhere below, still online). Then, after being encouraged during a little chat on twitter by Gul herself, I wrote my U2 story.

Basically, I have a ticket for a U2 concert that is supposed to happen today, 14th July 2011, in Philadelphia. I had surrendered to my fate long ago, but this little story (for what it’s worth), Gul Panag said later on email, will eventually make way to U2. I don’t know what happened to it but here it is anyway.

I have a ticket to July 14’s U2 concert that is going to happen in Philadelphia. And yet my story manages to be a bit of a heartbreak.

My first memory of U2 is a picture of the band that appeared in, of all newspapers, The Economic Times, sometime in 2000. It was not the band that attracted me to the picture but it was another artist’s picture that appeared alongside their’s that caught my attention. Sheryl Crow had won the Grammy for her cover version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and so had U2, for their album “All that you can’t leave behind” (ATYCLB). “So these were the guys who had sung ‘With or Without You'”, I said to myself. I had just been enlightened with that song, thanks to the “Songs of the Millennium” collection that had just been released by Universal Music. The good thing of an album that is an assortment of the best songs is that not only are these albums value for money but they also, in effect, become the best advertisements of music bands they carry, simply because they showcase the best songs.

I bought ATYCLB’s audio tape with much skepticism. My allowance allowed me to spend Rs.125 (in today’s economy, $3 approx) on music, per month so I made sure that the money was well spent. My definition of a good album then was an audio-tape that one could play on and on, without the need to fast-forward. ATYCLB qualified as one.

About 6 months after I had seen U2’s picture, I was in a city called Pune, 4 hours from Bombay. In a new city, with almost no friends, I had 2 years of my education still left. One of those days, I bought U2’s Best of 1980-90 — it made sense because buying a “best of” U2 gave me a chance to look at the best that they had to offer without risking my monthly music allowance. A few hours after buying of that tape, I remember, leaning over the stairs of our old house in Pune, a Gothic like structure in shambles, with “Pride” blaring into my ears. I hit rewind a few times, because I remember telling myself that “Pride” had the kind of music that I could define as perfect. It was just the music I was longing to hear, almost subconsciously, because I had never heard anything like it. That evening, in Pune, I evovled to a different personal age of music.

Following that day, every month, tape by tape, I kept bridging the gap between the 1984 hit, Pride and ATYCLB. The sounds of “Achtung Baby”, were discovered. Bono once said that “Achtung Baby” was the sound of 4 guys chopping the Joshua Tree. It fascinated me no end – that a band could completely abandon the music that got them their greatest classic for something completely unconventional and then come back to it as U2 did with ATYCLB. There was a method in U2’s madness, in their contrasting genres while they experimented with Electronica, classic Rock and Pop. To untrained ears this was random but in truth it was anything but that.

For someone born in 1981, to appreciate the rock and roll (and everything else) churned out in 1984, in 2003 was a coming of age.

In Goa, my home, I once saw an advertisement of a U2 concert to be played on HBO. Cable TV didn’t have much choice, power supply was intermittent. And this had to be taped. On audio. It was the infamous Boston Concert, DVDs of which were later gifted to me by my gracious friends. That night, with guests in house wondering what I was upto, I connected my philips music system to the television, taped the whole concert with audio that was interrupted by advertisements and power cuts. This master-tape was then converted to MP3, edited and archived on a Compact Disc. This was my prized possession for years to come.

U2’s concert in Chicago happened. I heard Bono’s speech about his first impressions of America. About the American spirit that found inspiration on landing a man on the moon. My impressions about America were not the exact copy of Bono’s but we touched common ground. With my first article appearing in a major Indian news magazine, months after my first visit to America, I chose this inspiring moment to be a part of my writeup because this was now what Bono meant to me — Much more than a musician but someone who could inspire minds and people. Bono was, by now, an old friend right there in my headphones.

In 2010, I was summoned to be there for work in the US, for six months. I had a vague thought in my mind, that I might be able to attend a U2 concert. I did not know how realistic the idea was because a U2 concert was always a “big deal” for me. I mean, staying in the shadows, even if it was as an audience, I had started to be always in the awe of the band. To see them in real, in the flesh had by now, become a far fetched dream.

