The 25 Best Live Rock Recordings: No. 20: Under A Blood Red Sky

No. 20 - U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky (Island, 1983)

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Sometimes it begins with the irrepressible spirit of youth seasoned with a completely new harmonic approach, arrangement, and orchestration.  Throw in a charismatic lead singer and trailblazing guitarist and the fact the band is Dublin Irish and one knows it can’t get any better than this.  Temper the proceedings with a film on the edge of the music video revolution and we have the next big thing. U2.

By the time U2 had released the EP Under A Blood Red Sky on November 21, 1983, they had already put out Boy (Island, 1980), October (Island, 1981), and War (Island, 1983) creating a healthy buzz in Europe, The Realm, and the United States.  When the band came to Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater while promoting War, they were ready to plant their spear in the sand and make a statement.  This resulted in the release of the CD Under A Blood Red Sky and the accompanying concert video Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky (Island, 1984).

While the band’s entire appearance at Red Rocks was recorded, the album was made up of live recordings from three shows from Colorado (Red Rocks), Boston, and Sankt Goarshausen, Germany.  Only “Gloria” and “Party Girl” were from the Red Rocks shows.  This was typical live album programming and production for the late 1970s-early ‘80s.  What was not typical was the new sound.

The video of Under A Blood Red Sky reveals what today looks like an impossibly young Bono robust and full of the vigor of youth.  Post-punk looks and an already well-developed stage presence paint success on this band who are prepared to fully break out with the release of their next recording, The Unforgettable Fire (Island, 1984).  Young and hungry, U2 was making the most vital and interesting music, already provocative and compelling.

What made U2 different was not their youth or looks, not even their Irishness.  It was the sound of the band propelled by the guitar playing of one David Howell Evans (The Edge).  His moniker is well chosen because his guitar style is fragmentary with sharp edges.  The harmonic underpinning of the band’s songs is supplied by the solid rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullin, Jr. 

The Edge provides a cacophony that remains within the tonal structure of the songs but expands the palette with an assortment of inventive riffs, harmonics, and rhythmic figures that would go on to define future songs.  The opening “Gloria” is characterized by a complex single-note riff supporting Bono’s best Mass Latin,  The Edge switches to harmonics beneath the chorus before slashing his way through otherworldly slide guitar.  He also does this to great effect on the show-stopping “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

“Eleven O’Clock Tick Tock” demonstrates how Mullins’ drumming supports The Edge’s efforts with a pronounced backbeat that breaks up the straight 4/4.  The Edge adds more harmonics and in the coda, matches Bono’s singing with single notes, weaving a lace doily with barbed wire.  “I Will Follow” is based on a simple harmonic figure, again propelled by Mullins’ drumming.  The video shows a frankly virile Bono prowling the stage.  The age of the music video and its part in music coming into 20-20 focus on the cool wetness of Red Rocks.

If this brief EP has a spiritual center, it is “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”  Band members remark that the lyrics refer to the events of Bloody Sunday in 1920 and 1972, holy days in the Irish Catholic struggle under an English Protestant tyranny, summoning both as allusion without being about either event. It is an example of songcraft of the first order.

Mullen initiates an aggressive snare drum rhythm militant and driving, pushing a march beat. This is followed by the Edge's echoing arpeggios, The riff, which follows a Bbm–Db–F#6 chord progression, places the song in a minor key, one that colors the song with a mixture of menace and hope. Pathos, in the form of the lyrics and guitar, progressively becomes frantic. The Edge again uses harmonics in the chorus to keen and devastating effect.  This is the song and the performance that put U2 on the map.

U2 would go on to become the biggest rock act in the world.  Over the next 30 years, the band would change everything in rock music, becoming its elder statesmen in the process.  But for a brief moment on an EP approaching 45 years old, the band was green and hungry, creating compelling music from the land of poets and saints.