Get your Bono on and sing along with some U2 Karaoke.
Here’s the story why we did these recordings…
We had an important gig I could not pass up and our former singer had another commitment and couldn’t make the show. I have a good friend named Chris Ray that does a great Bono and he was willing to fill in for our singer.
[Update: Chris Ray is now our new Bono. You can learn a little about Chris and how U2 changed his life here.]
To get Chris up-to-speed and so he could rehearse at home, we did a quick, down-and-dirty three-piece rehearsal. We recorded the 18 songs without vocals from that show’s set list, so he could learn the song structures / versions that we do.
For all you musician geeks out there, I threw three mics on the drums; snare, kick, and one overhead, an SM57 on my Vox AC30 guitar amplifier and I ran the bass direct. We tracked 18 songs live and raw into my ZOOM R24 recorder straight to an SD card. Later, I imported the sessions into Reaper, added some compression and EQ presets, rendered a mono track and then a quick mastering job through T-Racks 3.
The tracks sound okay… far from perfect. But it was a fun process.
Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses with no vocals…
The Unforgettable Fire with no vocals…
For T.U.F. there are ten (10) measures of intro when the band kicks in before the first verse.