Everyone has their moments in life when they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when a significant event occurs in their lifetime that they weren't directly involved in. In my youth, the deaths of Elvis Presley and John Lennon fall into this category, not so much as the effect the news had on me but more the reaction of the people and the world at large around me. My own musical "death" epiphany would come much later on with the demise of Kurt Cobain. However, in my bedroom in the family home one early autumn evening in 1983 I bore witness to a live performance from a band I was previously indifferent to, which transfixed me in a way that has never been repeated since. It was the first broadcast of U2's Red Rocks performance on the seminal Channel 4 music show The Tube.
We have to remember that in 1983 Britain only had 4 TV channels, one of which, the edgy and innovative Channel 4, had only been on air for 12 months. The Tube was it's flagship music programme, one and a half hours of must-see live TV for the 16 years old me. In the family home we had our main television downstairs and a small "portable" TV upstairs on a trolley that was wheeled in between my siblings bedrooms. At the end of a disastrously brief day at college one Friday I returned home rather depressed and immersed in teenage angst. After my early evening meal I headed upstairs for my fix of The Tube. It was broadcast from 5.30pm-7.00pm. In the weeks prior to this day, The Tube had been advertising this U2 night as they were going to dedicate 1 full hour to the Red Rocks show. They hadn't previously given any band, let alone these young Irish upstarts, such airtime before so I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Some well informed people must have worked at CH4's music department at this time as they clearly knew they had something special "in the can".
Anyway, my impressionable, but also cynical, self lay down on my bed and awaited this hyped performance. What followed was truly spectacular. This performance has since become a best-seller so you don't really need the likes of me to bang on about the setting, the stormy weather, a young band on a steep rise, an electrified audience etc but it was all those things. From a prone position I gradually eased to the edge of the bed and sat transfixed by each song and the energy and sheer enthusiasm of everyone involved. I was thoroughly smitten with the band and remained so for the rest of the decade.
These were innocent times, of course. Pre-internet, no satellite(cable) TV and all the other 21st century bombardments, so maybe this helps put into perspective just how this one hour of my life is so vividly recalled 30 years later. Even now when I watch the "Under a Blood Red Sky," show again I still get a tingle down my spine and feel 16 again (without the angst and spots).
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