By the time The Joshua Tree was done holding MTV and every radio station in the country hostage, many die-hard fans of the band had had our fill of the band for awhile. After all, whatever level of popularity the band had achieved with "Pride (In The Name Of Love)", it was dwarfed by the success of The Joshua Tree's many singles, which pummeled us into submission like an ear-chomping Mike Tyson.
For those of us who had purchased the album when it was released, hearing one beloved song after another rendered utterly meaningless by non-stop radio and MTV airplay was a bitter pill to swallow.
As great as "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was on the first hundred or so listens, after the song landed on MTV, even die-hard fans were willing to help Bono find exactly what he was looking for if it meant that he'd stop singing the song for awhile.
Here in Chicago, we got a double dose of the Dublin when the band hit the Rosemont Horizon (now the Allstate Arena) in April for a single show and again in October for a sold-out three-might stand.
And then before we could catch our collective breath, the film "Rattle & Hum" was released, pushing the U2 and Paramount Pictures marketing machines into hyper-drive.
You couldn't go anywhere without hearing U2 or hearing about U2.
That would have been cool if Chicago had been the setting of the concert footage, as initially planned.
Sadly, for reasons known only to the producers of the film, the band chose to film in Denver rather than the Rosemont Horizon, thereby robbing Chicago of its rightful place in rock history.
So, how does the album hold up after all these years, you ask?
Opening the album with, of all things, a Beatles cover performed as a vehicle by which the band would "steal" the song back from Charles Manson. I remain just as puzzled by Bono's introduction today as I was then, but you've gotta love The Edge tackling this song with such wild abandon.
Judging by the band's current reliance on triggered parts and backing tracks, it is refreshing to remember a U2 that was capable of working up a stadium-size head of steam all on their own.
Has there ever been an album that successfully mixed live and studio cuts on one album?
Usually such albums are considered gap-fillers, allowing a band to cash-in on the sale of a full album without having to write an entire album worth of new material.
Was Rattle & Hum a gap-filler, you ask?
If not for the massive undertaking of the film for which the album exists, Rattle & Hum could be written off as a cash grab, but when you consider that the band financed much of the film themselves and that such films rarely made money, how much of a sure thing could it have been?
Seems an odd length to go to in order to buy yourself a little time until the next studio album is due, but that's how U2 rolled back then.
A song like "Desire" screams "hit single" but was it really a U2 song?
Seeing U2 take such a full swing at American blues was a great way to show respect for the history of the country they were currently liberating from their Bon Jovi and Poison records, but it was an ill fitting suit the band seemed to wear only as long as the cameras were rolling.
It is this writers fact-based opinion that anytime a band embraces American blues or early rock & roll, they have officially run out of ideas. U2 would be no different, as the sessions for their next record would show the band pulling their hair out to come up with a new musical direction to inspire creativity after years of touring their early material.
The last thing the band wanted to do on "Rattle & Hum", it seems, was sound like U2. Hence the absence of any material prior to The Unforgettable Fire.
While that's an admirable goal as an artist, it was a huge gamble to make the subject of a major motion picture.
To compensate, the band that had so wholeheartedly embraced atmosphere and nuance on The Joshua Tree began painting with broad strokes, free of any and all subtlety or originality: "All Along The Watchtower", "The Star-Spangled Banner", "When Love Comes To Town".
And just in case any of us still needed to hear "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", the band were nice enough to give us another version to add to the collection.
After a live reading of "Pride", the band transformed themselves into the Fabulous Thunderbirds for the "blues" portion of the evening, turning in the soulful "Angel In Harlem" and the backwoods moan of the U2/Bob Dylan-penned "Love Rescue Me".
To this day, I still find this musical excursion to be the most puzzling of the band's long career, and this is counting their ill-advised "Zoo TV" period.
Thankfully for all involved, the band snapped out of their blues stupor and closed out the album with a riveting live take on "Bullet The Blue Sky" and "All I Want Is You", a studio cut that always sounded like an outtake from The Joshua Tree, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Considering that the band has paid no real attention to the album since its release and subsequent multi-platinum chart run, it seems that the album's 30th anniversary (2018) might have merited an expanded edition re-issue, but no such luck.
This is a shame because there is reportedly an entire disc's worth of material, both live and studio, that was recorded for this project that has yet to see the light of day.