https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/arts/music/u2-joshua-tree-30th-anniversary-tour-review.html

U2 is going on tour this summer, and it will largely be based on The Joshua Tree, an album that turns 30 this year (and a lot of you suddenly feel very old!) The link above is a fairly long review of the tour.

I'm from an earlier generation. The musical poet of my youth and young adulthood was Paul Simon, with honorable mention of that era's folk rockers (CSN(&Y), James Taylor, Carli Simon, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot, etc).

I never paid particularly close attention to U2, but even I noticed that The Joshua Tree made a huge splash among the artsy, culturally aware, wearers of black natural fibers set in the late 1980s. Maybe it is my own prejudice, but it always seemed to me that the Mormon youth who felt that the music/poetry of Paul Simon or U2 spoke to them were were more likely to leave Mormonism.

If nothing else, they were the most likely to be bored out of their mind at the prospect of hearing the three thousandth talk/lesson on the importance of repentance. They knew there was more to the world.

So, for all you 40 and 50-somethings out there, was The Joshua Tree a part of what turned the light on in your mind about the big wide world outside of Mormonism?

No, but I would rather stand on my head in cow poop and listen to that album for a week than have to listen to two minutes of general conference

Interesting. A kid a couple years older introduced me to U2 about 5 years after that album. He's not active. I in turn introduced them to my brother. He's left the Church.

I myself am going to the show in Miami in about 3 weeks.

U2 consider themselves Christian if not overtly so in their music. But I don't think it's conservative Christianity.

Two hours of infomercials for life insurance would be more inspiring than General Conference.

I was trying to figure out how to go see U2 on this tour, since Joshua Tree was kind of the album that got me to love them.

I've seen them 4 times, the last at the UofU in 2011, I think (after it was canceled the year before due to Bono's surgery).

Looks like I'm not gonna make it, due to money and logistics. I will say that the 4 times I've seen them was always more interesting than GC, and in fact, in all my years, I've yet to attend a live session.

Don't think it's gonna happen now.

U2 professed to be Christians back in the day. Many contemporary christian radio stations played some of their early tunes.

Saw U2 in SLC when they first came to the USA back in 1980 . I love their music. Joshua Tree perhaps my favorite .My friend once said " Why bother going to church when I can listen to U2" Bono can be a tad irritating at times but Larry Mullen is a fantastic drummer and The Edge is an innovative rock guitarist . Think I'll get out the U2 colection today

One of my mission companions would have thought so.

He was very into U2--general conference--not so much.

I think I might have had more fun with that companion had we both agreed to break the rules, and travel outside the mission boundaries. I was too much of a by the book missionary to ever contemplate such a thing, but he totally would have gone along.

I kind of wonder if he's still in the church. Sometimes those folks who just go along because they have to never get out. But the gung ho guys like me get burnt out, and/or discover the way out of the maze while preparing a Sunday School lesson.

Hell, Twisted Sister is more inspiring than General Conference!

U2 is as overrated as general conference. That's about all I have to say. Granted, I've only heard the Joshua Tree most of their hits, and a couple of their later albums. I certainly haven't heard the whole body of their work, but I just keep getting this feeling whenever I've listened to them that they're really overrated.

I also start to lose respect for bands that decide to keep touring after they've been in existence for over 35 years...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2017 12:46PM by midwestanon.