Background
U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour brought them to a new level of commercial and critical success, particularly in the United States. Like their previous tours, The Joshua Tree Tour was a minimalistic, austere production, and they used this outlet for addressing political and social concerns. The band earned a reputation for being earnest and serious, an image that became a target for derision after their much-maligned 1988 motion picture and companion album Rattle and Hum. The film and record—which documented their exploration of American roots music—were criticised as being "pretentious", and "misguided and bombastic", and they were accused of being grandiose and self-righteous. Their 1989 Lovetown Tour did not visit the United States, and at the end of the tour, lead vocalist Bono announced on-stage that it was "the end of something for U2" and that "we have to go away and ... just dream it all up again", foreshadowing changes for the group.
Read more about this topic: Zoo TV Tour
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)