Concerts thread: Best/Worst/Next/Last one you attended?

Why didn't you like "The Joshua Tree"?

 

Boy is probably still my fave U2 album

 

Only seen him once at a country festival outside Toronto years ago. Hank Jr. was headlining and to say Yoakum blew him off the stage would be a gross understatement. Wasn't even close.

Next up for me is Hall & Oates and Tears For Fears in a couple of weeks here in Toronto

 

A friend of mine saw Dwight in New York City a couple months ago. Posted on Facebook before the show something like, "Not my kind of music, but we figured we'd check it out while we're here."

And after the show, along the lines of, "Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!!!"

I've never seen him live, and he's long been a favorite.

Later this summer we're seeing Rodney Crowell at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride, which should also be a lot of fun.

 

Saw Dwight in a bar in Nashville last year. He was really good, and I'm not really a big fan. If you like him you should have a great time.

Next up for me is Midnight Oil in August.

 

I felt largely the same way. I was a huge fan, but at the time my favorite album was "War," and I really liked the more stripped-down sound. They moved away from that with "The Unforgettable Fire" and "The Joshua Tree." After a three year wait the lead single was "With or Without You" and I hated it. It's still one of my least favorite U2 songs.

Over time the whole album really grew on me.

My favorite is easy: Achtung Baby. And as much as people like to shit on their recent work, "Songs of Innocence" was a fucking GREAT album.

 

I was probably a little younger than you guys when "The Joshua Tree" came out. I remember my dad hated it, so I didn't get too exposed to it at that time. I knew "With or Without You," which was the kind of slow ballad I didn't like as a kid, and often still do not. I liked "I Still Haven't Found What I Was Looking For," but I wouldn't have called myself a fan until "Achtung Baby," which came out when I was 14, I believe.

I didn't like "One" very much - it was just this new album's "With or Without You." But the "Mysterious Ways" riff was the intro to the White Sox's pregame highlights package on the scoreboard. I didn't know what it was. Then, at some point, I bought the CD, mostly just because I bought every big CD in those days. That riff suddenly came on and I was like, "Holy shit!" I wore that album out. One of my first "favorite" albums.

And now I am completely head over heels for "Joshua Tree." Other than maybe some albums by the Holy Trinity in the late '60s or early '70s, it is song-for-song one of the best ever made. I know that every song on it is a big soul-stirring anthem, but the songs are so fucking well-conceived and executed, melodically. As I understand it, there was a lot of pressure on them to deliver something huge, and they did.

There needs to be a new Biggest Band in the World. During their opening set last night, I was thinking that the Lumineers might be The One. They need a "Joshua Tree," though.

 

Lumineers didn't really do it for me. The songs are ok. The whole Dust Bowl cosplay thing kind of turns me off. If your band has a barefoot guy who switched between accordion, mandolin and old timey piano, it's probably not for me.

 

I know, I know. I say the same things. I know it's a "thing" right now, with them, Mumford and Sons, etc. At one point during the Lumineers, I turned to my friend and said, "Holy shit, every song of theirs sounds exactly the same." The wives defended them - "That's their style!" Then we got a mini-lecture about how they thought the same about Guns 'n' Roses last year, and it was off to the races.

But I guess rock 'n' roll has never been above a good gimmick. Ask Jack White.

 

For me, that was the problem. Those were the first two singles off Joshua Tree and back before satellite radio and internet radio, it was hard to avoid hearing those songs on any rock or top 40 station. IMHO, Red Hill Mining Town and Running to Standstill are the two best songs on that album, but they weren't released as singles.