I just read a review of U2’s show in the L.A. Times. A good review but I’ve never been a fan. To me U2 is four fifths of a great band. I was at my most impressionable age during the psychedelic era when first emerged the great Guitar Gods and I require some kind of instrumental soloist in a band. A lead guitarist, a keyboardist like Keith Emerson or even a harp player like John Popper will do but U2 is a band of great backing track players with no solos. Some day Bono will be old and playing in Vegas with an orchestra or maybe even pre-recorded backing tracks and no one will blink an eye. How much variation can The Edge really get playing rhythm guitar on every song? My old friend and local guitar legend Bruce Gowdy used to call lead guitar solos “thrill seeking”. There’s always a sense of danger involved in a solo, even a simple one, as a finger could slip, a string could break or it could be in a completely wrong key. It’s like watching a high wire act. The huge applause extended solos get is as much out of relief as appreciation. Without a solo I might as well be listening to Karaoke.
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