Podunkian Music Club

U2-Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Tonight, we bring to an end our month long celebration of the contributions of the Irish to the world of music, with the grand finale!

Right here on our humble little portal of the Music club, we showcase a band that without a doubt, has become the most successful and most recognizable of bands ever to come from the shores of Eire.

Consisting of Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullin Jr. and Adam Clayton; just four Irish lads who put together a band called U2 and conquered the world. From those early beginnings in 1976, they have become one of the longest lasting and still vital bands in the world of rock.

Politically charged, yet not particularly tied to politics, the songs of U2 over the years have reflected not only Ireland’s struggles and achievements, but have offered a wider vision of the world and given countless millions cause to sit back and think about where the planet has been, where it’s at now and where it may be going in the future.

Music with a message, but delivered with a driving rock beat that is as tight as any act has ever kicked out. They’re a favourite here on the Music Club and have converts world wide to their high tempo fusion of social conscious and rock and roll.

They have offered up a number of sea changes in their music, from the early days of the punk explosion, into the songs that are now the staple of classic rock, through the strange ways of the electronic era and back to the anthemic rock that made them famous along the way, U2 has remained relevant from the very first days that they arrived on North American shores.

Tonight’s selection is perhaps one of their strongest songs, Sunday, Bloody Sunday. It’s a powerful recollection of troubled times in their home country, which when done live as showcased tonight and found from various locations in the world on YouTube, is as powerful a song that you will ever come across. It offers up a hope of pages turning and a new life ahead. The pounding drumbeat from Mullin, tied in with Edge’s driving guitar and Clayton’s bass lines, set the electric background to Bono’s declaration that change must come.

“How long must we sing this song? How long, how long”

It’s a song that demands attention, makes you listen and try to understand where that time and place was and whether hope ever does prevail.

As the band progressed on their way to world domination, many more issues would come to the front of the line, taking Bono and the band from song writers and singers to social activists, led by their never camera shy front man, who has taken the use of celebrity in aid of social justice, to a new level of activism.

All along the way the music remains vital, fully charged and hugely popular. They have become a member of the giants of the rock scene, peers of the great bands of the sixties and seventies that blazed the trail, and surpassing many of those in sales, concert attendance and social impact.

In the parade of the musical saints that March offered up for our Music Festival, no other band or artist has reached the lofty heights that U2 has elevated themselves to.

No artist has had the same impact on not only the music industry but the international community as much as the four lads of Ireland. We celebrate our month of Irish music, with the band that put music made in Ireland, into a whole new category and has brought a world of attention to their musical brothers and sisters across the island.

U2, they belong to Ireland, but are true citizens of the world!

Artist-U2
Recording-War