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abril 27, 2005
Entrevista a Adam e Larry
O U2.Com entrevistou Adam e Larry, sobre a Vertigo Tour. O U2Only publica aqui a entrevista na integra para que todos a possam ler:
U2.Com - What’s your feeling after the first few shows ?
ADAM: ‘It was amazing that by the second show in it actually felt like we’d never been away. That was an inspiring feeling as it is four years since we were last out on tour. People are saying that it sounds like we have been playing that set for years, that the band is really tight and playing well together.’
LARRY: ‘It’s been going well, although it was odd initially to start off a tour and be changing the set so dramatically every night. You’d arrive in and it’s one set - an hour later it’s changed. But I like the fact that it challenges your audience: people are realising we are experimenting a bit and so, if you screw up, they don’t say, ‘Oh it wasn’t as good as last time!’ because it’s in a different place this time. I have the feeling our audience enjoy the experimentation – that it’s a thrill if you are a fan and the band come out every night doing something slightly different.’
U2.Com - You have had a group of people around you in the opening days offering advice and ideas - Gavin Friday, Steve Lillywhite, Willie Williams and so on. It’s not just the four of you making the decisions.
ADAM: ‘It’s very necessary because so much of what we do is based on being on-stage and you can only have a perspective on that if you are someone offstage. Otherwise it takes you a very long time to get up to speed. People like Gavin know our shows from the past, they know the problems of being on stage and they know how to pace a show these days.’
LARRY: ‘You are trying to find the optimum running order for new and old songs in your set – and then you want to find your second running order and your third. It takes an army of people and everyone has a different opinion. What works for one person may not work for someone else. And it’s an open forum, you are hearing things from everyone which is exciting but also at some stages a little nerve-racking.’
U2.Com - By all accounts in the days before the tour opened, rehearsals were not quite plain-sailing?
ADAM: ‘Even though we rehearse and we prepare, we do tend to fly a little bit by the seat of our pants at the beginning of a tour. Everything tends to happen at the last minute and it takes a while for all the production and other technology issues to catch up to where we are. We hadn’t really played through a committed set until that first show in front of an audience in San Diego. That’s when we said, ‘OK, we have committed to this running order, let’s see if it works’.
And as the tour progresses there are always little tweaks going on, it’s about balance and contrast. We’re thinking about all those things available to us in a live setting and so we’re asking: which songs complement each other; which songs cut across each other; what is the lighting and production doing; where are you on the stage? It’s a bit of a rubrics cube trying to get all the parts to fit together.’
LARRY: ‘I said recently that sometimes getting on stage was excruciating and this was taken out of context. People thought I meant it was excruciating being on stage but what I meant was that sometimes the pressure to get it right and to be brilliant is overwhelming because you see the way your audience reacts and you really want to deliver – you really want it to be great.
‘We know that we are good at this stuff, but we also know that we are not worthy of some of the accolades we receive. These are huge things - people queuing up to buy your tickets, people going to a lot of trouble, people being disappointed. We know ourselves that there are things that we still need to do, that we have not quite earned the accolades that have been bestowed on us and it’s one of the reasons that the band continues to push this rock. We’ve got the stripes and I’m not sure that we’ve earned them.
‘It’s about self-respect, there are people out there who really do this very well and don’t get the accolades we have. Sometimes I feel personally that I get away with it, that I am not a great musician but a great member of U2. I don’t think I could do this with anyone else… I don’t want to but I’m not sure that I could.’
U2.Com - After the first few shows Adam, you have started to use the stage and the ellipse a lot more. Does it take a while for you to become familiar with your territory during a show?
ADAM: ‘I have to say it does take quite a long time for me to not be surprised for example by the rhythm of the set, or by what the lighting or the screens will be doing. Between songs in the early shows I might be thinking about which bass I am on or my monitor needs. All these things have an implication for what I might be doing physically onstage. ‘And then I have to be aware of what Bono and Edge are doing. As well as playing the songs, your proximity to the other musicians as performers is something you are regulating. At certain times, for example, I need to be close to the Edge, and I am thinking about where he is on the stage - for certain songs you need a more physical connection.
‘But once things start to settle down, once the ebb and flow of the set is settled in me and I get a feeling for what’s right, then I become much more relaxed, my antennae are not at quite the same fever pitch and I become more instinctive on stage.’
U2.Com - Do you have any highlights in the show yet ?
LARRY: ‘There are a few moments. I think the beginning of ‘City of Blinding Lights’ is quite spectacular, and the way that ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ runs into ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ and then into ‘Running to Stand Still’ is becoming a real moment. ‘It’s also quite a challenge for me: this is the first time that I can remember – since very early on, since the eighties – that I have been basically full-tilt during a show. Back there it was for an hour, but now it is for two hours. We also have a lot of up-tempo songs in the set which I have to say is tiring. After the show I come offstage and I’m pretty exhausted, I can’t really function for a while - it’s a long time since I’ve played at this intensity!
‘But there is no experience like this, seeing people mouthing the words of new songs and old songs, seeing people getting so into your music… it’s a pretty amazing thing. One of the few experiences in our life that you really can’t take for granted and it’s different every night, it’s never the same.’
U2.Com - Are there particular new songs that you are pleased with in the show ?
ADAM: I think ‘Love and Peace’ has turned into a tour de force. I knew it had the potential but it is now really great, especially when it opens the show. ‘City of Blinding Lights’ I really like but maybe a particular moment is ‘Sometimes…’ - that seems to really connect with people. ‘Miracle Drug’ is growing as a song and we are really belting out a good version of ‘All Because Of You’. We could be playing ten songs off the new album and I think at some point we’ll get around to ‘Crumbs’ and ‘Original of the Species’.
LARRY: ‘Miracle Drug’ is one of my favourite songs on the record, it is so close to being absolutely spellbinding. ‘City of Blinding Lights’ is a song that needs to be played before an audience to really find out what the song is about, ‘Love and Peace’ again is a great idea, but I think it’s just not there yet…
U2.Com - And you’ve got a problem there with your additional drummer !
LARRY: Well, he’s really screwing it up for everybody! And he’s wrecking the drums too, that’s the other thing - you want to see the skin off the drum, its pummelled and I’m not giving him a new skin every set!’
Publicado por U2Only às abril 27, 2005 09:08 PM