Where do U2's Keyboards Come From?

Maybe Spotnick knows the answer.....

I like U2, especially thier Achtung Baby album.

I was watching two of thier concert DVD's from thier Vertigo and Elevation tours...and I noticed something strange......

A lot of U2's songs, such as Where the Streets Have No Name, One, Mysterious Ways, City of Blinding Lights, Bad, and many more, have loads and loads of keyboards on them...

During the live concert renditions of these songs on thier past tours, you can clearly hear the loads of keyboards...

But U2 have no keyboard players on stage with them?

So.....

Do they use backing tracks? Sequencers?.......Do they have a keyboard player offstage (if they do thats lame)....

Also, on the Vertigo tour DVD, There is a synth onstage by Adam Clayton, but no one seems to touch it.

Any ideas or answers?

From what I can remember, during the elevation tour they had a keyboard player or players as well as a heap of gear underneath the stage. There was a detailed article about it in a music related magazine but can't recall the specifics. I would imagine a similar type setup was used during their current tour.

I'd imagine most of the keys are on a backing tape. Dunno about the more recent stuff, but around the ZooTV thing they apparently had additional guitarists underneath the stage. There's no way U2 could pull off their sound live as just a 4-piece for a whole gig, Clayton can barely play at all allegedly, and Bongo's guitar is a stage prop more than anything. I'd say there's a fair portion of pre-recorded stuff at any given U2 gig. CTB

Are you serious? Thats so lame, so hypocritical..why cant they have the electro gear and keyboard player on stage, it would look cool...

Sorry to repeat your 'players-beneath-th-stage" anecdote, Bentley - I type very slowly, you beat me to it! CTB

CTB wrote: Sorry to repeat your 'players-beneath-th-stage" anecdote, Bentley - I type very slowly, you beat me to it! CTB

I was probably typing very slowly at the same time. ;)

CTB wrote: Sorry to repeat your 'players-beneath-th-stage" anecdote, Bentley - I type very slowly, you beat me to it! CTB

Never mind your typing speed, CTB.

We'll forgive you for it, seeing as you're so 'well educated and widely read'.

:\pimp3:

I saw a little documentary/advert on the set-up for U2's Vertigo tour. They indeed do have a live keyboard player who plays in the orchestral pit.

Also, aren't all the keyboard parts originally from ENO?! :)

The good stuff from the Unforgettable Fire era was.

:\pimp3:

And to think I feel cheated by NO having Richard Lyons off to the side pressing "go".

You really need to see Bill Bailey demonstrating how to sound like the Edge.

I (as some of you may JUST have noticed) have a real problem with tapes and offstage musicians (unless it's Holst's planets with the Offstage choir, WOW), it's a fucking conjob "come see U2 get a load of credit they don't deserve".

NO's sins don't sit easily with me, mainly because my bolshie attitude to such things was mainly learned from them.

But U2 and many ther take the piss completely.

I never get the "tapes are OK" people at all.... where's the line....is DM playing their drums in off a revox that's on stage like a musician OK? Is NO hard-disking half their electronic tunes cool? What about putting all the backing on tape and having just a karaoke vocalist? Then again, singers are almost always the weakest link, so should they be replaced as well? The whole thing is a nonsense. the worst bit (especially for NO) is that the gear now, versus the gear of 1983, is rock solid and almost totally sane. in NO's case they're lazy, in U2's case they probably don't do it with a silicon band because they don't have NO's unique talent for playing off machines (most musicians find it REALLY hard, especially drummers which is why steve is jst SUCH a legend.)

So Bongo keeps the KB players in the dungeon under the stage???? Is this not a violation of human rights???

He does remember to feed them, right?

U2 needs to be reported to the UN and Mr. Bush. Sanctions first, then air strikes.

twist wrote: U2 needs to be reported to the UN and Mr. Bush. Sanctions first, then air strikes.

Extremist nonsense. Sanctions won't do jack, Bongo's so fuckin rich he'd outlast us all. Straight to the airstrikes I say.

Steve Campbell wrote: You really need to see Bill Bailey demonstrating how to sound like the Edge.

I saw him do that live....hilarious

Spotnick wrote:

Grell wrote: I saw a little documentary/advert on the set-up for U2's Vertigo tour. They indeed do have a live keyboard player who plays in the orchestral pit.

Also, aren't all the keyboard parts originally from ENO?! :)

Eno did probably the song that all people less than 40 years old know by heart, without knowing it's him...

And that's called... The Microsoft Sound..

Yeah, he did the sound that plays when you opened Windows 95!!

I've always heard this as a rumour. It makes me sad, but I bet he made great money off stringing together, what, 6 notes? Go Eno!

Personally, I would enjoy U2 A LOT more if they fired Bono and the Edge and replaced 'em with Eno.

depthcharge wrote: The good stuff from the Unforgettable Fire era was.

:\pimp3:

Most of it probably was. The Fairlight bits were played by a studio engineer called Paul Barratt who showed up again during the Achtung Baby/Zooropa period. My fave quote from Bongo during the 2nd ZooTV gig in Sydney which I actually went to and got the video of afterwards was one where he said something along the lines of "ZooTV, bringing you the latest in hardware, software and Menswear!!!"(which is fooking ironic considering the gold lame jacket and horns later on in the gig- I hope Martin Fry from ABC charged him for hiring out the jacket during the ZooTV Tour).