I landed in Newark on 1st May 2010. I checked in a traveller’s Inn, that was next to a 7-Eleven convenience store that evening. The next day, Sunday, 2nd May 2010, my first day in America, I fetched a copy of USA today from the store, among other things. Somewhere in the middle of the thick broadsheet, I came across a small, unassuming piece of news – that U2 was about to play a series of concerts on the east coast. NYC and Philadelphia among a few of them. My first morning in America, still jetlagged and it had brought in my life’s dream. I looked at the map and my options. A few phone calls and 16 days later, on 18th of May, I had a ticket to U2’s Philadelphia concert that was supposed to happen on July 12, 2010.

12 years of following their music. My first and possibly only trip to America. U2 at their best, on a tour. I had a ticket to watch them in the flesh. That was my one shot.

On May 21, 3 days after I bought my ticket, it was reported that Bono had undergone an emergency back surgery. On 13 July 2010, ticketmaster.com sent me an email, conveniently informing me that the concert was now rescheduled to July 14, 2011. I did not expect anyone to appreciate the irony in there but I did not know what to make of that email. Fate kicked my butt. All I could do was take a printout of the e-ticket, frame it and put that on the wall with the caption- “The closest I could get to U2”.

A few weeks back, a friend suggested why not sell the U2 ticket that I have? I could still have my ticket framed and the money back. Not a chance, I said. Bono’s having one less man for audience on 14 July 2011.

Rolling Stones magazine reports that Coldplay is coming up with a new album next month (June 17th, actually). The fourth album will be titled “Viva la Vida” and Coldplay has promised a departure from the usual piano and guitar routine that has brought them success in the previous three albums. Coldplay’s frontman Chris Martin says even if the album doesn’t do well, at least it will be brave.

Surely, I agree with that. More than a decade ago U2 found itself on crossroads. Fresh by their success in “The Joshua Tree” and “Rattle and Hum”, they had a choice to make. They could have gone with the tried and tested formula, cash in on their reputation and made another Joshua Tree like album. Or they could dump every little thing that they had tasted success with and try out something completely different and redefining. A rebirth. They chose the latter and the result was Achtung Baby. The album eventually came at Number 62 of Rolling Stone Magazine’s greatest 500 albums. More important than anything, U2 had not only got in the money with the commercial success of the album, they also kept the critics happy.

The guys at Coldplay are at a similar juncture in their musical careers. They have certainly started it right by roping in Brian Eno as their producer — The same guy who produced U2’s Achtung Baby. I just hope that in a bid to be different they don’t end up overdoing things. But again, I hope they are not their depressing self, for a change.

A hit here would confirm that Coldplay is indeed “The New U2”, something that I have always wanted Chris Martin’s band to be.

It’s so strange, you listen to the latest song of a well-known rock band for the first time, you like the sound of the song so much that you start listening to their music to an extent that you fall in love with songs that the same band made 25 years ago, even before you were even born.

In 2000, when I listened to “Beautiful Day” by U2, I went through this experience of listening to almost all of their music of the last two decades in less than two years. You could say it was a crash course in U2. I have heard U2 so much now, Bono sounds like a friend.

No matter how much the fan following may claim to get, I dare say, ‘inspired’, by the lifestyle, attitude and the shine that a bunch of rockstars carry – it is the music that defines the popularity of a rockband. It is not the clothes, it not the quotes and it is certainly not their style of smoking a cigarette. It is the music.

If I were asked to describe what U2’s music is all about, what it has been all about since they started in the late 70s, I would just say it in one word — Reinvention. It has always been about chucking the music that delivered a top hit, trying something entirely different and coming up with another topper. The transition is so contrasting that it doesn’t seem like a transition at all. (Or maybe it’s just not one.)

When U2 won the Grammy for “Beautiful Day”, a photo of the band was published in The Economic Times. I didn’t have access to television those days and it took a business newspaper to inform me about the existence of one of the best rock bands.

