U2 - THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE


After touring for War and releasing their live album Under a Blood Red Sky, the first half of 1984 brought U2 the opportunity to consider a more textured, atmospheric sound that the quartet sensed should be their next departure. In May, they convened at Slane Castle in Dublin, where the gothic ballroom was chosen as the location for the early sessions on what would become The Unforgettable Fire.



The band’s admiration for Brian Eno as a musician of unassailable originality and imagination made him the producer of choice for the project. When he recommended his engineer, the relatively unknown but experienced Canadian studio hotshot Daniel Lanois, the alliance was complete.

The beauty of Eno and Lanois’ understanding of the U2 essence was in allowing the band’s motivation to burn as brightly as ever, but now in the context of a more sophisticated, nuanced sonic backdrop.



"Wire," for example, came out spitting flames in a perfect four-way mesh of Bono’s fiery vocals, Edge’s kaleidoscopic guitars, Clayton’s funk-friendly bass and Mullen’s frenetic drums. Released from the formality of rigid structures, pieces such as "4th Of July" were free to roam, and "Bad" had the confidence to build to a lofty yet pensive crescendo. The opening single, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)," a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, was unleashed in September 1984, and soon assumed towering proportions.



By the time the album was released on October 1, 1984, the band was roaring like a locomotive. A 21-date European run was illuminated by the fireworks of a spectacular response to the new album, which went double platinum in the UK and triple in the US.



Fire roared straight to No. 1 in Britain. In the spring of ’85, U2 officially made arena status, on another huge run of US shows that included a Madison Square Garden headliner. For Rolling Stone magazine, they were now officially “the band of the ‘80s,” and few could argue with the designation.



Celebrate the 35th anniversary of this landmark album with limited-edition color vinyl!