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Credit: Album Cover<\/p>\n
Sun 19 April 2026 8:00, UK <\/p>\n
Bono<\/a> didn\u2019t start U2 thinking that he was going to be a part of one of the biggest bands in the world. <\/p>\n He may have liked the idea of putting on massive shows and having a congregation of the rock faithful singing along with him, but those are pretty lofty dreams when you\u2019re putting together a band in the middle of Ireland with nothing but a few amplifiers and a dream. But every step that they took up the musical ladder came from those few times where they defied the odds that would have killed any other group.<\/p>\n It was hard enough trying to get out of their town when they were first starting out, but once they had their first splash with songs like \u2018I Will Follow\u2019, they were already gaining momentum. It might have been immediately snuffed out the minute that they started working on October, and people got uncomfortable with him talking about religion, but Bono wasn\u2019t going to mince his words<\/a>. He sang from the heart, and if religion wasn\u2019t going to get everyone invested, surely politics would, right?<\/p>\n That said, War is still one of the best albums that U2 ever made. The anger that they felt in songs like \u2018Sunday Bloody Sunday\u2019 is beautifully done, and when looking through a lot of their other records to follow, a lot of their best moments came from harnessing their emotions as they did on this record. But if they wanted to capture that experience, they would have needed to perform the tunes live.<\/p>\n The band became a different animal whenever they performed, and while a lot of what they were doing was more than a little bit over-the-top in the beginning, they needed that energy when they played Red Rocks for the first time. That landscape is perfect for their sound to reverberate over the stone walls beside them, but if the band hadn\u2019t made their money back on Under a Blood Red Sky, chances are they would have been floundering.<\/p>\n They had invested a lot of money into making these recordings, and come hell or high water, they were going to put on every show like it was the last thing they would ever do, saying<\/a>, \u201cThe Red Rocks area was in a cloud, a rainstorm. We\u2019d paid all the camera people\u2019s wages, we\u2019d paid their flights over. We had to go on with the concert. We had to explain to [the promoter] there was no way we could afford for it not to take place. If only eight people turned up, we were still going to play like our lives depended on it.\u201d Because in a way, their lives almost did.<\/p>\n The band were still doing what they could to make everything explode in the US, but even under harsh weather conditions, the band put forth the best performance they could have possibly done. For all of the clouds that swept in during their show, you can hear Bono singing with every single ounce of passion that he has in his body, to the point where \u2018Sunday Bloody Sunday\u2019 <\/a>almost sounds better than the album version of the tune.<\/p>\n And while the band weren\u2019t playing anything new up until that point, the timing couldn\u2019t have been better for them to capitalise on everything. Even deep cuts like \u201840\u2019 showed them sounding like one of the most anthemic rock bands anyone had ever heard, so when they eventually began work on The Unforgettable Fire, it felt like the world finally got a good look at them when \u2018Pride\u2019 was released.<\/p>\n They had spent years trying to crack the US, and while the country did eventually fall head over heels for them when The Joshua Tree came out, Under a Blood Red Sky was what really turned the tide. All those rehearsals were hard work to get around, but when looking through the biggest shows they ever played, this deserves as much attention as their massive performance at Live Aid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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