Rock band U2’s legendary guitarist The Edge (real name Dave) has carved a world reputation for himself and his band by playing his distinctive guitar licks and by living up to his nickname with the “edgy” chords he chops out on U2 hits. Now U2’s Edge has fallen off it during a live performance.
The Edge’s unmistakable guitar sound — clean, sharp, incisive, and cutting-Edge — is part of U2’s trademark.
The characteristic and mesmerizing sounds and the emotions he expresses through them make him one of the most respected guitarists in rock and roll.
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He has often been called an “anti-guitar hero” because of his aversion to the indulgent, showy style based on intense soloing of many contemporaries, preferring instead to play in often a technically undemanding and low-key, yet original, way.
He is renowned for being a guitarist who is more concerned with sounds, texture and innovation rather than flashy technique.
Most of what the Edge (real name Dave Evans) played on U2’s early albums, from Boy in 1980 to the ’87 global smash The Joshua Tree, can be described thus: circular skeletal arpeggios swimming in oceans of reverb; few conventional chords or solos. But the elegant urgency of the Edge’s minimalism on those records perfectly framed and fueled the earnest, flag-waving theatricality of Bono’s voice.
With U2’s swerve into apocalyptic dance music on 1991’s Achtung Baby, the Edge coated his riffs in extreme distortion and electronic treatments but without betraying his playing credo: Less is most.
See The Edge close to the edge then falling off it altogether here.
