The 12 months following the discharge of U2’s debut album Boy had been eventful, to say the least. Ronald Reagan had turn into President of the USA, the Iran hostage disaster ended, then Reagan himself was shot, as was Pope John Paul II. J.R. was shot and so, devastatingly, was John Lennon.
Riots in Brixton lit an indignant fuse round Britain. Cultural icons resembling Steve McQueen, Mae West, and Bob Marley all left us and the Rolling Stones had been out on tour. In the meantime at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, and initially at Compass Level in Nassau, 4 Irishmen had been purposefully going concerning the enterprise of changing into a premier division rock power.
U2 go to school
U2 toured Boy by the primary half of 1981, taking the album into faculty venues from Norwich to Northampton, Manchester to Glasgow, then into Europe. They popped again to London for an Previous Gray Whistle Check, then crossed the Atlantic for an in depth American schedule.
Even earlier than the band completed the Boy tour at Hammersmith Palais in June, they’d seized the supply of their Island label boss Chris Blackwell’s hospitality at his Compass Level facility, by recording the brand new tune “Fire.” That observe would underpin what grew to become the second U2 album.
October noticed the band rising not solely to the same old challenges of proving that you simply’re greater than a one-album surprise, however to the particular stress of making new work because the clock ticked ever louder. When Bono’s preliminary lyrics for the brand new songs had been misplaced, he needed to rewrite them within the studio at Windmill, with producer Steve Lillywhite poised to press file.
“Fire” was the fanfare, the opening shot, and it made some noise. The tune was their first hit single at house, reaching the High 5 in Eire, and gave U2 their first UK High 40 entry — albeit modestly, and incongruously positioned that August between Elaine Paige and Eddy Grant.
Gloria goes forward
Subsequent got here “Gloria,” the second single and the opening observe when the album arrived seven days later. The tune’s Latin refrain foretold an LP with robust non secular themes, but in addition with a creating sense of the band’s songwriting maturity and instrumental dexterity. The innate percussive stress of “I Threw A Brick Through A Window” and urgency of “Rejoice” had been offset by the measured, near-instrumental “Scarlet” and the affecting piano balladry of October itself.
The place Boy had solely brushed towards a mainstream viewers within the UK, peaking at No.52, October reached No.11, fuelled by the British tour that U2 had been already on by the point it hit the retailers. European exhibits adopted, then it was again to the US, the place the file topped out at No.104, somewhat decrease than the No.63 peak of the introductory Boy. The band broke for Christmas with two nights on the Lyceum in London, earlier than an American onslaught within the early phases of 1982 that may lay the groundwork for the breakthrough to return.
‘Emotions of a spiritual nature’
“All we know is what we are,” Bono mentioned throughout that US tour. “What we have in this band is very special. The sound may be classical in one sense, but it’s naturally our own. We don’t sound like any other group. Our songs are different — they hold emotions of a spiritual nature. I don’t have anybody to look up to in rock’n’roll. I find…I’m talking around it all the time.”
Then he concluded: “I don’t really feel U2 has been born yet. I’m 21, Larry’s just turned 20. In the past two years we’ve been directors of a very large business, worked till we thought we’d die, and the value of the experience is only now beginning to come out. I’m still learning.”
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