It is, the Edge says, a soft day when we reach theU2guitarist by phone in Chicago.
Thats code for pretty gray, misty, not particularly warm.
The kind of weather youd think of the west of Ireland in the spring or fall.
Credit: KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images
At the recent Los Angeles stop at the Forum, the band was typically top notch.
Theres always going to be people who just want a nice night out of entertainment, he says.
The times do demand a response from artists.
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Below are some edited and condensed excerpts from our chat.
But it was truly mesmerizing and spiritual in its feeling.
We had an amazing turnout.
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They were good fun shows.
We wanted to be challenged as much as we wanted to challenge these spaces.
We really wanted to do something fresh.
Obviously, to some people its a disappointment, but wejustdid theJoshua Treetour.
Clayton:Look, we are aware that its somewhat perverse, we do accept that.
[Laughs]As with everything, theres a certain amount of pain.
And its a lovely, contemporary, modern piece of music.
It definitely gave us a sense of its potential.
The way its set up gives us a chance to really get very close to the audience.
Sometimes you feel like youre on the set ofAlienor something.
[Laughs]Maybe thats a nice flashback.
We have the moon and the sun and theyre slowly turning.
It can affect your balance.
Your sense of whats under your feet, it really does impact how you feel.
Sometimes I have to look up.
If I look down, I start to get disoriented.
We really want to concentrate on issues and try and find common ground.
We opened in Tulsa and then we went to St. Louis.
There was no equivocation.
They were behind us the whole time.
That was very encouraging to us.
So, we said, there are times [when] to not say something is to say something.
It is something that we believe in as a band.
This actually, I have to say, was an early hallmark.
We were part of the post punk movement.
