U2 awarded with 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize in Tulsa

bone and the edge in tulsa

Photo by Jay Blakesberg, courtesy of Harper House Music Foundation

Bono and The Edge were in Tulsa last night to accept the 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize on behalf of U2. They sat down at the historic Cain’s Ballroom to have a conversation T Bone Burnett about their long career as activist songwriters. They also performed an impromptu shot set.

The Cain’s is one of my favorite places to see music. It is a relatively small ballroom with a capacity of just 1,800 people. It was originally a garage then became a dancehall. It became famous in the late 1930s as the home of Bob Willis who performed a weekly radio show from there which helped popularize western swing. It later became famous for being one of the few stops the Sex Pistols made on their ill-fated tour of America in 1978.

Anyway it is a very cool place to see a show. I would have loved to have been there last night, but the moment it was announced I knew it would sell out immediately so I didn’t even try.

But watching the videos that are showing up on Youtube I sure wish I’d been there.

Setlist:

Running to Stand Still/This Train is Bound for Glory
Mothers of the Disappeared
Sunday Bloody Sunday
One
Pride (In the Name of Love)
Jesus Christ/Yahweh

Random Shuffle: (08/08/06) – Neil Young, Wilco, George Jones, U2, & The Grateful Dead

“Rockin in the Free World” – Neil Young
From Freedom

The first time I ever heard this song was on an MTV awards show – I assume the VMAs, but I really don’t remember. It was an amazing performance with Pearl Jam as the backup band. It was really quite incredible watching the grandfather of grunge jamming like it was the rapture along with up-and-comers Pearl Jam (this was the early 90s so PJ was still fairly young as a band). It was, and is, one of my favorite all-time live television performances (Editor’s Note: You can watch that performance here.)

Eddie Vedder sang the verse about the addict mother putting her kid away to get a hit. The kid, as the song says will “never go to school/never get to fall in love/never get to be cool.” At the time I felt those lyrics were staunchly pro-abortion perhaps because the rest of the lyrics have a liberal tint and Eddie is quite outspoken on his pro-choice views. Over time I have come to feel that it isn’t as pro-abortion as it is a condemnation of a country that can allow its poor and downtrodden to live in such a way that they’d abandon their children.

This is not in any way meant as a means to debate the abortion issue. Believe me, I never intend to get political here. It’s just when I hear this song I always think of that performance and Eddie singing those lyrics so passionately.

This is a less fiery, acoustic version. I’ve heard Mr. Young perform this song acoustically much more than electric, which seems strange to me since it works so much better wired up.

Neil gives it his best shot, and the audience obviously digs it, out-blasting Neil on the final chorus.

“Pot Kettle Black” – Wilco
From Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Have I mentioned I completely adore this entire album? For ages and ages, I had heard about the album and the whole back story about their record label dropping the band because YHF wasn’t commercial enough.

Ultimately I didn’t actually listen to the album until several years later – last year to be precise. I got a copy of the album and listened to it pretty extensively while on a train through the north of France. Turns out YHF is the perfect album to listen to while on a train in France. Watching the picturesque landscape roll by as Jeff Tweedy and company gently rock is just about as perfect as it gets.

This is a great mid-tempo number that conjures up images of rolling hills, tiny towns with their high church towers, and lots of gorgeous French trees.

“White Lightning” – George Jones
From Super Hits

After listening to countless youngsters with their super-loud car stereos roll by, an old roommate, and good friend proclaimed that he too was going to buy a souped-up stereo, but instead of whatever hip-hop record that was currently a hit, he was going to play some George Jones. He never did buy that stereo, but the idea always brings a smile to my lips.

I know this ode to bootleg liquor because of an East Tennessee band Robinella and the CC String Band. They have a great version on their first album. Robinella’s beautiful, country-changed voice is much more appealing than old Georges, and I love George Jones. Maybe it is George’s rather embarrassing drunkenness over the past few years that makes me prefer this song sung by another. It’s kind of like listening to “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton, knowing he doesn’t play the song anymore since he’s drug-free.

Ah, it’s a good song, and George does a good job of making it fun and silly. But a smooth female voice will always win with me.

“New Year’s Day” – U2
From War

Does Epic Rock get better than this? From the thundering bass to the Edge’s screaming guitars to the haunting, mysteriously political lyrics this song single-handedly solidifies U2 as a great rock band, never mind their dozen or so other great songs. It also makes me forgive them for their excesses and rather suckiness of the last several albums.

