Must be alone. Saw them in a bar, a basketball arena, and a football stadium. Liked all three, and still like most of their lps. Don't find them particularly hypocritical, either. They've used their fame to advocate for what they believe in. And the edge is a very interesting and non trad rock guitar player. He's no Rory Gallagher, but neither is Eric Clapton (who I rather like) .

If the photo was really U2, shouldn't they be wearing PDM jerseys or something like that? Granted, they're not from Carrick, but it ain't that far from Dublin, really...

I hope you're kidding. Lucky we're not in the same room.

There will be no ill talk of Joe...

nice clip. i caught that 'hail hail rock n roll' doc again this past week on cable. keith comes off as wonderfully gracious in the presence of his old idol...

This is all true. They're easy targets but if every band had half of their commitment to positive change we'd all be better for it. Boy was a good album in 1980. And the Clash, well they were already a reggae band at that point.

+1 I'm so confused!

Man I wish that was me in that picture, and I bet many of us do also.
I unfortunately haven't ridden in 2 weeks, using my shop schedule as an excuse, and couldn't keep up with that group anyway.

And this is where C&V starts to break down for me, lets keep it about meaningless things like bikes, not serious things like music and acting...

There's a lot of artists I like and some I can appreciate as musicians and innovators but jeeze, all I seem to hear is a bunch of baby boomers complaining about the "next generation" of music... just like their parents did!

Ooops, did I say that out loud?

Their iPod was cool. That's about all I can say about U2.

Bono is doing Gwyneth Paltrow?

Hey, looks like his take on the Faceplant IPO is only going to be around 43 mil.

Freedom's all been traded away for (supposed) security and nationalistic chest thumping (talking about freedom while doing the opposite). Sorry -- wrong side of the bed today.

Thread drifting: natural consequence of aging. Life just becomes more stream-of-consciousness. À la recherche du temps perdu or Ulysses begin to make perfect sense.

U2: as someone who was listening to the Stones when they were not grizzled and becoming embarrassing parodies of themselves, I just don't get Bono + crew at all. When exposed to a performance, my reaction is nil; and I never could understand the eyewear thing.

I like seeing geezer guys on bikes: gives me something to look forward to.

All I have to do is look in the mirror to see that.

Maybe we should find a ride, where many of us try to show up and ride, and do it for, say, 4-5 years, to start something, and then it could probably go on by itself, as an event, where nothing matters except being there and riding. Not the bike, not the gear, just the road and the ride.

and then the sippy box of wine.

It looks like that's what the boys in the picture are doing. Great shot, we should all be so lucky.

U2 are one of the greatest bands ever - I've seen them 10 times and drawn a great deal of inspiration from them musically and lyrically.

This lineup does appear to include the new Bono clone, which may be jumping the shark a bit.

<In Triumph the Insult Dog Voice>

I love U2...Bono is great, The Edge is great...FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Really. Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

The Edge 'borrowed' heavily from Keith Levene (Clash, PiL) and to a lesser extent, Bernard Sumner (Warsaw, Joy Division). Listen the Levene's guitar work on the first two PiL albums and it's easy to hear where The Edge got his sound. Sumner's influence is a little more subtle, but you can detect the similarities in his work with Warsaw and the early Joy Division singles.

One of my best friends from high school was sued by U2, BTW.

The only people I can think of who were sued by U2 were Negativeland. Not that I'm all that up on U2's litigation.

Talk about some odd ducks...Negativeland were fun. I can't count how many times I played car bomb at maximum volume in my friend's car.

Unknown Pleasures still sounds great. I had the pleasure of seeing Peter Hook perform it in its entirety, and while Hooky ain't Curtis, he did a damn fine job.

Yup, it was Negativland. I spent many hours watching Mark Hosler hand-assemble the covers for the first album.

How many time zones are there in the Soviet Union?

Oh I don't know. I like quite a lot of the "next generation' of music, which to me was the 77 thru 84 period. Great bands, too numerous to mention. All I hear these days is atonal, sensitive guys with guitars and Eddy Vedder clones. Not many good melodies written any more.

Oh , and, Chuck Berry makes me wince.

That and four bucks will get you a cup of joe at Starfukkers.

77' - 84'...Television, Talking Heads, Cars, Clash, Joe Jackson, Costello, Ramones, Johnny Thunders and up through Minutemen, Husker DU...etc. Some of the better rock was that period.

And let's not forget the Pretenders.

I don't expose myself to modern music near as much as I might. But I did finally hear a band with some guys who knew how to play them that introduced electric guitars into music again. Kings of Leon aint bad.
That said, I'm stuck in the past. For my mom it was Glenn Miller.

Glenn Miller rocks. If you can sit still to "In the Mood," you're a zombie. I can't imagine hearing it live, on a 15-minute jam.

I really wonder what bikes those guys in the photo ride. It's my new wallpaper.