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U2 Concert Review: Blessings Are Not Just for the Ones Who Kneel| | I was well aware, when I bought tickets to see U2 way back in April, that I was getting myself into a potential logistical nightmare due to the size and scope of any U2 tour. But having never seen the band live before, and having a reasonable minimum of commitments in my life now that I'm likely to never have again for as long as this band continues to exist with its full membership intact, now was the time to finally make the pilgrimage. But thanks to Ike and Joyce, the friends who ended up sitting with me, we didn't have to worry about parking at all, AND we were able to work a little exercise into the experience, by way of parking at Ike's office and walking the mile and a half to the Rose Bowl. It was a perfect evening for it, being neither too warm at sunset right before the show, nor too cold at around midnight as we were heading back. Aside from the idiot loudmouthed evangelicals on the street yelling at the droves of people to repent as they flocked to the stadium (seriously people, have you listened to U2's music? Those guys'll do far more good for God's reputation in the world than your picket signs and megaphones ever will), and the veritable amoeba that we had to squeeze our way into just to get through the gates into each successive level of Dante's Inferno, it was an enjoyable trip.
The Black Eyed Peas were the opening act, and even though all we could hear from the outside of the stadium as we awaited to be let into the tunnels was bass and some fuzzy semblance of singing, it was pretty obvious that they had declared "Let's Get it Started in here", which drove the BEP fans in the group into an obnoxious frenzy as we were pushed and shoved and compressed into a funnel. When we finally emerged on the other side, it was the only moment in my life when I can honestly say I was happy to hear Fergie's voice. To be fair, while it's not my type of music at all, the BEP are at least good entertainers who write catchy songs. If you don't pay too much attention to the lyrics, I can see the appeal of a song like Boom Boom Pow or I Gotta Feeling. And I'll admit to even kind of liking Where Is the Love? At the same time, the utterly stoopid lyrics of most of their songs are tough to ignore, and they seem to engage in more gimmickry than actual skilled performance. The most blatant ploy to win over an audience who likely wasn't overrun by rap fans was when they invited Slash on stage (I didn't realize who he was at first, and thought, "Who invited Howard Stern?") to play his signature guitar licks during a cover of Guns & Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine, which found Fergie trying her best to impersonate Axl Rose, while the rest of the BEP stood around and essentially did nothing. Entertaining, but it clearly shows who sucks up all the attention in this group. At least we didn't have to put up with Fergilicious.
U2 themselves didn't take the stage until 9:00, despite YouTube advertising a worldwide webcast starting at 8:30. This probably means that they ran over the time limit before the noise curfew was set to take place - this being a stadium in a valley surrounded by residential neighborhoods and all - but regardless, they played more than a full set and put 110% in to their performance. The stage, which had already been impressive to see before we even entered the stadium, due to how the spire at the top of it stuck out above the rim of the Rose Bowl, finally had the full scope of its functionality unveiled, as the massive circle of hexagonal LED screens above the stage rotated and expanded and contracted and proivided interesting angles on the various band members, who frequently left the cetner platform in which they were performing to walk around the outer ring and across moving bridges that joined the two rings, with fans who probably paid a hell of a lot of money in between the rings and sometimes directly underneath Bono, The Edge, and Adam Clayton. The pure visual spectacle was one aspect, but it was also very efficiently designed to ensure nobody had a bad seat with an obstructed view. This explains why the capacity of each show has helped the band to set personal records (and often records for each venue visited) over the course of the tour. I'm normally not impressed by "big and flashy", but I had to admire the thought and creativity that went into this.
Here's how the setlist broke down:
Main Set:
- Breathe - Larry Mullen was the first one to take the stage, hammering out the raucous rhythm to this off-kilter opener, which is one of my favorites from No Line on the Horizon, but admittedly a difficult song as far as audience participation goes. It's high energy, and hearing it done live definitely overcomes the problem of weak production that holds it back a bit on the CD. It's more urgent than most of U2's latter-day offerings.
- Get on Your Boots - This really should've gotten more of a response; it's such a high energy, goofy, fun song, and a great showcase for Adam's booming bass, which almost takes the lead over Edge's guitar. I think it hasn't done well as a single, probably because it's too similar to "Vertigo", which is honestly a better song, but this was still a blast.
- Magnificent - My absolute favorite from the new album - they essentially hit the best three of their new songs right off the bat. I love how this song works on so many levels - it's danceable, it has those cimey guitar riffs that ring out across the stadium like U2's best oldies, it's a very spiritual song and yet it's very romantic, about two people uniting in praise of their Creator because they were simply born to do so.
