Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of WAR!
Sunday, June 28th 2009
2005-11-08 Oakland06/28/2009 11:14 AM 
U2 start their new tour in Barcelona in just a few days. Like just about every other bootleg-collecting fan, I'm on pins and needles with anticipation, hoping that we don't have to wait long for new material (and fingers crossed that the audio quality is good). While no doubt many of you reading this will grab these upcoming gems from the larger sites like U2Torrents or DIME, U2unes will return to share the best recording released each week. Of course, I say that, and the very first week of the tour will end up appearing here late because I will be taking the family on a much-needed vacation to visit distant relatives who have yet to see our adorable little 4-month-old, Kai. But rest assured that we will be back and this 2 month hiatus is at an end.
To celebrate this upcoming tour, I gladly share with all of you today an under-circulated recording from the Vertigo tour's stop in Oakland, California. Audio quality is generally very good. The audience is present but not too loud (occasional screamers and whistlers but that can't be helped and they remain obnoxious only between songs). Bass is good, and lyrics come through very clear along with highs but at a slight cost of sounding like the music is coming through a PA. I would recommend this one at high volume even though it doesn't need it. A flat EQ is fine, but I tweaked mine to bring the highs out of the mud.
Aside from the generally good sound quality of the recording and the strong performance characteristic of the third leg of the tour, I would not necessarily find this bootleg or concert to be noteworthy until you get close to the end: "One Tree Hill" gets played, and if I recall correctly, it is the first time during the entire Vertigo tour that it gets played and does not re-appear until the shows in New Zealand a year later. It's short, coming in at less than a minute of actual song, but that alone makes this a must-have for the serious collector.
(1)Thursday, June 25th 2009
Always happens in threes...06/25/2009 05:22 PM This week: Ed McMahon. Farrah Fawcett. And now Michael Jackson. What a bummer to lose all of them. (0) Monday, May 11th 2009
1981-11-28 Los Angeles "An Evening With U2"05/11/2009 12:44 PM 
Oooo... I can't believe I haven't shared this early U2 bootleg before. Here's a soundboard/broadcast/vinyl bootleg from the second leg of the October tour, a performance in Los Angeles. Sound quality is excellent. I think it sounds great with a flat EQ setting, which is not often the case, and fiddling with it a bit (or just jumping to the Rock EQ preset in iTunes) doesn't do much more than fill out Bono's voice somewhat. Normally, I try to find a couple favorite songs to comment on, but this is solid entertainment from start to finish with very high energy. They don't give you much time to breath between songs. I am a bit confused because various sites say this bootleg is incomplete, but having listened to it straight through a few times now, I can't hear any breaks between songs to indicate something is missing, unless there were some songs performed after "Out Of Control" that did not make it onto the vinyl for some reason. The end of OoC sounds like the end of the show with all of the goodbyes and thank yous, but the very last sound you hear appears to be the start of another song, so who knows. Oddly, the usual sites that track U2's setlists don't seem to have info for this show. And speaking of vinyl, there is only one point in the whole recording where my ears hear any of the pops and cracks associated with a record, and that is - again - very close to the end of OoC.
(1)Sunday, April 12th 2009
This happens every time04/12/2009 12:02 PM Whenever U2 releases anything, but especially when they release limited fan club CDs, my little website starts getting pounded by dozens of people every day looking for an illegal download. So, let me make it nice and clear - You will NOT find U2's latest club-only release, Medium, Rare, & Remastered, on this site or on any site I link to (yeah, I understand it might show up on TPB, but I sure hope it doesn't).
If you want it, go join the fan club and get your own copy legally. (0) Saturday, April 11th 2009
2001-07-21 Torino "Violence Is Never Right" Silver CD04/11/2009 02:09 PM 
When I put up that last bootleg from The Tour Which Shall Not Be Named, I was not surprised at all that it had been more than a year since the previous bootleg from that tour. This morning, however, as I looked for a decent Elevation tour bootleg to share, I was very surprised to discover it had been more than a year since any bootleg from that tour showed up here. I was shocked, actually. That's some good material, and in the past year I have acquired some good recordings from this tour. Now is definitely a good time to share! After much browsing, I found the perfect recording. This one is from Torino, Italy, and is yet another silver CD (yeah, I know, I've been sharing a lot of those here lately). What jumped out at me from the very start of this performance is it's clarity. For some reason, everything I was listening to this morning sounded muddy or distant, but then this one just jumped out at me. I would still recommend a Rock EQ preset or something similar to make it pop right out. The audience is present in about equal measure to the music. Sometimes the woman singing a long nearby is a little bit too prominent, but overall the audience adds good character. For example, at the end of "With Or Without You" they can be heard keeping the song alive long after U2 left the stage for an intermission. Interestingly, U2 did not end this show with "Walk On" or "One" as they frequently did during this tour, instead playing a few additional songs. For the history buffs out there like me, this concert was U2's first outdoor gig of the tour, where they played at Torino's Stadio Delle Alpi. that's surprising, because normally I wouldn't expect to hear such a good sound from a recording made in an open-air venue like this.
