A Countdown til Singapore: My U2 retrospective - Under A Blood Red Sky

A Countdown til Singapore: My U2 retrospective – Under A Blood Red Sky

Released in November 1983 nine months after War came out.

In 28 days, I will be watching my first U2 show ever. I have crossed paths with a few of their shows before in the United States, but either I wasn’t free on that date or I couldn’t get a ticket right away (I refused to pay scalper prices).

Here are my memories of U2’s first live release.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of this album is MTV. Yes, the first ever video music channel was the hottest thing back then. Although it came out two years earlier, by 1983, Betamax tapes of MTV broadcasts were circulating. It was our chance to watch these music videos of these bands that we heard and liked but didn’t know enough; couldn’t get enough. Well, that was something back in the day. Jingle magazine was the closest and cheapest way to get info as they ripped off news from Rolling Stone and Creem. 

But I loved watching those tapes and even bought a few myself even if it was expensive. And… I had this crush on VJ Martha Quinn (yes, over Nina Blackwood). 

Okay, I’m straying. But it is through these tapes where I saw the live video of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Boulder, Colorado where Under A Blood Red Sky was taped. The fog and torch lights due to the inclement weather made it a surreal viewing experience. As was the flag waving of Bono while singing “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Back in school, Bono’s intro to the song, “This song is not a rebel song. This song is ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’” was powerful stuff. Again, this was during the violence back in Northern Ireland that was making news everywhere (that I wrote at great length in my essay for War). 

I only read decades later how this video release changed the band’s fortunes as it presented the band to North Americans that they were indeed a great live act. Oh, yes they are and I do own a copy of the DVD release of Under A Blood Red Sky along with Rattle and Hum and other live shows. Furthermore, I will be seeing them for the first time in Singapore.

The record of the show actually came out ahead of the film by a few months. So I didn’t get to see the full length film until about a year later when I purchased a pirated Betamax tape of the film in a shop somewhere in Quiapo.

I didn’t even fully realize it at that time although it was in the liner notes of the album that only two of the songs featured on the Under A Blood Red Sky record were from the Red Rocks show – “Gloria” and “Party Girl.” 

The cover of the album though featuring a silhouette of Bono at Red Rocks was bewitching. 

Listening to the record then (I first got the local pressing and about four years later, the US press), my favorite live versions were “11 O’clock Tick Tock”: that came out in an EP titled Three and was the B-Side for “Another Day” and “40” that featured the crowd singing “How long to sing this song?” 

I love the ethereal production for the War album, but the live version is something else. The crowd singing along does it. 

And that was an amazing way to end the show, and in fact, most of their concerts back in the 1980s. And that began that dream of seeing U2 in concert.

Like Oasis’ “Acquiesce”, I think that 11’OClock Tick Tock” is one of those great non-album releases by any band.

I was able to get a copy of Three much later – around 2000 at Greenwich Village in New York while hunting for 1980s New York hardcore records.

Back to the record… although I played it a lot during the first few months when I got Under A Blood Red Sky, I have hardly played it since. I did a few months ago when I began playing all their albums on my turntable in order. For the most part, I have opted for Boy and War where most of the songs are culled from.

In spite of that, I have fond memories of the record (along with Red Rocks, MTV and Martha Quinn, and going to Quiapo to buy my pirated Betamax tape of the show.