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  1. Hey everyone...
    now this is something that's always been confusing for me. I know - and can see - that Larry's pretty damn good with drums, I know how Edge is...and I know Adam's story...but what about Bono? I hear he played the guitar with Edge in the beginning and then he went into just vocals, and hey... I see him play with Edge in Popmart and he's pretty good.

    But some people tell me he isn't that good (they refer to a wrong comment he had made about a song's key I think, someone else referred to the video of him and Edge doing an acoustic version of The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Edge asks in the beginning "What key do you want" or something similar and Bono replies "What's a key?!" - tho I myself always saw that as a joke).

    I figure he (at least) comes up with his singing melodies himself, so that makes him a pretty good musical person!

    I was just watching this making-of joshua tree video and at some part Lanois and Bono are listening to a guitar sound and Lanois says :"This is Bono's guitar" and Bono says "wow...no one had ever said that before!" ...and it's true! I haven't seen much talk about Bono's music...soo...bring it on!
  2. the fact that his guitar is barely audible during shows says a lot I think. And Bono looks pretty awkward with a guitar these days. I love his bit at the start of The Fly during the Vertigo Sao Paulo show but my favourite Bono guitar piece is the little medely that he plays at the start of Running To Stand Still on 1989-12-26 - Dublin. Magic
  3. Bono knows a couple of basic chords, luckily U2's music doesn't really demand two guitars so Edge can handle things most of the time. You'll notice during the Johusa Tree-RH era, Bono often held his guitar but didn't play it while he sang. During Zoo TV and Popmart he started playing a little bit more and had a variety of nice guitars, but by Elevation was doing only basic guitar work, except on Kite for which he provides exceptional rythym guitar. Edge taught him some of the basic guitar parts for I Will Follow on Elevation, but Bono most of the time didn't play at all. On most of the professionally recorded and released videos his guitar is usually barely or not at all audible. If you listen to a soundboard or audience recording (any bootleg pretty much) you can hear it much better. I'd say he only holds it on songs where he wouldn't really know what to do if he were running around the stage with just a mic, so the guitar is sort of a prop. A pretty big indicator of this is that his guitar is not mixed very loud- probably only so that he can hear it through his monitors.

    Gretsch probably only did the Irish Falcon guitar because putting Bono's name on something will sell it.
  4. Originally posted by AAV711Bono knows a couple of basic chords, luckily U2's music doesn't really demand two guitars so Edge can handle things most of the time. You'll notice during the Johusa Tree-RH era, Bono often held his guitar but didn't play it while he sang. During Zoo TV and Popmart he started playing a little bit more and had a variety of nice guitars, but by Elevation was doing only basic guitar work, except on Kite for which he provides exceptional rythym guitar. Edge taught him some of the basic guitar parts for I Will Follow on Elevation, but Bono most of the time didn't play at all. On most of the professionally recorded and released videos his guitar is usually barely or not at all audible. If you listen to a soundboard or audience recording (any bootleg pretty much) you can hear it much better. I'd say he only holds it on songs where he wouldn't really know what to do if he were running around the stage with just a mic, so the guitar is sort of a prop. A pretty big indicator of this is that his guitar is not mixed very loud- probably only so that he can hear it through his monitors.

    Gretsch probably only did the Irish Falcon guitar because putting Bono's name on something will sell it.


    Pretty much what I had guessed...thanks!
    But then...what is the stuff I hear about the beginning of the band when the edge wasn't as good with the guitar and so bono also played the guitar? I mean at that stage, Bono would have known even less than the edge!
  5. Originally posted by Ali709[..]

    Pretty much what I had guessed...thanks!
    But then...what is the stuff about I hear about the beginning of the band when the edge wasn't as good with the guitar and so bono also played the guitar? I mean at that stage, Bono would have known even less than the edge!


    At that point Edge's brother Dick was also in the picture. He at one point was better than Edge. But supposedly Bono was more talk than actual playing.
  6. Didn't Bono originally want to be the lead guitarist when U2 started? Except Edge could actually play whilst Bono didn't even have his own guitar - plus nobody wanted to sing so Bono sang because he couldn't do anything else.
  7. Originally posted by easports43[..]

    At that point Edge's brother Dick was also in the picture. He at one point was better than Edge. But supposedly Bono was more talk than actual playing.


    Originally posted by adamlosthisspoons
    Didn't Bono originally want to be the lead guitarist when U2 started? Except Edge could actually play whilst Bono didn't even have his own guitar - plus nobody wanted to sing so Bono sang because he couldn't do anything else.


    See?! These are the things that confuse me!

    And BTW, if you haven't seen the making of joshua tree film, the "bono's guitar" part I mentioned is on Exit, starts at 1:55 and continues on to 2:02.
  8. Originally posted by adamlosthisspoonsDidn't Bono originally want to be the lead guitarist when U2 started? Except Edge could actually play whilst Bono didn't even have his own guitar - plus nobody wanted to sing so Bono sang because he couldn't do anything else.


    That's also true. There were multiple reasons.
  9. If you listen to 'Silver and Gold' Off R&H you may realise whilst Bono is a modern day troubadour, the licks aint' slick! (however, a whole fuck better than i could do!!!)
  10. Originally posted by germcevoythe fact that his guitar is barely audible during shows says a lot I think. And Bono looks pretty awkward with a guitar these days. I love his bit at the start of The Fly during the Vertigo Sao Paulo show but my favourite Bono guitar piece is the little medely that he plays at the start of Running To Stand Still on 1989-12-26 - Dublin. Magic
    I can't help agreeing there. Really mawesome intro, for both songs.

    "Where is the fly?".... Funny
  11. Bono is a decent player. The way he plays sometimes are good, but he shouldn't do it more.
    Oh yeah, and when the band started he was guitarist, because he said he was good in playing the guitar (what he wasn't).
  12. One of the highlights in a few shows of the Joshua Tree tour was when Bono told the audience that Edge had been giving him guitar lessons because he wan't very good. He then asked for a member of the audience to come on stage and play a chord sequence during 'People Get Ready'. Priceless. Listen to the London soundboard of 12 June or Edinburgh from 1st August. There are others but these two should give you a flavour of what was happening.