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  1. If we read the Wikipedia page for Songs of Surrender and check the sources, we find that, while it may have started as an Edge pandemic project, it eventually included recording sessions all over the world and the help of several producers (including old friends like Eno and Lanois). There is no evidence that Larry was present at ANY of the sessions in any capacity, as far as I could find. What little percussion there is on the recordings seems to be old tracks.

    There is obviously a rift within the band.
  2. Originally posted by dstankie: There is no evidence that Larry was present at ANY of the sessions in any capacity, as far as I could find. What little percussion there is on the recordings seems to be old tracks.
    The drums were from old sessions but the percussions could have been new.

  3. Originally posted by dstankie:If we read the Wikipedia page for Songs of Surrender and check the sources, we find that, while it may have started as an Edge pandemic project, it eventually included recording sessions all over the world and the help of several producers (including old friends like Eno and Lanois). There is no evidence that Larry was present at ANY of the sessions in any capacity, as far as I could find. What little percussion there is on the recordings seems to be old tracks.

    There is obviously a rift within the band.
    Larry wasn’t present at any of the sessions but his son was? (There’s a credit for Ezra on one of the tracks, Stuck in a Moment maybe?) I doubt Edge just happened to have old recordings of Ezra lying around.
  4. Originally posted by dstankie:If we read the Wikipedia page for Songs of Surrender and check the sources, we find that, while it may have started as an Edge pandemic project, it eventually included recording sessions all over the world and the help of several producers (including old friends like Eno and Lanois). There is no evidence that Larry was present at ANY of the sessions in any capacity, as far as I could find. What little percussion there is on the recordings seems to be old tracks.

    There is obviously a rift within the band.
    Yeah, he also plays piano on One. I can tell you as a drummer, that nothing I’m hearing percussion wise remotely resembles something reused from the original tracks.
  5. Contributing a few odds and ends doesn't mean he was present at any of the sessions.

    "What I would do was I'd find some loops of stuff Larry had recorded previously." -The Edge
  6. Did U2 actually, secretly/quietly, break-up?

    well, they've been pretty crap for a number of years (with some excellent stuff too but mainly crap) so unfortunately, i'm afraid to say, but, really, i'm sorry to report, actually, no doubt, they are still together - and putting out mainly crap

    but all will be forgiven once they tour - as long as it's not a fuckin residency in dubai (terrible human rights abusing twats) or london

    the rest of the uK fucking hates london - not londoners, but london as a crappy shitty corrupt capital of shite
  7. Can confirm I hate London.
  8. Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment thoughtfully on this topic thus far. As a fellow U2 fan, and someone who misses the band unit (to say nothing of the adventuresome spirit they used to possess - before sales / any respective costs of living became issues, I guess), I do appreciate your perspectives/kind consideration.

    On a related note: I realize the subject matter/length of my original post was bound to draw a few snide, surly and cynical remarks from those who'd rather not speculate/dwell on things they deem unpleasant or a perhaps a waste of their time ... but hey, can't please everyone who visits this site on the regular, I suppose.

    Anyway ... I just think it's insanely out of character for the whole band to literally go almost SEVEN years without releasing any new music whatsoever (and yes, SONGS OF EXPERIENCE is technically their last studio LP of all-new material) ...

    And I'm sorry if this pushes some buttons, but "Your Song Saved My Life" for the SING 2 soundtrack (the most un-U2-sounding track of any U2 song ever written) and Bono / Edge's recording of "Forty Foot Man" for the Letterman special on Disney+ don't qualify ... regardless of the amusing novelty behind either tune.

    I do suppose SOS works as a bit of a Band Aid on the whole "no new music" thing (and does contain some gems) ... and I'm sure (from a purely business standpoint) it fulfills a contractual obligation re: whatever # of LP's the band might still owe to Mercury/Island and/or whatever Live Nation-connected monstrosity they're in bed with now ...

    Still, with every year that goes by without them releasing any fresh, newly-written / recorded material (regardless of their collective living legend status / not really needing to chase Top 40 / Billboard chart rankings anymore, as they've said themselves) the more the radio silence from them as a group, as a foursome, fills the void ... and that is just ... I dunno, weirdly telling.

