By Scott Pohl, WKAR
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-974733.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI –
WKAR's Scott Pohl, if you didn't know it, is a big rock music fan.
For two years, he's been awaiting the U2 concert at Spartan Stadium. The U2-360 concert is now just two days away.
Here, Scott looks ahead to the concert by talking with someone who attended U2's last appearance in East Lansing.
AUDIO: OPENS WITH THE U2 SONG, "GLORIA"
Back in the 70s and 80s, one of the things I did for fun and profit was write a newspaper column about popular music. I saw dozens of shows -- some of them the biggest acts in the business, others were acts you never heard of before or since.
Alas, I somehow missed U2's concert in East Lansing on December 7th, 1981 at the former Dooley's, now Harper's.
Roger Martin is a partner in the Lansing public relations firm of Martin-Waymire Advocacy Communications. He was working at the time at MSU campus radio and at the State News newspaper on campus, and he was smart enough to check out this brash young Irish band. You're listening to the song they opened with that night: "Gloria."
ROGER MARTIN: I actually reached out then to U2's agents at the time, and got a phone interview with The Edge and Bono, and did a nice sort of advance story on them coming to Dooley's. I don't even think the place sold out, Scott!
I remember a couple things about the show. I remember it was in the basement of Dooley's. I remember my college roommate and I, Clark Paul, was into the same kind of music I was. We went over there and we just leaned on the stage, and it was a mesmerizing, remarkable performance. You could just see, everyone in the crowd knew they were at something very special, with a band that was destined to be stars.
SCOTT POHL: When I think about how Bono performs, he's known for talking to the audience between songs, he's very political. Was that the Bono of 1981?
MARTIN: That was not. They were very shy, and I don't remember a lot of that banter going on between band and audience. I just remember a lot of intensity. If you think about the records that they had produced at that time, Boy was out, and had sort of established themselves, and that was what broke in the United States, and they were just releasing October. Those were very intense, very political records. There was never a dull moment in that show. I mean, it just kept moving and moving and moving and moving, and there wasn't a lot of chatting.
Now, the phone interview with Bono was very pleasant. These are very intelligent, well-read musicians. They know the world, they know their history, they know their music, and I just remember it being a very pleasant interview.
I also remember talking with them about the breakup of the Boomtown Rats, because that was another punk band from back then, and they were both from Ireland. That was when there was still wire services for newspapers, and there was a paper wire service at The State News, and the story had come over about the Boomtown Rats breaking up, and I told Bono and Edge about that, and they were like no way, no way! They were a very nice interview, very pleasant interview.
POHL: I'm going to predict that on that night in 1981, you never envisioned that you were seeing a band that one day would have the highest grossing tour of all time, playing in front of 70.000 people in Spartan Stadium.
MARTIN: That's absolutely true. To even think of that at that point would have acknowledged in our own minds that these guys were going to be "sellouts." Commercial success was not something that those types of bands even talked about. In fact, they shunned it back then. That was sort of the cool thing to do. But, no, Scott, that's absolutely correct, no doubt about that.
POHL: So, you and I are both going to the concert on Sunday. You've seen them once or twice since then; I saw the Vertigo tour which was about seven years ago. What are you expecting?
MARTIN: From everything I've read, and just looking at set list from the Wednesday night show in Baltimore, it's just going to be a compendium of their greatest hits. There's a couple songs I don't even recognize. I hear, too, that they're doing a tribute to Bruce Springsteen and The Big Man, because of the death of Clarence Clemons. It's going to be an arena rock spectacle, is what it's going to be, because that's what these guys are now. They're arena rockers, but at the same time, the type of music I think they still do, while certainly has become far more commercially successful, it's still good music. It's as good as anything being done out there, at that level anyway.