After color explosions both bands return to monochrome sleeves, which is fitting with the music since The White Album and All That You Can’t Leave Behind, in contrast with their previous productions, go back to basics by stripping their music of the ornaments that had to be incorporated along the way. At this point it, The Beatles and U2, start to reconnect again with their more simple origins, and we can see how With The Beatles and Boy, the correspondent albums from the first stage, have black-and-white sleeves as well. Perhaps the use of black-and-white is a direct result of the desire to be more simple.
After a long journey into the Underworld that started with Achtung Baby, U2 finally arrives home experiencing a feeling of Elevation. An altitude reached as the result of opening up to the joy of a warm family welcome, and the ecstatic celebration of a completed journey. This sense of returning to the place from which 'they started out from' is conveyed through the title chosen for the exclusively released Target EP, U2-7, which is a direct reference to the first official release of the band, U2-3. Interestingly, by adding up the numbers of both EP titles (which alludes to the number of songs in them), the result is 10, a number of completion and a number of new beginnings as well.
"Call to me
and I will answer you and will tell
you great and hidden things
which you have not known.'
Jeremiah 33-3
The most important proposition made in ‘The Ethereal Connection’ is that we are in the presence of a “Great Rock Cycle” which, as any cycle or process, is defined by three stages, in this case, each one carried through by a different Rock Band. The Beatles being the first, U2 the second, and in the third stage a Third Band needs to appear, after which the "Great Rock Cycle" will be completed (crowned).
Taking this into consideration, it's unavoidable at this moment to use verse 33-3 of Jeremiah, inserted in the cover of All That You Can’t Leave Behind, noticing its interesting configuration of triads (33-3), which is the way in which this process is developing, and interpret it as a premonition for the appearance and success of a Third Band, which should be precisely at this moment integrating itself in the process.
| Graphic 29: Jeremiah 33- 3 in ATYCLB cover |
Graphic 30 below elaborates this further. It’s a circle divided in 9 segments, which in turn are divided in three triads. Each triad corresponds to the careers of each of the three bands. Every point along the circle corresponds to, what I call, a ‘moment of crisis', or 'transition'.
| Graphic 30: Three Bands, Three Stages, and Crowning |
The potential Third Band would need to have the strength to confront, at the same time, The Beatles and U2’s influence, and emerge unharmed. It would complete the three-stage process, and as U2 did with The Beatles legacy, it will raise it to a new level.