I'd love to write more, but I have to give the baby his bottle. Kai is almost 7 weeks old now and doing great!
(1)Monday, March 30th 2009
1998-01-31 Sao Paolo "Sao Paulo" Silver CD03/30/2009 11:12 AM 
OK. Fine. I'll toss you weirdos a bone. I haven't shared a P p p p p . . . . a Paww . . . . Pawwwp . . . .
Sidebar time. Ya know, I can say Poopmart without any reservations or hesitations at all, but I am simply incapable of correctly writing out the real thing. You'd think in time I would develop a taste for The Tour Which Must Not Be Named, kind of like coffee. I'm in my thirties and I still don't like coffee at all, either, so you folks shouldn't hold your breath waiting for me to like anything that comes out of this tour. OK, end sidebar.
Anyway, it's been thirteen months since I last shared any bootleg from U2's dark ages in the late 90's. I figure I owe some of you something. Fortunately for everyone involved - mostly that means me - I was able to find a bootleg that I actually seem to enjoy. It's a silver CD, which more often than not means decent sound (not always, but it's true in this case). It's the audio from a TV broadcast, which is darn near close to having pro-shot soundboard material (the pre-broadcast material is more desirable to serious collectors, but broadcast is usually darn good anyway). And finally, it's from Sao Paolo, meaning the end of the tour, when U2 had had some time to correct the problems in various songs that made them suck so much on The Album Which Must Not Be Named. To be honest, I find myself actually enjoying the renditions of "Mofo" and "Gone" from this performance. I also particularly enjoy and recommend the various Achtung Baby songs that appear because they are still fairly young and fresh and lack the aged flavor that seemed to weigh them down during the Vertigo Tour (especially "One", which almost died under the burden Bono placed on it). One thing in particular that I have found I really solidly enjoy is when U2 transitions seamlessly from one song to a similar song, as is the case here when "Last Night On Earth" blends smoothly and logically into "Until The End Of The World". They built a strong moment by the end of the prior song and just kept it going into the later song.
Getting technical for a moment, there's a cut between "All I Want Is You" and "Staring At The Sun". I'm not happy that it's there, but it's not disruptive. The same thing happens after "Sunday Bloody Sunday" at the change between discs. Those of you who burn these bootlegs to CD to listen won't have a problem with this, but for people like me who listen to bootlegs as files in iTunes or on their iPod it's another skip to be aware of.
This bootleg tastes like coffee-flavored ice cream with lots of chocolate and caramel sauces, whipped creme, and three - not one, three - cherries, and a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. Yeah, the coffee flavor is still there, but it's buried under so much goodness that it becomes a tolerable - almost likable - tweak to the dessert. Poopmart haters like me might actually enjoy this bootleg. Just don't start holding your breath yet.
(1)Tuesday, March 24th 2009
Woohoo! VIP tickets!03/24/2009 11:09 AM Yes! Score! I managed to snag VIP tickets to U2's Chicago performance in September. So if any of you reading this also manage to do the same, let me know and we can try to throw together a U2unes gathering in the VIP lounge. See you all in Section 111 on September 12th! (5) Saturday, March 21st 2009
2009-03-11 Boston, the Live FM Broadcast03/21/2009 09:50 AM 
I simply could not wait to share this one - let's skip a couple tours and jump right up to the current one. Today I am pleased to share with you one of the first brand new audio bootlegs to appear for the up-coming U2 360o tour! A few weeks ago, after completing an unprecedented week-long residency on David Letterman's show, U2 performed for three very small venues in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. While the first two have not yet surfaced, a high-quality recording of the live Boston FM broadcast began to make its rounds online in a matter of minutes. They played four songs from the new album, as well as Vertigo (there's been a lot of chatter about a glitch at the beginning of Vertigo that is heard in this recording; it was in fact a problem with the broadcast, and not just the local radio station the taper captured this from, I heard it on the web broadcast as well). After the 5-song set, the radio station did an off-beat QA session with audience members that the taper included.
I have to admit that my very first reaction to No Line On The Horizon was "Yech," I really didn't like it, to be honest. It's growing on me, though, with a little time and extra listens, in a way that Pop never could. Indeed, as is often said, U2 are best live, and I can already tell that they are wisely omitting or altering several of the features of various songs that I found most obnoxious, to good effect. For example, that "wah wah wah" sound in "Magnificent" is gone, replaced with a more natural and less dorky guitar riff. Geez - that "wah wah wah" made me think Weird Al Yankovik had snuck a remake into their album. I can hear it in my head already - it would be a Harry Potter remake called "Ridikulus" about that spell the kids learn to scare off a bogart. Anyway, this live performance gives me hope that the upcoming tour performances will be worthy of sharing here (unlike The Tour Which Shall Not Be Named).
It's a small download, so get it, hear it, savor it!
(3)
Sample: Where The Streets Have No Name
2005-11-08 Oakland
