U2-1, Kanye, Underwood, Springsteen and Chris Martin performing in Times Square at 7:30p

Just got an e-mail from U2 that they are going ahead with an event tonight that I never heard about before:

"Kanye West and Carrie Underwood will perform at the event - tonight at 7.30pm - and Chris Martin and Bruce Springsteen will join U2 Minus 1, as the singer remains under doctors' orders to refrain from performing until fully recuperated from his injuries.

Adam, Edge and Larry will be joined by Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay's Chris Martin, each of whom will take a turn as frontman on the U2 songs."

and

"The event starts at 7.30pm EST at Duffy Square in Times Square, on Broadway between 46th & 47th Streets. Attendees should enter at 50th Street and Broadway."

It is a benefit show for World AIDS Day and (RED), yes.


The U2be link, for people not into standing in cold rain

U2 are over but the media insists on still trying to make them happen. I can't believe that aren't smart enough to cancel their appearance but it's been nothing but an embarrassing series of missteps since Spidey-flop.

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The album before this one sucked, what was it called, No Melodies on The Album? They stabbed Julie Taymor in the back. Pulling a Cosby by molesting everybody's iTunes account while they slept because a bunch of 50+ year-old white millionaires paid them too much money thinking the kids today dig the modern rock sounds of U2 and would be too dumb to notice what utter crap Songs of Innocence is. And just this very night I was someplace that had some college football game on and there's his royal blandness Bono congratulating Americans because somehow it was going to be Americans who were going to end the AIDS epidemic and then he invoked babies with AIDS because when was the last time Bono or (RED) even MENTIONED the gay epidemic of HIV? It's not 1988, it's not like babies are the only safe topic anymore.

On the other hand, I shouldn't be too strident about the gay thing. It was a very brave of the band chose a cover pose for the physical release of the album they gave away featuring Larry and his son in an oral sex position in what I can only assume is U2's shout out to gay marriage?

Missteps, missteps, missteps. Nobody wants the album. They alienated millions. No one wants to hear singles from the stupid new album. No other idiots would be so tone deaf as to write a song about Joey Ramone and make it sound like Coldplay. The media was obviously so preset in anticipation of their disastrous give-away being such a hit that we are still being bombarded with items about U2 as if the world hadn't turned their back on them.

Instead, they're going on about another "better" album's worth of material they have ready to release and that's EXACTLY what they said when everybody realized "No Tunes On This Disc" stunk to high heaven. THAT other, better album never saw the light of day. If they were smart, but they're not, they would go away while Bono recovers, do another of their "reassessing what it was that made us want to be a band in the first place," finally realize they have no ideas and call it a day and retire to one of the many countries where they stash so much of their billions in tax shelters.

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THOSE missteps, haterobics.

Those were the ones I was referring to.

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The first time I saw U2 was in a tiny club on the Boy tour and there were about 35 other people in the audience. I saw them when they returned 6 months later on the same tour to the same club and there were about 200 more people. This was a famous show because Bono recalls getting in a fist fight with Dave Evans afterwards. I saw them on the October tour in a medium size club (but the small stage there), and then three times on the War tour once each in a college hall, an outdoor college show, and their first leap to Civic Center level. Suddenly they hit big and it was no longer easy to get tickets to their shows. I didn't see them again til they played a giant hockey rink for Unforgettable Fire. Then I saw no tours until Vertigo, which I quite enjoyed in a hockey rink from the cheap seats.

Like an idiot, my friend and I bought tickets for that stupid stadium tour that made so much money you think it speaks to No Line on the Horizon being any good or something. Unfortunately we bought the tickets before the album was released and dear lord, when it came out, we just deflated. At the last minute we decided we just had no desire to go to all the hassle of going to the stupid football stadium to see their bloated show and deal with all that crap. And it was over for me.

It should have been real easy to win me back, but they just keep multiplying their level of suckage. But yeah, I obviously USED to like them so I don't really feel like being able to actually lay out the missteps for you is particularly odd.

THEY BLOW NOW. THEY NEED TO STOP.

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Updated On: 12/2/14 at 12:24 AM

Because they, Apple, and many of the music sources (granted the most mainstream ones) I like and follow on social media INSIST on trying to promote them every single day. I love the typical "nobody says you have to listen to them," line, but yeah, you kinda do. It has been decided. So even if you listened to the album and recognized it for the mealy-mouthed middle of the road POS it is and deleted it after it was forced into your collection, you still have to endure the fricking commercial with images of punk bands that in my case I actually SAW back in the day and U2 and Apple defiles for their own gain. I don't WANT to be a in a public place hearing Bono tell me how great America is because America is going to end the AIDS epidemic for the babies, but there it is.

The funny thing is, you can tell they know it's true that their whole "Man Blows Own Son" album scheme backfired. Why else would they IMMEDIATELY start talking up the "better" songs that they're going to release "soon"? When you've lost it, all you can do is become PT Barnum.

And because the media has decided to make them ubiquitous (even without Bono the fricking machine rolls on because it can NOT be stopped), I get to comment on it.

At least Kanye was in Times Square. Somebody somewhat relevant that at least people under 50 give a crap about.

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Updated On: 12/2/14 at 12:47 AM

When so much effort is made to make something ubiquitous, the notion of choosing to be exposed to it becomes a fallacy. Bono deserves to have Bansky stencil a kid puking on his forehead.

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Well, album of the year is becoming a harder category with fewer artists creating a cohesive collection of songs, rather than here are my singles and a few other things on one disc.

So, you're surprised that a music site posts "news" stories about bands and other things its readers are likely to click in an effort to sell online ads?!

We really should stop that before every other site on the Internet starts thinking like that...

On other sites, there is a Harry Styles article every day, just a matter of what site you visit regularly.

I just think you have it backwards, though. These sites post these because people click headlines about this band more than they click headlines about other bands. It's like Huffington Post, they don't have an agenda what news is published, only that the stuff driving the most traffic gets displayed more prominently, and that follow-up articles on that same topic will also get published quickly and more prominently.

You have to work backwards from ad sales and this "dead horse" concept you invented to twist it around the other way. U2, Springsteen, and Dylan only have to sneeze to get covered in Rolling Stone. That is nothing that started when Songs of Innocence was released.

No it's not silly. It's reality. You will be forced to encounter this crap. It's pop culture hegemony.

And again, I wasn't referring to clicks, I was talking about Apple ad placement obviously dictating editorial coverage.

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The thing is, neither Springsteen nor Dylan are so utterly full of crap. They don't own AIDS, or Africa, or Ebola or starvation. They are capable of creating interesting work and not repeatedly trotting out the same old behind the scenes stories of questioning why they are in the business they're in, how they remembered why they do what they do, how they're getting back to what mare them interested in doing what they do in the first place, how even though the current product blows, there's something much better they've got waiting in the wings.

I can see why Rollibg Stone would promote the others. But not all that same old U2 crap.

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Updated On: 12/2/14 at 08:04 PM