One New Year’s Eve my brother swore up and down that VH1 would surely play this song as the clock struck 12. They didn’t, but we sat staring at the TV hoping to hear the song and prove him right. The clock kept ticking and we wondered if they had played it an hour earlier for Eastern time, or would play it later for Mountain and Pacific. I’ll never forget the awkwardness of not only wanting to hear a great song but to prove my brother right. He was so sure they would play it that I felt bad for him when they didn’t.

Funny how songs evoke such memories.

“Brown Eyed Woman” – Grateful Dead
From Dicks Picks 7

During my months in Abilene, TX a liquor store used this song in the background for their commercials on David Gans’ Grateful Dead Hour.

One of Robert Hunter’s great western lyrics. He has this amazing ability to represent the mythos of the old west, while still hitting on contemporary themes. This is a pretty straight-up live version, which is to say it’s rather great.

Bootleg Country: U2 – Dublin, Ireland (08/28/93)

Originally posted on June 12, 2006.

When asked what season I love the most, autumn is the usual reply. What with the cool, crisp air, the turned leaves that resemble Joseph’s magic Technicolor coat. But when spring comes, I always reconsider.

The sun returns from its slumber. Flowers burst forth and the weather warms my toes – for it is barefoot season again. Spring also makes me fall in love all over again. And when I say love, I mean lust. What with the acres of exposed skin, seething flesh, long luxurious legs, and bountiful boobies.

Yeah, boobies. I love spring for the boobies.

My first true love, the one I’ll always remember is a little Irish rock band called U2.

The year was 1987 I was 11 years old, puberty was in the air, and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” was in heavy rotation. What a great, f-ing song. Seriously, it’s one of the greatest rock songs ever. Put me on a desert island and that song, nay, the whole bloody album will be coming with me.

That year, and for many to come, I ensconced myself in U2. I went back and bought their old albums, I practically lived with Wide Awake in America in my car. They went live with Rattle and Hum, I memorized every line from Bono’s mouth. They became electronic and ironic, and I came along for the ride.

They were my band.

Over the years U2 and I have parted ways. The dance beats of Pop didn’t move me. They repented their ways and returned to their roots, but I moved on. I discovered jazz and the jam. But no matter how far apart we’ve grown, I’ll always remember my first true love.

U2
08/28/93
Dublin, Ireland

This was the final stop of the European leg of their Pop Mart tour. What better place to finish up than back home? It is some year and a half after they unveiled the ironic sensibilities of their Zoo TV stage presence. Bono has now become The Fly an enigmatic caricature of a rock star – part Jim Morrison, part Lou Reed – donning leather pants, slicked hair, and wrap-around bubble sunglasses.

This is a far cry from the black-and-white earnestness of Rattle and Hum era U2.

The boys start out breaking one of my rules for a successful concert. That being, don’t play every song from your new album right off the bat. It is seven songs into the show before we get a song that isn’t off of Achtung Baby. Sure, it’s freaking “New Year’s Day” and it stinking rocks, but shouldn’t you treat your home audience to more than just your new songs?

It’s true that Achtung Baby is over a year old by that point, and certainly, most of the Dublin audience would have digested it already, but it still seems a little rude, to me anyway. However, since this is a bootleg, and it’s now 2006 those songs are old and now classic.

The new music is still played with ecstasy. You wouldn’t know that this is the end of a long tour for the band. It is energetic and fantastic.

From everything I had heard about this tour, I suspected the music to take a second seat to all the postulating and cheeky visuals. Maybe there were loads of cheeky visuals that I just can’t see through the music, but the songs don’t suffer for it. There are a few moments when Bono rattles on and flips through the channels on that enormous TV, but mostly he keeps quiet, allowing the songs to say it all.

The band is still clearly clued into its audience. Even with the newer songs you can hear everyone in the audience sing along. They mix in some old classics into the new songs – The Righteous Brothers “Unchained Melody” is perfectly tagged into the end of “One.” The Beatles classic “Help” helps begin “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” and the show ends with a lovely sing-a-long version of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”

My favorite moment, in fact, is sans band. Bono sings an a capella version of “Help” with the audience singing at the top of their lungs. It is a perfect moment where the audience becomes an intimate member of the production, and where I can’t help but sing along too. It is a testament to the powerful Beatles song, the power of music, and why U2 remains the biggest rock band in the universe.