    I also feel like if U2 really wanted to successfully chase pop chart status and "win" with fans + non-fans on a worldwide level, they should just resolve themselves and do what every other savvy, relevance-craving artist (from Frank Sinatra to Sting, Mariah Carey to Rod Stewart, Tony Bennett to The Killers) has done before them and put out a full holiday album ...

    The only caveat would be instead of recording the usual chintzy chart-friendly Xmas pop stuff, they could go with a compendium of non-traditional Celtic / Irish tunes cut with fellow Irish artists, like Bono and Edge often do at the annual Dublin busk.

    Then again, it doesn't seem like Adam or Larry would want to be a part of that either ... as their absence from every SOS-related press event thus far - whether it was the Zane Lowe interviews, or David Letterman's documentary on Disney+, or nearly every single press related event about the Sphere thus far - seems to indicate.

    In fact, Bono's really the only one who's been out there, constantly touting the band and its legacy (if not selling their wares) via his autobiography + the theatre tour, etc.

    Beyond that, it feels like all the band members have partitioned themselves ... or are phoning it in from separate rooms ... or sending weird passive-aggressive coded messages to each other via the press ... like this one, from Adam:

    https://www.noise11.com/news/u2-encourage-bono-to-make-solo-album-20210727

    Like I said ... weirdly telling.


  9. I know they have since mentioned "prior committments" to doing the Sphere, but I think all these mentions were very vague (not mentioning any specific date, or even year, when these agreements were, let alone of any contract signing). So I take it that as realistically meaning it was a "discussion idea on their brainstorming list".
    I could be wrong- does anyone have an exact quote with more specific details?

    EDIT: infact, I'm remembering some Bono comments within last year like "IF it happens it will be great" and about agreement/contract still needs to be finalized.

    Furthermore, I believe it was the Andy Greene Rolling Stone interviews with Adam and Edge, where they were asked about AB30/ZooTV anniversary, and I think it was Edge that answered revealing that they hadn't considered anything like that yet. Then in a follow-up interview, it was answered that they NOW were looking at possible ideas to mark it. So imo, all that doesn't sound like they had A) committed to Sphere years in advance, and B) already had plans for it to be an AB30 celebration. Those both seemed like they came much later.
  10. Originally posted by Flyguy69:Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment thoughtfully on this topic thus far. As a fellow U2 fan, and someone who misses the band unit (to say nothing of the adventuresome spirit they used to possess - before sales / any respective costs of living became issues, I guess), I do appreciate your perspectives/kind consideration.

    On a related note: I realize the subject matter/length of my original post was bound to draw a few snide, surly and cynical remarks from those who'd rather not speculate/dwell on things they deem unpleasant or a perhaps a waste of their time ... but hey, can't please everyone who visits this site on the regular, I suppose.

    Anyway ... I just think it's insanely out of character for the whole band to literally go almost SEVEN years without releasing any new music whatsoever (and yes, SONGS OF EXPERIENCE is technically their last studio LP of all-new material) ...

    And I'm sorry if this pushes some buttons, but "Your Song Saved My Life" for the SING 2 soundtrack (the most un-U2-sounding track of any U2 song ever written) and Bono / Edge's recording of "Forty Foot Man" for the Letterman special on Disney+ don't qualify ... regardless of the amusing novelty behind either tune.

    I do suppose SOS works as a bit of a Band Aid on the whole "no new music" thing (and does contain some gems) ... and I'm sure (from a purely business standpoint) it fulfills a contractual obligation re: whatever # of LP's the band might still owe to Mercury/Island and/or whatever Live Nation-connected monstrosity they're in bed with now ...

    Still, with every year that goes by without them releasing any fresh, newly-written / recorded material (regardless of their collective living legend status / not really needing to chase Top 40 / Billboard chart rankings anymore, as they've said themselves) the more the radio silence from them as a group, as a foursome, fills the void ... and that is just ... I dunno, weirdly telling.