- Mysterious Ways - The first of many beloved classics played that night. Edge's funky guitar lick immediately got the crowd pumped, and while the tempo seemed a little more relaxed than on Achtung Baby, it was an excellent performance and the first of many joyous sing-alongs. No Line appears to be an attempt to recapture some of the sound and spirit of Achtung, so it makes sense that they'd go back to that well several times during the setlist.
- Beautiful Day - Quintessential modern-day U2; it's hard to believe this song is almost a decade old already, since All that You Can't Leave Behind was the band's newest album when I finally declared myself a fan, and this song has only recently started to lose its "newness" for me. Old or new, I still get emotional when the chorus goes into overdrive. Bono surprised attentive listeners in the room with a small snippet of In God's Country over the closing notes of the song.
- I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - This was the first of many memoments where it occurred to me that I was experiencing something live, here and now in 2009, that had been around since I was a kid. I hear these old songs on U2's albums from the 80's, songs that the world has seemingly memorized and that are "before my time", and somehow it doesn't seem believable to me that I could be actually hearing them live in concert, played by the original artist, and not have it be some silly radio station festival where a has-been band who hasn't done squat in 20 years grudgingly agreed to reunite for the cash while people stood around eating barbecue pork and funnel cake, waiting for that one hit song they loved way back when to be played. These words still ring true - I've met God. I believe. I'm saved. But I still hunger for so much more. I'm not sure how it was related, but they pulled out a bit Stand By Me (which is older than U2's own oldies) at the end of this one.
- Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of - A completely different arrangement, with The Edge on acoustic guitar and Bono on vocals, and Adam and Larry taking five. I still recognized it right away, despite the glossy keyboard stuff being stripped away. I didn't realize until this point that it was Edge who sang the main vocal line during the song's climax. I'm not used to hearing his voice out there on its own - to some extent, he can still hit those high notes better than Bono can.
- No Line on the Horizon - Title track from the new CD. It had more of a charging guitar riff and it was more energetic in this context than its somewhat lackluster presentation on the CD, but it still wasn't a huge attention-getter. The material from the new album in general didn't seem to get much of a response. It's not a perfect album, but I think it's added some great stuff to their live sets.
- In a Little While - This has never been one of my favorites, but Bono sounded better singing this one live than his ragged take on the album version. I know it's supposed to be "soulful" and whatnot, but he just sounds like he's gritting his teeth all the way through it on the album. They did some sort of an uplink to a "space tourist" on the International Space Station, who recited a few lines from the song's bridge at the end of it. Appropriate, for a stage show that looked like an alien spaceship about to take off.
- Elevation - HOOOOO-oooh! HOOOOOO-ooh-ooh! Not that Bono needed any help with the high notes on this one, but we all threw the full force of our lungpower into it anyway. I would've lost my voice at this point if Ike hadn't thought ahead and brought us some bottled water after being brave enough to venture back through the tunnel between sets.
- Unknown Caller - By far the weirdest track from the new album, and to be honest, my least favorite. And even this was a solid performance, with the odd, barked-out commands being displayed on screen and lit up like some sort of brainwashing sing-along. Bono was fixated on the words "You know your name, so punch it in", and I'm honestly not sure what's up with all the computer talk in this song, but I appreciate it a little more after seeing them do it live.
- Until the End of the World - Continuing with the bizarre and unexpected, this story of Jesus betraying Judas from Achtung Baby concluded with Bono and Edge, on their respective moving bridges, reaching out to touch each other across the chasm, but then being pulled apart at the last second. Which one was Jesus and which was Judas? (I'm hoping Bono was Judas. Just because I don't want his ego to be that big.)
- The Unforgettable Fire - Now this was a relic, and it was surprising that they pulled it out in place of a more expected tune from the same album, namely Pride (In the Name of Love). I almost didn't recognize it without the synth washes and "ambient panting" from the album version, but it's about the most "80's-sounding" of any U2 song, so it probably needed the update. During this one, the LED screens began to spread out and form a pattern of hexagons with gaps in between, maintaining the proportion of the images of the different band members portrayed on them - that's some ingenious set design right there.
- City of Blinding Lights - The spire and floodlights at the top of the set went all aglow for this one. This was quite late in the game to finally pull out something from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, but I suppose they wanted to go easy on that album after spending most of their last tour on it.
- Vertigo - "Unos, dos, tres, catorce!" My other favorite from Atomic Bomb. Even if Bono can't count.
