DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #1

1. U2

Reasons why U2 is better than every other band of the 1980's:

a) The songs. There are about 20-30 U2 songs that make Dolberry very happy whenever he hears them. (I'll list them under "best songs".)

b) There was never a better video than U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" where they were at Red Rocks outside Denver. A storm rolls in. You can see the band's breath as Bono waves his white flag and screams his frustration "I'm so sick of it!" He was sick of the violence in Northern Ireland and 1983 Dolberry was sick of doing homework, taking out the trash, or having girls not lining up to date him. Nevertheless, we were kindred spirits against cruel outside forces. (Video added to sidebar.)

c) No other band of the 80's played a concert in St. Louis MO in 1987 on the same night as the 6th game of the World Series (Twins - Cardinals) and sucked up to the crowd by having their lead singer come out emblazoned in a Cardinals jacket and hat (which he threw to the crowd).

d) More than any other "star" I know, U2's Bono has leveraged his fame to do something other than general self-indulgence. Personally, Dolberry thinks he's done almost entirely good things which is an added bonus.

e) The Edge's guitar sound.

f) U2's Super Bowl appearance which paid tribute to the 9/11 victims while reaffirming that the US and people of good faith everywhere will not bow down to evil.

g) My Dad once said, while demanding that early U2 be turned off, that "this is awful" & "those guys will never amount to anything". It is, to my knowledge, the only time my dad was ever wrong about anything. (For the record, my mom was only wrong once as well ... thinking potato soup was edible.)

h) I heard Bono say once, "Quit asking God to bless what you're doing. Instead, find out what He's doing and do that. It's already blessed."

i) I like how U2 rebounded from a period in which they thought songs about this citrus fruit were good ideas. I like the fact that they tried that whole weird mid-90's Pop Mart thing ... even if I never got it. (Others 80s bands rebounded, but not to the same level as U2.)

j) U2 is from Ireland. Dolberry ancesters are from Ireland.

k) I like the fact that U2's absence from Live Earth was advocated by the antiGores as evidence that the concept of global warming is somehow flawed. (They're recording a new album in Africa at present.)

l) I like the fact that when U2 was starting out they claimed "I can't change the world, but I can change the world in me."

m) I like that U2 is so into America (our strengths, as well as our failings)

n) I like the fact that there's no better song to play on your headset while walking on the beach on a grey cloudy day than "The Unforgettable Fire". Seriously, I think that's one of the best experiences one can have on Earth.

o) I like how U2 usually opens "Where the Streets Have No Name" w/ a snippet from one of the Psalms (e.g.: Ps 116-12-13).

p) Bono's 80's hair, while widely mocked, is still a target that to which Dolberry aspires.

q) I like the fact that the Edge so admired Stuart Adamson and paid a touching tribute to him upon his death.

r) I like the fact that Bono's been married to his wife for 25 years.

s) I liked the U2 appearance on the Simpsons and that Monty Burns thinks they're "wankers".

t) I like how U2 pretty much carried both "Do They Know Its Christmas" and Live Aid.

u) Who knows to what degree, but it's pretty impressive that a band would have any role in bringing warring parties to peace as U2 did in Northern Ireland.

v) I like the fact that U2 claims to be the best band in the world.

w) I like the fact that U2 has stuck together all these years. Not just the band, but it seems like most of their team members have stuck together all these years.

Best songs: Pride, Where the Streets Have No Name, Walk On, Until the End of the World, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Beautiful Day, New Years Day, The Unforgettable Fire, Vertigo, The Fly, I Will Follow, With or Without You, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, One, In God's Country, October, Gloria, Wake Up Dead Man, Elevation, Out of Control, All I Want Is You, Bullet the Blue Sky, etc., etc.

Worst songs: Lemon

DCV Top Bands of the 80's: #2

2. Big Country

The DCV countdown started way back on January 6th of this year w/ a note about the scoring system. Assuming most folks don't remember, it was a combination of

- how much I liked them in the 80's (60%),
- how much I like them now (30%), &
- how popular they were w/ other folks (10%)

Big Country lost big on the 3rd criteria, & got nosed on the 2nd criteria, but they were the clear winners in the "how much I liked them in the 80's" category. If it wasn't such a countdown copout I'd just call them #1a to the next band's #1.

