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  1. Its my favourite era. I did wonder when they’d try to stop making new albums that nobody is really interested in and go back and revisit their classic era. Its their best album. I think ticket price would put me off this but you never know.

    Whatever anyone says about U2, Joshua Tree is a classic.

      • As I’m sure we all know, album sequencing by Kirsty MacColl (at the time Mrs Steve Lillywhite).

        Fave song first track, 2nd fave song next, repeat until least fave song last track.

      • Mothers of the Disappeared is a great track and it is at the end…? In God’s Country at 7 is also a personal fave. I agree up to a point, but I think it is that superb run from 1-3 that gives that impression.

      • Hmmm …. that would be a good subject for a thread: examples of front-loaded albums. I suspect we could all come up with quite a few. Front-loading an album probably became even more common after the advent of CDs in the early/mid-eighties.

        Back-loaded albums, on the other hand, are fairly rare beasts. REM’s “Up” is one that comes into that category, in my view.

        • I always rather liked the sequencing on this album. 3 big songs on side one, then Bullet (which I never had much time for) before dropping into Running to stand still.
          B side of the album is less stadium rock-ish but none the worse for it.

          I know it might be heresy to say so on this site – but I loved this album and still think very fondly of it.

          Reminds me of 1987 – getting the album from Tower records the day I went with my dad to Australia house to pick up travel visa to Oz. Going to the concert in June. Falling for a girl in May. Going to Oz in July and spending the rest of the year just south of Perth with my dad’s cousin and his family – through all that The Joshua Tree was the soundtrack.

        • Front-loading was pretty common in the days of vinyl albums with 6 or more tracks a side. Open side one with a couple of attention-grabbers and close it with one to make you turn it over for side two. Open side two with something good and end it with something anthemic. Job done.

          The Beatles “Abbey Road” starts side one with “Come Together” and “Something” and ends it with “I Want You (She’s So Heavy”. Side two starts with “Here Comes the Sun” and ends with “Carry That Weight/The End” with “Her Majesty” as the musical equivalent of an after-dinner mint.

          • That is an excellent explanation of front-loading @Mike_H. A term which I confess I’d never heard. Come on! Please kick off a thread about this.

            Something that intrigues me is whether it has any relevance today.

            I confess that I do most of my listening on Spotify and if I hear about a new artist that I’m told I should give a listen to, I’ll try the first track on the album, in the belief that it’s probably going to be a song that will get me interested. But maybe I am wrong?

            • Elvis Costello says that to get a taste of an album, you should always listen to the fourth track.

              Hmmm … an interesting approach, but it doesn’t work too well for albums by, say, the Necks, which consist of one humongously long track.

  2. Priority tickets go to subscribers to U2 website.

    For which you will pay 50 dollars for the privilege.

    I can see those fighter planes too Bono you robbing git.

  3. Having worked in an anechoic chamber for a summer testing CD players with a limited (fewer than 5) selection of CDs, one of which was the Joshua Tree, I think hearing it again might invoke involuntary spasms.

    I would like to see a reunion of The Joshua Trio, though.

  4. Loved it when it came out, and I must say it has one or two excellent songs on it. At the time was clearly their best, an Achtung Baby tour might hold more appeal but I saw that first time around (or Zoo TV), just before Bono became completely unbearable.

    • Twickenham is an absolutely dreadful place to see a band. Terrible to get to (and especially from), most seats are miles away and the sound is appalling. Still makes more tax free Euros for them over one night than at e.g. the O2.

      • Liam didn’t mind brown nosing when Oasis supported ver ‘2 in 1997. And as workmanlike and dull as Noel’s band is at least he’s not just sitting at home waiting for the chance of an Oasis payday

        • Hah! I thought that sentence was going somewhere else, like..
          “As workmanlike and dull as Noel’s band is at least their frontman’s a bit of a laugh, whereas the 2 are a workmanlike and dull band made yet more vexing by an insufferable frontman..”

  6. Yes! Looking forward to this one.

    They should have done an Unforgettable Fire one but can’t have everything.

    Agree re Twickenham – will be booking Berlin for this.

  9. I know I have shared this before but I do find it very amusing.

    A very competent band here in Auckland usually plays a St Patrick’s night gig with lots of good-time Irish tunes. At one point, the singer says “I think you’ll know this one…” and the very long intro to Where the Streets Have No Name commences, with the singer whipping the crowd into a frenzy as the momentum builds and builds. As the singer eventually takes the mic he says “sorry…. I don’t know the words” and they abruptly stop.

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