    I also feel like if U2 really wanted to successfully chase pop chart status and "win" with fans + non-fans on a worldwide level, they should just resolve themselves and do what every other savvy, relevance-craving artist (from Frank Sinatra to Sting, Mariah Carey to Rod Stewart, Tony Bennett to The Killers) has done before them and put out a full holiday album ...

    The only caveat would be instead of recording the usual chintzy chart-friendly Xmas pop stuff, they could go with a compendium of non-traditional Celtic / Irish tunes cut with fellow Irish artists, like Bono and Edge often do at the annual Dublin busk.

    Then again, it doesn't seem like Adam or Larry would want to be a part of that either ... as their absence from every SOS-related press event thus far - whether it was the Zane Lowe interviews, or David Letterman's documentary on Disney+, or nearly every single press related event about the Sphere thus far - seems to indicate.

    In fact, Bono's really the only one who's been out there, constantly touting the band and its legacy (if not selling their wares) via his autobiography + the theatre tour, etc.

    Beyond that, it feels like all the band members have partitioned themselves ... or are phoning it in from separate rooms ... or sending weird passive-aggressive coded messages to each other via the press ... like this one, from Adam:

    https://www.noise11.com/news/u2-encourage-bono-to-make-solo-album-20210727

    Like I said ... weirdly telling.
    Some scattered replies…

    The noise411 thing is regurgitating the podcast Adam did. It was recorded in June 2021 when things were just starting to lift, so you are looking at comments he made at the end of lockdowns. When the band was forced to be in separate countries for the most part…so it’s no wonder he’s talking about using Zoom etc.

    Adam was indeed the first band member doing any sort of press about SOS and what they were working on. There was also just an interview with him where he focuses on SOS published in one of the bass magazines this week. But it’s really an Edge lockdown project, like the book was a Bono project, in fact when I was first told about it, the whole thing was described to me as an Edge solo album. I don’t see Adam doing press on Bono’s book either…

    Larry hasn’t done press in years. The last time I remember him doing promo interviews for anything was for No Line on the Horizon. And if he’s still waiting for an outcome and whether or not he can go back to drumming? He might just want to wait till he knows for sure. Or he might not want to share at all.

    Bono has shared they are waiting for Larry to be well and be able to tour before releasing new music. There does seem to be a desire to wait for their drummer to be ready. So yes there may be a reason for the time this time.

    Out of character? They went 5.5 years between NLOTH and SOI. SOE was released December 1, 2017, which means we just passed that same 5.5 year time frame in June. But this time they managed to put out a four disc set of new recordings which we didn’t get last time. I don’t know that it’s out of character these days for them…

    And it’s been established that SOS was something the band was doing for themselves and there wasn’t an obligation there to put something out via the label. Their recording contract was actually expiring as the world went into Covid, so they had no left over obligations to fill on that front. And talk to anyone at the labels, these sorts of projects are hard sells for any artist, and they’d much rather just put out a collection of the hits.

    Quotes from Larry that didn’t make it into the Washington Post interview:

    “I really miss the audiences. I miss that interaction even though I’m sitting behind a drum kit.”

    “So I’d like to take some time, which I will do to get myself healed. And I really enjoy playing and I enjoy the process of playing and being in the company of creative people. I enjoy that.”

    The interviewer also shared on social media that Larry wants to perform again. He wants to be able to drum again, that’s why he’s having this surgery, so he can fix his issues and return to his drumming.

    Now if Larry were the type to work with a million different artists the way Bono does I’d say maybe that work could be what he’s talking about, but he’s done relatively little outside of the band, and when he has, Adam or The Edge or Bono have been part of it quite often as well.
  11. The shows were originally planned for 2021. I assume Bono's "if it happens" comments were regarding to whether construction would be finished.
  12. Originally posted by SJKamal:The shows were originally planned for 2021. I assume Bono's "if it happens" comments were regarding to whether construction would be finished.
    They already had definitely signed the contract at the point of that interview, but they also had a very expensive roll out / announcement plan. Bono wouldn’t have been able to confirm anything…sounded like he was very carefully trying not to trip over his words…