It's sounds weird to say looking back, but Big Country's music was just incredibly instrumental in Dolberry's surviving (and perhaps prospering through) the high school and college years. It's cliched to say so, but their songs we're the soundtrack to the 80's for me.

I can still vividly remember sitting in my room listening to The Crossing and being inspired. Not necessarily inspired to be doing the homework I was supposed to be doing, but inspired to live my life in a certain way. Big Country's root-level philosophy was embedded in their one big hit "In a Big Country" (peaked at #18 in the U.S. in 1983) and it was to "stay alive". Stuart Adamson and the lads spun huge anthems about you-and-me people trying to make it in a world that was/is not always necessarily looking out for us. But the people in BC's songs always held onto a spark, always yearned for something better, always strove to stay alive (in the figurative and literal sense).

Some sample lyrics (that still come immediately to mind w/o need to reference them):

In a big country, dreams stay w/ you. Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.

I will carry you home w/ the stars in my eyes. I will carry you home while the westerlies sigh.

It's just a shadow of the people we should be, like a garden in the forest that world will never see.

We save no souls. We break no promises.

But when I look at you I see you feel the same way too. And you will take my hand and be w/ me in wonderland

Im not expecting to grow flowers in the desert, but I can see the sun in wintertime.

The memories are very fresh when it comes to Big Country. The Crossing was always my get-fired-up-for-races tape. I still remember getting the Wonderland EP cassette from that mall south of Louisville (the same one where we got Intellivision) and wearing it out. Every Friday at SLU was Steeltown afternoon. The tradition was to listen to that tape in its entirety as part of the transition from school week to weekend. I wore lots of plaid back in the day in my attempts to emulate the lads. I still vividly remembering driving down Taylorsville Rd. one day and hearing "Look Away" from their third album The Seer on the radio.

The 80's were a great time for Dolberry up through 1988, when I dispatched myself to the wastelands just south of downtown Chicago for grad school leaving most of my friends behind. Big Country hit the skids (inside joke there) that year as well w/ their dismal 4th album Peace in Our Time.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Dolberry and BC's fortunes both picked up in the early 90's w/ me leaving school, getting a job, getting engaged, getting on a good softball team. Meanwhile, Big Country blasted back to life w/ Buffalo Skinners. Again, the memories are vivid of an afternoon in Stephen's apartment in Elgin IL, him saying he'd gotten BC's new album & I should give it a listen. Not expecting much, figuring they had wandered off the track for good, I was surprised that the first song ("Alone") really rocked. Figuring that would be the outlier, was surprised the second song ("Seven Waves") really rocked. The whole album really rocked.

BC put out three more studio releases in the 90's and while never reaching the unobtainable heights of The Crossing or even Buffalo Skinners, they all had several very good songs on them.

I'm guessing that most readers know the total irony of how Big Country's story ended, or at least how Stuart Adamson's story ended. (I love Tony, Mark, & Bruce, but Stuart was the heart of BC.) He hung himself in a Best Western hotel room in Honolulu, on December 16th, 2001. His blood alcohol level at the time was > 0.279. Stuart had reportedly battled alcoholism for many years. It is strange to me how a life spent encouraging others to stay alive would end w/ someone taking their own. I get teared up thinking about it even now.

I was playing indoor soccer that winter in an attempt to stay in shape in the softball offseason. It was a team consisting of individuals who had signed up to be on the house team (i.e., no one knew each other) and we played that way. We lost nearly every game and most of the time was spent in endless recriminations of overly long shifts and not enough passing. I was pretty detached from all of this as I was in way over my head as far as my soccer skills go. I'd take a shift or two a half and try not to embarass myself. The night of Stuart's death (& I believe Kristin broke the news to me), I vowed to get a goal in his memory ... as he was a big soccer (football) fan. Amazingly enough, I got two. My only two of the season. Things like that make me think that there's a God, and he's real, and he's there for us, and he wants the best for you-and-me in a world that's not always looking out for us, and that we need to keep that spark, we need to keep yearning for something better, and that we need to stay alive ... just as Stuart said.

Best songs: In A Big Country, Fields of Fire, Wonderland, Harvest Home, Where the Rose Was Sown, Chance, all of The Crossing, You Dreamer, Look Away, pretty much all of them.

Worst songs: Eggplant, King of Emotion