- I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - On the album, this one has a solid melody but they goofed on the energy by letting Larry take the backseat to the programmed drums. In concert, the drum programming worked to their advantage, as this seemed to be a complete remix of the song. Larry got up from his drum kit and looked thrilled to be joining the promenade around the outer ring of the stage as he banged away on his djembe. This version lacked a bit melodically, but it shook things up, as a song about going crazy really ought to do.
- Sunday Bloody Sunday - The oldest song played, from 1983's War. Dude, I was five years old when this song came out. They played it traditionally, letting Larry's militant drum march carry the song. For me it's never gonna kick as much butt without the violin, but it's still awesome in just about any incarnation. Krista told me some couple in front of her and Tim was making out during these song. Sigh. Sometimes I have to wonder whether some of U2's fans even get the magnitude of some of their songs, or care it all.
- MLK/Walk On - The main set closed with Bono's tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected prime minister of Burma, who has the unfortunate distinction of being 19 years late to her first day on the job due to political setbacks that I don't fully understand. Apparently U2's approach is to make noise about it by inviting fans from their ONE campaign onstage, to circle the band wearing masks of Suu Kyi, which is a bit corny, but it gets the message across. This is also not one of my favorite U2 songs, but the solemn eulogy that was originally placed at the end of The Unforgettable Fire as a tribute to Martin Luther King was interestingly repurposed as an intro to a rousing set closer.
1st Encore:
- One - Another one of those songs that U2 will probably never get away with not playing. I'm still blown away by the layers of double meanings in this song's lyrics. It was made even more intriguing by a simple chorus of the hymn Amazing Grace tacked onto the end. Never thought I'd be standing in a sports stadium singing that song along with nearly 100,000 people, many of whom were likely drunk or high.
- Where the Streets Have No Name - My favorite U2 song from the 80's. It bled in beautifully after the quiet ending of Amazing Grace. Whenever I hear this song, I think of setting out on a long road trip to somewhere new and exciting.
2nd Encore:
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way) - Honestly, a strange choice for an encore. It's my least favorite song from Achtung Baby, an otherwise solid album. The chorus of "Baby, baby, baby, light my way" is just too straightforward for its surroundings, and doesn't Crazy Tonight kind of supersede this one by doing essentially the same thing? In any event, the visuals during this one were fascinating, with the band wearing jackets which glowed in the blacklights positioned around the stage, and Bono singing into and swinging on a strange, sterring wheel shaped microphone suspended from the spire above him.
- With or Without You - The last of the obvious hits - except for Pride and perhaps I Will Follow, the band covered the bases and then some regarding their oldies. This one's a time bomb of passion waiting to happen - I know what's coming, but it still knocks me on my ass every time.
- Moment of Surrender - The odd setlist choices culminated in the mellow groove of this finale, which began with an awe-inspiring effect as the house lights were shut off and only the glow of fans holding up their cell phones was visible, turning the stadium into a vertiable galaxy. I'm not sure this song quite invokes the feeling of euphoria that a band like U2 would want to close a set with, but I love the bass groove and Edge's understated solo. It's slowly becoming a favorite from the new album.
And that was the end, after nearly two and a half hours of uniformly great performances. As we made our way through the crowds and cars and trash and trekked back to the car, a line from "City of Blinding Lights" popped back into my head: "Blessings are not just for the ones who kneel, luckily." Bono audibly made a comment about "grace" after singing that line, and I don't remember what it was, but it was interesting when juxtaposed with his later performance of "Amazing Grace". I wish the obnoxious evangelists standing on the street with bullhorns could have actually experienced the show themselves and heard this. It would have probably fallen on deaf ears if they did, since your hardcore fundamentals are never going to be pleased with a "worldly" band like U2. But that's the essence of what U2 seems to be all about - blessings not just for the ones who kneel. There's something in their music which ignites, or at least highlights, a longing within people who may not come from anything near the Christian background that many of Bono's lyrics come from. There's something universal in many of his lyrics - not in the sense that he's saying "all paths are the same", but in the sense that he can take what he believes to be true and express it in ways that turn the Christian jargon on its head, that those with ears to hear can mull over and be intrigued by. It's not evangelism. There's no agenda. But it's a reminder to those of us with our didactic and pushy ways of trying to get the Gospel out there that sometimes all you need is just to write ans play and sing from the heart, and people will respect that even if they don't agree with it. Maybe they'll even come to believe a little more of it than they used to. But either way, they'll leave at the end of the night blessed by something that maybe they weren't expecting when they came in.
| | | Posted 10/26/2009 10:53 PM - 9 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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