The Toast is U2!!!

GQ magazine´s article written by Elvis Costello.

What part of the story you do not know by now? The white flags flown in the smoke of  red rocks, the telephone calls from Sarajevo  or some other distant orbit,  the obsolete cars hung  from the rafters, a city constructed on a nightly basis, the deliberately contradictory  messages flashing and flickering  like a riot of neon and megapixels in a hot Shinjuku night?  

Then there is the music.

Glorious early records usually describe as anthemic, spiritually aware and even a little earnest. Curious length of inventions brought into existence by the force of personality.

Like nearly every  notable European rock ‘n’ roll band ,U2 are less a collective complementary talents than a collision of misfits , blasting past  technical limitations with sheer will. Then in one mighty  bound, they really were the greatest, biggest, baddest  band in the world. And they were suddenly funny, heartfelt and big hearted at the same time.  

This is the point  at which enters  the shallowest observation of the least-enduring quality ascribed to their work: irony. In fact,  it was simply the time to go  overground with  an evolving sense  of humour that had bound  together a  group of friends from the cups of boyhood  to being family men

So, what is there to say about these individuals?

Well, in  the words of Sly Stone ,”All we need is a drummer…” And after all, it was his band originally…

Larry Mullen Jr is a relentless motor and the necessary skeptic   of the group, while the most   underrated player  in the ensemble, Adam Clayton ,proves that good-humour languor, sobriety and rock ‘n’ roll may not be mutually exclusive.  U2 now have  songs with  inedible melodies  and mighty choruses , but even at the outset  their sound could  always  instantly be identified  by one element: Edge´s guitar playing. It is ingenious and orchestral but utterly without  the self-regarding  histrionics   of less originally “heroic”  players.  In fact, his approach  to the instrument might even be called a “church”  or a “school” , were  it not too pious  a term for one of the finest  fellows and most deadpan  straight men in music.  

Then there´s the singer.

Bono´s talent as a showman and storyteller  is there for all  to see,  but there are raw and personal  moments of songwriting  like “Kite”  among the hands thrown in the air  to soaring cadences amid strobe-lit  ,skyscraping sets. He has also found a way  to use this giant stage  to get things done.   He is a better man than I, in that he can share the air and shoot the breeze  with those who  I could cheerfully stab through the heart; to embarrass ,persuade, cajole and sometimes get them to do what they should have been doing all along.

Now, there is  no more hobbled hobbyhorse than the one that feeds on the old chestnut that the artist abuses a privilege of the stage if they sing a song of conviction or conscience. Pundits will have to stand on a soapbox  in order to lob  joke-shop arrows  at that imagined pulpit. Thankfully, those old devils don’t have all the good tunes.

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk