Pros: Some cool photos... and it's a book about U2 (What more could you want)
Cons: Why am I reading this?
The Bottom Line: Buy Flanagan's "Until the End of the World" instead if you don't have it already. Only get this one if you are a U2 completest or bored.
calebu2's Full Review: Dianne Ebertt Beeaff - A Grand Madness: Ten Years ...
Have you ever kept a diary and then thought to yourself "I wonder if I could make money by selling this"? Dianne Beaff surely did.
If you missed out on the chance to go to shows in the eighties and nineties, don't worry - Dianne got to go to most of the shows and will happily tell you what she thought of them.
It's a sweet book and to be honest, the author put a lot of her personal life out in the open by writing the book, but it really isn't much more than the sort of thing that you have to hand in for your 5th grade holiday report (You know the one that starts "Today I went to another country and I saw this really big band and they played lots of music and it was really cool and then we went back to our hotel and we saw that the minibar was half empty and...").
It's not as if the author was touring *with* the band, as is the case with Until the End of The World (Which is the book you should be buying). This is just the day in day out tale of a very committed fan.
I admit, I got some good laughs in parts, I found myself saying "been there, done that" and nodding in many places. But with the multitude of fan websites out there (atu2.com, u2tours.com to name but two) which give hundreds of setlists and fan reviews of concerts, do you really need to buy a book to tell you this? Heck, you could just stay up all night reading epinions reviews!
I'm not going to say that this is a definite "Avoid It" because the author did a better job than most could have done (or afforded to do - I don't think she ever addresses the issue of how she afforded all of this touring) and it's the sort of book that some might enjoy (if you enjoy reading other people's diaries for the hell of it). I certainly felt mislead by the book and it's title. "How a fan spent 10 years having the time of their life with commentaries on the weather when there was nothing U2 related to talk about" would be a more accurate title.
An uncompromising account that captures the essence of the Irish rock band U. From the spirit of their Joshua Tree concert through the flamboyance of ...More at Alibris
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