The Effects of Pedaling
Or pedaling effects, or affecting pedals, or....
It rained in downpour fits and drizzles the bulk of the day. But we weren’t budging. Barrett and I (along with his sister and her boyfriend) had come all the way from Salt Lake City to this hockey arena in San Jose to finally see U2 for the first time. Our tickets were general admission, which meant the arena floor, which meant we could be really, really close to the band, which (on this tour and in big, overwrought U2 fashion) meant we might even be inside the giant lighted heart, a walkway that extended from the stage proper out into the crowd, where the band would occasionally roam with their wireless gear to, you know, mingle with the commoners. So we were there early, just to see how close we could get.
We got pretty close (the picture above is not mine, just trying to help paint a picture of the setup). We were maybe 2-3 people back from the stage. We watched close up as opener PJ Harvey doused the stage with emotional gasoline and then ignited all kinds of musical matches. And, then, when the lights went up after her set and before U2’s set, it happened:
The roadie/guitar tech came out.
No, really. It was a moment. A big one, even.
He plugged an electric guitar—probably a Fender Strat but this was also the return of the Gibson Firebird era—into The Edge (U2 guitarist, for those catching up)’s guitar setup then walked up towards the legendary pedal board1. He tapped one pedal with his toe and strummed and, then, The Unmistakable U2 Guitar Sound™ echoed through the arena. Chills tremored their way through my body. One note and it was immediately recognizable; the perfect amount of delay with just the right colosseumful of reverb with the richness of a tube amp and shimmer of who knows what Irish pixie leprechaun whiskey magic. But here’s the crazy thing: I thought that was it. But the roadie tapped another pedal, strummed another chord, and BOOM! Another Distinctive U2 Guitar Sound™. So recognizable that a) you knew exactly which song it was for, and b) the song would not be the song without that precise guitar sound. And then the roadie did this again and again and again. AND AGAIN. I know I was personally geeking out and that’s probably not all that surprising to you, but the rest of the arena woke up too, as this guy dutifully tapped his way through a veritable greatest hits of guitar sounds. “Pride (In the Name of Love)”, “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “I Will Follow”, “Mysterious Ways”, “The Fly”, even “Elevation.” Make fun of me, I don’t care: it was nothing short of magic.
Sure, there was a concert afterwards. And it was amazing— the house lights coming on as they took the stage and the whole place erupting, Bono actually breaking down and crying during “One”, finally hearing a brutal “Bullet The Blue Sky” in person, a pretty solid setlist (the first-ever live performance of “Kite”, the first performance of “Stay” in nearly decade). I even caught a guitar pick tossed by Bono, which is great, but kind of like catching a pick from Mick Jagger or Robert Plant. You can’t complain, but you’d really want a pick from, you know, one of the legendary guitarists. Not the guy whose guitar might not even have the volume turned up.
But the concert, and this is strange to find myself saying, is almost immaterial. A vista where I thought the destination might be. Part of the story. Not the story.
It was a culmination of a lifetime of listening. Of sitting at Barrett's house and listening to the European import single b-sides. Of Matt Hughes and I seeing Rattle & Hum in the theater2 and then renting it on VHS nearly every weekend as soon as it came out on video. Of my high school band, The Spiders, trying to cover “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (with no bass player, just like most Madison Arm shows; some things never change, I guess), trying to cover “Bad” (no one could convincingly hit The Note™) and “With Or Without You” (nobody could figure out how The Edge made all those atmospheric, cool, spook-ridden sounds), and more successfully covering “Desire” and “In God’s Country.” Of pining over girls who would come and go but the songs would remain the same —”With or Without You”, “One”, “The Sweetest Thing”, “Love Rescue Me”, “All I Want Is You.” Of sitting at twenty different pianos in twenty different rooms over more than twenty years (most recently last week at my weekly gig) to play “Running To Stand Still”, always making sure to add Bono’s “still running” ad libs from Rattle & Hum. And on and on, as I tend to do with the music I love. In the future, I’d marry a beautiful girl and we’d both know we had no choice but to travel to the Rose Bowl to see U2 celebrate the anniversary of The Joshua Tree and I’d tear up during songs I didn’t think could do that to me and I’d get chills during songs I thought had maybe ceased to have that power.
But the roadie in San Jose in 2001, just doing his job for the thousandth time, unassumingly making sure the guitar and its pedals were working? That might just be the thing I’ll never forget. That’s the polaroid.
PS: Here’s one of the funniest U2-related things I’ve ever read, from McSweeney’s. It takes a bit of U2 knowledge to really appreciate it. (It’s satire, just to be clear)
PS2: Why have we never gotten a bona fide solo album from The Edge? (Not counting this, even though it has a song featuring a not-famous-yet Sinead O’Connor; it’s mostly instrumental soundtrack ambience.) Isn’t that just a little weird? Especially when you consider that, after releasing nearly an album a year when they were really going, U23 tend to go 4-5 years between albums now. In the absence of an actual album, here are some U2 songs sung by The Edge that’ll have to do the trick for now.
The Edge (born David Evans; we’ll just sidestep the adopted name, if it’s all the same to you) is one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century, due in large part to his iconic, artistic use of effects pedals to create texture and movement. Since it’s not a “how many notes can you play” type of mastery, his particular approach to the guitar makes him a bit underappreciated by the shredder guitar community, which coincidentally peaked roundabout the same time as U2 in the late 80s and early 90s. Wanna to get me fired up? Tell me how The Edge isn’t a great guitar player. Go for it. Talk about how it’s “just effects” or whatever. Go on. Do it. As if his experimental, alchemic approach to texture and tone and rhythm and space and noise is somehow less “guitar-playing” than someone who’s barreling through pentatonic licks at MACH 12 or doing the blues purist thing in its billionth iteration or speed demon flatpicking through some classic bluegrass song. The man is a genius, a master of sound, a scientist, an innovator, a designer, a massive sonic influence on post-punk guitarists and pop-rock guitarists and everyone in between. Full stop.
A theme emerges! Similar to when I was getting goosebumps watching Sigur Ros play a show during Sundance in the early 00s and a friend came up to me expressing his utter boredom, in the late 80s while Matt & I were enraptured by Rattle & Hum (we didn’t know it was uncool or over earnest or pretentious or whatever your/their criticisms are) at The Villa Theater and a cool guy who was a year older than us, in the middle of one of the songs, walked up to us and started whispering, “this is terrible, right?” I remember Matt and I sharing confused looks. It was the antithesis of terrible in our minds/ears.