All that you can’t leave behind (ATYCLB) had a sad feel to it. It was like the band didn’t approve of what was going on with the world and it was their way of insisting that what was going on was not right. “Peace on earth” and “When I look at the world” are songs like that. It also conveyed a sense of a strange kind of loneliness, something like laughing at one’s own bareness. Like many U2 songs, some in the album had their own biblical references, hidden meanings.

The Joshua Tree, of course, made U2 what they are. The album marked U2’s move from rock-and-roll to core rock. “Bullet the Blue Sky” slammed America. “With or Without You” was, it could be said, their first love song. “Where the Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven’t Found” became classics. In 1987, we had a new U2. We had four guys from Ireland who didn’t do drugs and called themselves a rock band.

In 1992, Achtung Baby saw U2 dispose the core-rock music cloak. It was a strange album with a lot of experimentation. U2 behaved like a bunch of rockers with the lavish stages that they set for the Zooropa tour that followed the release of the album. The music sent out ideas in an explicit fashion. With songs like “The Fly”, “Zoo Station”, it was, kind of, experiencing a drugged state of mind. “So Cruel” and the classic “One” had sorrow.

In my personal opinion, Achtung Baby is U2’s best work. It showed the world how they shunned the idea of contemporary rock and were willing to try something entirely new and different. Bono said that Achtung Baby was the sound of four men chopping the Joshua tree. It carried a different personality, so different that one was not enough and Bono had to arrange for two more personas, ‘The Fly’ and ‘MacPhisto’. With The Fly, Bono could be explicit, rebellious. MacPhisto, on the other hand was more of a devil than anyone else. Achtung Baby was a reinvention of sorts and at a time when it was least required. It gave U2 a success typical of a brand new band with a debut album.

Zooropa was U2 with another new avtaar. I can’t think of any other rock band who experimented with electronica to an extent U2 did with Zooropa. It took U2 to another extreme, with “Numb” voiced by The Edge and heavy guitars. “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car” was heavy on drums with lots of distortion. “Babyface” was Bono’s tribute to, of all things, satellite television and the fantasies of show business it brings along with it.

In their last album that was released in 2004, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 seemed to get back to core rock. Something similar to what they did in Joshua Tree. “Vertigo”, time and again reminds me of the song “Elevation” (from ATYCLB). “Original of the Species” and “Crumbs from Your Table” are typical U2 classics. “Love and Peace…” has that “Bullet the Blue Sky” rebel in it.

U2 are swaggers. They have no style, as Bono mentioned in one of his interviews. You can’t label their music. If you do, it is a mistake.

There has to be something special in the bunch of guys who sustain themselves for three decades while making good music. I don’t think of U2 as a typical rock band. Instead, I like to think of them as four good guys who happen to be making rock music.

Meanwhile, Bono has confirmed that U2 will be releasing a brand new album sometime in 2007.

Article cross-posted at desicritics.org

I can’t go to U2. And U2 dont feel like coming here to my country. So I do what I should. I buy their latest “Vertigo//2005. U2 Live from Chicago” DVD.

Bono: Music for America, Money for Africa…DVDs for Asia?

I am happy that my all-time favorite U2 song is getting accolades even now, a good 15-or-so years after its release.

In fact, “One” is the best song, I have ever listened to.

Now, “One” has been re-released. The song, originally from the album Achtung Baby, has had it’s major re-release in the form of a collaboration between U2 and Mary J Blige. Bono starts the song with his voice and after a few lines lets Mary take over.

Now, let me say, this new version is nothing exceptional and this is not the ‘accolade’ I talked about. It’s this: From the song, this line — “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers”, has been reported Britain’s most adored lyric. The poll was conducted by the music channel, VH1.

Other artists/songs in the top-10 include Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Coldplay’s Yellow (I love that song), Robbie William’s Angels and Eminem’s Loose Yourself.

You know who I am missing here? Oasis.

Check all of it, here.

PS: In case you may want to listen to the new released version of this song, just mail me.

