The 1983 concert The Edge never wants to watch again: “Some of it makes me cringe”
There’s a 50/50 chance that The Edge could probably find a few cringy moments every time he looks back on U2’s career.
Bono was always in the music business to have a genuine effect on people, but as much as he means well, there are a few times when he can seem like one of the most insufferable windbags that the rock world has ever known. And while he does know when to regulate himself every now and again, there are some stages where the guitarist would rather have been anywhere else but to the side of the frontman.
Then again, it’s not like everyone else in the band is absolutely perfect every time they play. Everyone makes their fair share of mistakes when they go onstage, but it’s more about how a band presents itself. It’s easy to come off as effortlessly cool by just playing your instruments, but Bono was the only member of the band who seemed to make every single song feel like something bigger than just a bunch of chords.
For any fan, that would have been exhilarating, but that doesn’t often make for the most bulletproof track record, either. When Bono was talking about their collaboration with Apple for Songs of Innocence, he had the same kind of mentality when he was speaking, and you can practically feel everyone on the other side of the screen screaming at the band for forcing an album down their throats.
It’s one thing for Bono to try and be ahead of the curve in that respect, but he was much better suited to rep for causes that he believed in. Live Aid was still one of the high points of their career despite one of the most beautifully embarrassing 1980s mullets I have ever seen, but The Edge felt that a lot of the moments that he didn’t think were all that good came from their performance at Red Rocks.
Which is strange to say about the performance that practically made them in the Americans’ minds. They were already on their way up to be one of the biggest bands in the world, but on that rainy night, Bono seemed to morph into a completely different animal when he got onstage, turning old songs like ‘I Will Follow’ into their most energetic tune and making everyone feel like there were real stakes behind a song like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’.
But by the time that the frontman began lifting up the white flag and gesturing towards the crowd, The Edge realised that he had seen enough, saying, “Looking back on that footage – and not just how fashion-challenged we were [laughs] – it’s amazing how many mistakes we made onstage. Some of it makes me cringe. Bono waving the white flag. It became such a symbol for us. But the thing is, it’s something we took from our audience; it isn’t something Bono went out to do intentionally. Lots of people would bring flags and banners to the shows, and Bono just went with it.”
Then again, the fact that they were able to put the show on at all felt like a miracle for both the band and the crowd. The rain was supposed to wipe out any chance of them playing that night, but seeing Bono wave that flag above his head and interact with different people in the crowd felt like they had picked a battle with Mother Nature and came out the victor for those few glorious minutes onstage.
And if they could pull this off, surely the band could survive nearly anything that came their way, right? Well, unfortunately, no, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t good at convincing people that they were bulletproof. Because if someone gives this kind of performance, it’s no wonder why people started thinking of them as the next gods of rock and roll.