Another wonderful moment is “Where the Streets Have No Name.” It follows a super version of “Running to Stand Still,” where that song closes, “Streets” opens with a quiet meditative organ. You can feel the audience realizing what they are about to hear with an explosion of cheers just as the guitar erupts and the crowd goes completely bonkers. The song spreads into the cosmos and everything is just alright.

In the last issue of “Bootleg Country” I talked about the ability of the Grateful Dead to change a simple song into something different, something exploratory. U2 is not a psychedelic jam band. The songs here are treated pretty much as they are on their perspective albums. What they create in this live setting is an energy, a connection with the listener that is just as transformative.

This was a great concert from one of the world’s biggest bands in the middle of a transformation that would lead them to something further and grander.

U2 – Wide Awake in America

u2 wide awake in america

I first bought this EP, in tape form, from a used record shop for about $3.00. I wore the sucker out playing it on my way to and from high school.

It is really more of a CD single than any real album. Though the sticker price would have you wish for more. It has two live cuts and a couple of B-side singles.

The first track, a live cut of “Bad”, from the newly released (back in 1985) album, The Unforgettable Fire, is tremendous. It has a real laid-back feel to it, with a nice groove running throughout. Adam Clayton’s bass moves the song along while Bono is at his best as a frontman.

Bono sings the song like a preacher at the apocalypse. You can almost see him standing on the edge of the stage, thousands of fans reaching out to him in front, while fires ablaze from behind.

Another live track comes next, A Sort of Homecoming. It doesn’t have quite the same magical feel of “Bad”, but is still played quite well, and is actually quite fun. What with the bouncy chorus, sing-along chanting, you actually forget the darkness of the lyrics.

The final two cuts, Three Sunrises, and Love Comes Tumbling are studio offerings that didn’t make the cut for The Unforgettable Fire. It is easy to see why. They are slower ballads, with little passion in the delivery.

But if you can find the album in the bargain bin, the live version of “Bad” is more than worth a listen.

To read an essay I wrote on U2 featuring some stories culled from this album click here.

Top 5 Opening Tracks

Editor’s Note: For a brief period back in 2004 I had a little Facebook group where we would ask each other for our Top Five…whatevers. I got the idea from the film High Fidelity, and we had a lot of fun with it. I regularly posted my answers to the question on my blog.

1. “Box of Rain” by the Grateful Dead from the album American Beauty.

Phil Lesh wrote all of the music, and even scatted the vocal lines before giving it to Robert Hunter to write the lyrics. He wanted a song to sing to his dying father. Hunter is quoted as saying the lyrics nearly wrote themselve coming as fast as the pen could hit the page. It is a beautiful song and opens waht is arguably the best Grateful Dead album ever made.

2. “Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2 from the album The Joshua Tree

The opening track to my all time favorite U2 album. The slow, ethereal feel of the organs drifting is like sitting in a cathedral. Then the quick rhthym of the Edge’s guitar fades followed the thump thump of Adam Clayton’s bass. My head begings to nod, my feet begin to tap and then ‘BAM’ Bono’s vocal “I wanna run. I want to hide” it’s like the lift off of a rocket. Pure joy is followed for the next 4 minutes.

3. “So What” by Miles Davis from the album Kind of Blue

The jazz album for people who don’t own any jazz. This is a Miles Davis album in name only, with a line up like John Coltrane, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on saxophones, Bill Evans on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums this is an allstar jazz group. And it is this opening tonal song that brings the world to a new kind of jazz. Even the opening notes are some of the finest music to be played on any album.

4. “A Hard Days Night” by the Beatles from the album Hard Days Night.

From the opening chord of George’s guitar you know this is gonna be something exciting. From that startling moment John launches into one of the all time great rock and roll dities. Just one of many lennon/mccartney tunes that sound like they’re having so much fun and you just can’t help but sing a long at the top of your lungs.

5. “Radio Free Europe” by REM from the album Murmur.

A muddy, murky tune that you can’t understand a word to ushers to the world the sound that would be REM (at least for the next decade or so). Alternative college rock had been brewing behind the scenes for awhile and this, to me at least, is one of the defining songs of the whole scene. To this day I have no idea what Michael Stipe is singing about, and I just don’t care.