That was how Larry Mullen Jr described the Rattle and Hum documentary or, as some would have it, Rockumentary. He might not have been far off the truth. It's a journey in which U2 fell in love with America whilst the rest of the world fell out of love with U2. Ironic that.
But before all that there was the excitement of new U2 material; the first since the ground breaking 'The Joshua Tree'. It had been announced that the new single 'Desire' would be previewed on The Annie Nightingale show. So there I sat in my bedroom, in 1988, cassette recorder paused ready to capture the new song. I waited patiently. For seemingly forever; my finger hovering over the button as cramp set in. And then it started - a Bo Diddley-esque riff blasted out of the speakers. In just over three minutes it was over - I had the new U2 song on tape.
As the release date of the new album AND ACCOMPANYING FILM approached the excitement built to fever pitch. Or at least it did in the minds of me and my mates. It was quite a journey to the MetroCentre to see the new movie but it was worth it as rock films just didn't get played at the cinema. Not in the north-east anyway. It was the nearest thing we were going to get to seeing the band as tickets for distant tours were prohibitively expensive.
In the wake of the hype, the film couldn't be anything but a disappointment. If it was intended as a of love letter to America it missed the point and came across more like a successful band using American culture to further their sales; Bob Dylan and B.B. King denoted to support musicians in the media circus that had become U2's life.
But amongst all of the nonsense there were some great songs; 'Angel of Harlem', 'Heartland', the wonderful 'All I Want Is You' and the industrial sounding 'God Part II'. This latter track being almost the blueprint for 'Achtung Baby'; an album which was later described by Bono as "four men chopping down the Joshua Tree". Not a moment too soon.
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