Review: Bono and Edge dish with Elvis Costello

Bono and Edge’s appearance on the Sundance Channel's “Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…” was truly an interesting interview and offered even better performances of some U2 tunes. It aired two weeks ago and I just got to watching it. Blame the ever-consuming holidays for not giving off enough time in the day to devote to watching a great hour of television.

Costello mentioned Adam and Larry’s absence for being “at the spa”, thus Bono calling them “sissies” and claiming he and Edge are “real working men in U2”. So already it was off to a funny start! They touched on the usual topics- the early years, charity work, and inspirations. Costello joined them on “Stuck in a Moment”. Bono and Edge performed “Stay (Faraway So Close)” and Edge offered some insight on the beginning of the song.

Edge considers himself the “keeper” of the “little great moments that are not songs but we know there’s something to them”. When working on the track (which had the working title of “Sinatra”) for the “Zooropa” album, Edge said it was difficult for U2 to “get to the core of the emotion of the song” that the band knew was there. After messing with it a little, he offered it to Bono, who provided a good vocal. Then Flood, their engineer, did a rough mix of it and ended up stripping it down, turning it into the beautiful version of “Stay” we know today.

Bono talked about the production of U2’s concerts, how as the years go on, they become an even bigger spectacle than the last one. He said, “The magic act, if it works, is you shrink the stadium of the arena and suddenly it disappears. The production disappears, and you get this intimacy… I think intimacy is the new punk rock myself. That’s the thing that stops me in my tracks.” Bono said that intimacy “in the middle of a stadium is amazing and hearing it with lots of people around you is amazing.” That was the goal for “360”- to give fans that ultimate experience of seeing the band around you, not thinking about being in a stadium at all.

Bono and Edge also talked about Frank Sinatra, how when they met him it was at a Mexican restaurant (instead of the obvious Italian one) and drank margaritas. Bono and Edge thus performed “Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad” which was fantastic. It’s one of my favorites and that was a real nice surprise for them to do that.

As for what are the positives for being in U2, Edge said, “The band is greater than the sum of the parts and that’s when a real band kicks in.” Bono acknowledged that he started dating future wife Ali the same week he joined U2 and declared “it was a pretty good month.”

At the end, the three of them rocked out on an awesome mash-up of Costello’s classic “Pump It Up” and U2’s “Get On Your Boots”. I would love to see that put on iTunes! I always gravitate towards “Pump It Up” whenever I play “Rock Band” and it blended seamlessly with “Boots”. And who doesn’t love a good mash-up? It was a terrific interview and I hope everyone got the chance to see it.

Today is an important day for Edge. His documentary with fellow guitar heroes Jimmy Page and Jack White, “It Might Get Loud”, is out for release on DVD today. To purchase it from Amazon, click here. I can’t wait to watch it again. It’s a great film for not just guitar lovers, but all-around music fans. It’ll give you a inside look on the mechanics of melody from three rock supermen.