My New Year was no celebration at all, I was browsing the internet on my computer at home. But yes, music is an important aspect of anything that I do on days like these, so I played U2’s “The Unforgettable Fire” and “New Year’s Day”. I needed Bono’s reassuring, full-of-hope voice.

Bono’s like an old friend to me now. So even if he sings a sad song, I manage to pull out some hope everytime I hear him.

We all have our problems, small and big. It has been a tough year for the World as well. The Tsunami aftereffects, The London bombings, the Delhi bombings, the Kashmir Earthquake, to name a few. People have lost, people have grieved. For me, there has been a personal loss as well.

The New Year is hope for all of us. It’s that time when we have the opportunity to start over, to wipe the slate clean and to give everything a fresh start. I hope that it turns out to be a year that is good and full of hope for all of you, the readers of this blog whom I know, and those who choose not to comment and decide against letting their presence felt.

It would be naive to believe that problems shall go away. They will persist, like always. Here, I wish that the “fine balance” is achieved. Its something that is explained below in the post, so please continue reading.

Meanwhile, A Very Happy New Year.

On a lighter note, the Truman Specials for this year. In no particular order.

1. The Best Album Truman listened to

Without doubt, U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”. It grows on you, and finally gets you! What an album this!

2. Errr.. The Best (Non-U2) Artist/Album Truman listened to

I feel it has to be Coldplay’s X&Y. Oasis comes a close second with “Standing on the shoulder of Giants”. Figures say a little different story though. In the second half of the year, I listened to 285 songs of Oasis and 197 songs of Coldplay. (U2’s count for the second half of the year? 694 songs)

3. Best Hindi movie Truman watched full screen

Iqbal. But do I have a choice? Hardly good movies released this year! (I liked “Sehar” too)

4. Best Hollywood movie Truman watched full screen

Cinderella Man. No doubt. But Harry Potter comes a close second. “Finding Neverland” comes third.

5. “If-only-I-could-see” movie for this year

Anniyan. I wish to see this movie. But I can’t understand Tamil. I wish I could!

6. Cricketing action of the year

The Ashes, what else? But then again, the England-Pakistan series was such a downer.

7. Arrogant Cricketer of the year

Andre Nel of South Africa. Click on the link to see his face and you shall know who we are dealing with.

8. Best place Truman visited this year

Home :)

heh, actually, Kasauli. And I intend to visit it again. A close second comes, Karwar

9. Last but not the least, The Best Indian Author book Truman read this year

Difficult. Very, very difficult. Hmmm.. I would say “A fine balance” by Rohinton Mistry.

This is the “Fine Balance” line I was talking about, something that applies to all of us: “You cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair…In the end, it’s all a question of balance Pg 231, ‘A Fine Balance’ “.

Dr. Amitav Ghosh’s “The Glass Palace” comes very close. These books are very moving, in their own ways. Essentials of Indian Literature, these.

But the common factor in these books, is this feeling that overwhelms you, that is reflected in the words below:

‘Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft arm-chair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of the great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.’

— Honoré de Balzac, Le Pere Goriot

The best thing for me, at a personal level, has been the literature I have read. The treasure is endless and it is priceless. The year gone by, has been the year of the Indian Authors. And no, I am not just talking about the Authors who write books. Just as important, are the Writers who exist in Blogosphere. I want to thank you, to each one of them, for Writing. Writing for a cause, Writing when provoked, Writing to Inspire and more importantly, Writing with responsibility. They know who they are.

Thats it for now, signing off!

According to news going around, Danish Band, Michael Learns to Rock- more popularly known as MLTR, is due to perform in Bangalore on the 25th of September. The Band will also perform in Bombay.

Romantic ballads of this band have been the prelude to Boyzone listening era of my life before I went on to the likes of Oasis and U2. Though I haven’t listened to MLTR in the last few years, I can safely say, MLTR, Boyzone, Sting, Bryan Adams and U2 are some bands that I have listened to so much, that I remember most of the songs.

Of them- Sting and Bryan Adams have already performed here. MLTR will be coming next month. I am sure to be there.

But when will U2 come to India?