At Second Glance ; Remastered Discs Show U2 on Threshold of Dream

By Jeff Miers

Now, he’s the butt of jokes, the guy every late-night comedian and radio blabbermouth will point to when they need a cheap laugh at the expense of liberal “save the world” types. Back then, he was a spotty Irish kid just out of his teens, whose heart was threatening to burst wide open, and whose passion ran an arm’s length ahead of his abilities.

Is there any real connection, any true continuity, between the singer who called himself Bono Vox in 1980, and the grizzled veteran courting the likes of President Bush for help in his quest to end the crippling debt of Third World countries, blue sunglasses masking bloodshot eyes and three-day stubble obscuring a chiseled Irish jaw line? Yes, as it turns out.

Last week, U2′s first three albums — “Boy, “October” and “War” – - were rereleased in mini-box set form. There are many reasons to celebrate this event, but the most significant concerns the conceptual continuity they provide — not just between young Paul Hewson and middle-aged Bono, but between the formative and latter years of my generation’s most significant rock band.

Remasters are all the rage, of course, and a jaundiced eye might view this new batch askance. Surely it’s just a cash-in, right? An opportunity for a mega-rich band to fleece its fans one more time, getting them to buy something they already own by placing a bright new bow on the package?

There’s no sense arguing with those who take this position, because the odds are great that they’ve already made up their minds about this band, and no amount of passionate discourse over plentiful pints of Guinness will change their belief that U2 ceased being relevant as soon as it became massively popular. Let them think Bono tries to “save the world” simply because he loves being photographed so much, or that these new reissues — in their deluxe twin-disc versions, going for $30 a pop — are simply an exercise in money-grubbing. For the rest of us, we’ve just been given our first clear, digital-age view of U2 in its collective adolescence. It’s as if someone finally cleaned off the window after all these years. And the view is fascinating.

One of the reasons U2 mattered when it first marched out of Dublin and onto the stages of the world — and the same reason it matters still — is the clear fact that its members were far from the greatest musicians in Ireland, let alone the world. The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and Bono had no formal musical training, were self-taught and could barely afford decent instruments. Unlike the only precedents for success they could’ve been aware of in Irish rock — the torrid Celtic blues of Rory Gallagher, the virtuosic harmony-laden hard rock of Thin Lizzy — the members of U2 were not great musicians.

And yet, they turned this possible weakness into an alarming strength. How? By simply, doggedly, stubbornly insisting on it. Necessity being the mother of invention, U2 became great because they simply didn’t know how to be good. This made all the difference.

What do you hear when you peel back the gauze of the decades and lend fresh ears to “Boy,”"October” and “War”? The precociousness of youth; a crippling self-doubt that only massive amounts of faith, belief and, yes, ego could’ve possibly overcome. Oh yeah, and one of the few guitar styles in rock history that might actually be called wholly unique. The chase being inevitably more thrilling than the catch, these formative albums capture a band in a state of becoming, and they remain absolutely transcendent, no less so for their flaws.

To call the young Bono a lyricist given to impressionism and vague abstraction is an understatement, but it’s not a criticism. Taken together, these three albums represent a portrait of the artist as a young man, one hell-bent on becoming . . . something. Himself, I suppose. “Boy” offeres cut-and-paste word associations that somehow add up to a perfect encapsulation of, as Bono sings, the “Twilight” where “boy meets man”; “October” is yearning and loss, the writhing agony between soul and body, the formal religiosity most of the band was wrestling with and the more earthly concerns of young men in a rock band; “War” drops the (wholly engaging, mind you) narcissism and looks outward at the world, laying the template for the open-hearted work the band would continue to refine right up through the present.

The details — the sparkling remastering overseen by The Edge himself; the gorgeous packaging; the inclusion of more than 30 rarities, live songs, B-sides and remixes; the rescuing of the bass and drum sounds from the clutter of the original analog-to-digital conversion — are far less interesting than the music itself, which remains riveting. They do fully justify the project, however.

What matters is this: Bono once rather infamously blabbered nonsense about U2 being the Beatles of its generation. Looking back, from the mountaintop toward the low lands, it seems he was pretty much right.

e-mail: jmiers@buffnews.com

Originally published by NEWS POP MUSIC REPORTER.

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