June 26, 2006

"Gone"

Popmart Tour, North America (third leg), Mexico City, December 3, 1997

Here they are doing "Gone," one of the best songs off of Pop. This is from a program MTV aired called U2: PopMart Live from Mexico City that I taped. It was simulcast live:




I liked Houston Chronicle reporter Michael D. Clark's analyses of U2's body of work so much, I did a post about it. Concerning Pop, he said:

After mining everything from rock to disco to synth, U2 didn't seem to know where to go next. "Discotheque" feels left over from Zooropa while "Staring at the Sun" is yet another tremendous ballad that fits better with Achtung Baby.


I'd have to agree with that assessment. In hindsight, I like Pop a lot more. It's really the last album by the U2 I grew up knowing. It seemed like they were going through the motions a lot more by the time of the release of All That You Can't Leave Behind in 2000.



2 comments:

jemison said...

I saw that tour. Juxtaposed with the Joshua Tree tour, which I also saw, I was pleasantly surpurised that the boys still could rock.

Chris said...

Either of those tours would have been great to see (especially The Joshua Tree tour!).

I saw them way back during the The Unforgettable Fire tour. Back then, the concerts were a religious experience. I'm not sure there's as much of that today (at U2 concerts).