U2′s Joshua Tree Revival Hits Texas Big Tents

As cheesy as Bono’s slogans are, I love them all. As annoying as his pleas for peaceful dialogue and post-partisan unity are, I need them every time. As he has said before, compromise is not a dirty word. Neither us nor them: only we the people who follow this band, across this land.

On this Joshua Tree anniversary tour, reaching the masses in the massive venues of North America through July 1 and Europe through August 1, Bono has said these are concrete temples, these football stadiums. In the Texas heat, the concrete cathedrals are big tents, with the retractable roof in place and the AC turned up. By Friday in Dallas, temperatures rose to the mid 90s, so we were glad to be indoors. On my first Joshua Tree adventure with my teenage self in 1987, I skipped the Texas shows. This time, Houston and Dallas were my second and third shows of five.

Tracks from War and Unforgettable Fire serve up such a great prelude on the tree stage, but the humming, rising, intoxicating intro to Streets is when church begins. During “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” he wants to wipe our “Manchester tears away,” a reference to the terrorist attack on May 22 after an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. Since Bono has added the original “No War” chant to the recurring “No More” chant, it’s like I am back in the basement on Timberline, mind blown and body shaken and spirit moved by the Blood Red Sky VHS tape I dubbed off MTV. As “Pride” winds down and “Streets” revs up, Bono is preaching. For the frontman, the true radical is straight down the middle of the road. Everyone is welcome in this tent, for the “furious and faithful” are an America based on “joy and justice, compassion and community, rescue and refuge.”

For tonight, common ground is higher ground, Hewson teaches and preaches. For fans, the Joshua Tree portion of the show, the main act, that is higher ground. The reality that for some of us fans, the Holy Spirit always knows how to show up for “Where The Streets Have No Name.” But I cannot dance like this at the mainline churches I’ve attended, so for two Texas nights, I let the spirit take over. The concrete mainfloor of this concrete temple became a charismatic church aisle. Even though you can get a really good spot up front arriving as late as 6pm, I like to wander and hang out at the back, so I can work it out, rocking solo, prayers and emotions, dancing like nobody’s watching, throughout each part of the set. Back where a fan has plenty of room, I saw I was not alone in my own private dance party, as a young child and her mother practiced the latest moves learned at dance class. I started seeing this band with my parents. It’s just amazing how the shows bring us all together.

For most of the last three decades, “With Or Without You” or “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” are highlights of any U2 set they appear in. Same for the psychedelic growl of “Bullet the Blue Sky,” which for once is in its more traditional form, after countless recontextualizing over the intervening years. I’m not saying I don’t love the first side of Joshua Tree, all the way through “Running To Stand Still,” but these are all huge U2 songs that nobody would be surprised to hear in any concert on a recent tour. For example, during the Vertigo tour which I caught four times in 2005, you could expect to hear three or four of them on a given night, and all five of the first side were in rotation.

But side two, well that is a different story. These are all hardcore rarities. Had they not announced this special tour, I would have expected to never hear any of these songs again. Sure, I might have been surprised by the occasional appearance of “In God’s Country” or “One Tree Hill,” but even for the dedicated fans coming to these shows, this second side feels like something from another planet or at least time zone, a secret show that you won in a radio or TV lottery or that only popped up in your dreams.

“Red Hill Mining Town” is all chills and thrills, and the shivers continue until the encore break. “In God’s Country” refers not just to the panoramic landscapes, seen on the big screen as visuals so grand in the hand of Anton Corbijn, but also, according to Bono, to the interior landscapes of our psychological and spiritual reality. That’s what so surreal and even psychedelic about this show, there’s the invocation of something utopian, not either side of the “two Americas” but the cosmic American dreamscape of a better place that does not deny the bitter place.

The thorny and corny romp called “Trip Through Your Wires” has always been one of my all-time favorite U2 deep tracks. It’s equal parts sanctified and raunchy, rebellious yet holy, and I am not talking about the bikini-clad model seen by all of us and seeming out-of-place on a U2 big screen. The kind of thirst Bono invokes is inherently sacred, and he knows as well as any, that the required drink of water might come from an angel or a devil, from a lover or from God’s thunder and rain.

The always talkative Bono didn’t talk as much during the Joshua Tree tracks, but that may be changing as the tour moves on. In Houston, before “One Tree Hill,” he quoted the recent track “California,” saying, “There is no end to grief because there is no end to love.” On Friday night, before the same song, he talked about its origins in New Zealand, and he referenced Greg Carroll, the U2 crew member for whom the song is dedicated. “For anyone who has been robbed of a beautiful soul, we are going to sing this for you.” The hole in U2’s collective heart always finds the hole in our hearts, until we stumble to wholeness together. The healing might be temporary, but it’s real.

In honesty, on many private listens to the longtime favorite album, I would consider “One Tree Hill” to be the closing song. I know there are two more tracks, but they don’t get me on the album. But at this live revival, I didn’t sprint for the men’s room. Perhaps a dark conclusion is needed. After an archival film clip that parodies America’s 45th president, “Exit” begins. Bono reappears in a big black hat, begging us into a harrowing narrative of harm. This is a bad trip, like the brown acid at Woodstock. Our burdened brains receive a sucker-punch of adrenalin and dementia, so suddenly you are stuck in a mega-church gone wrong with psychotic pit-bull evangelism. The rest of the set will provide a suitable exorcism, be reassured.

After that bad-boy sadistic satisfaction of “Exit” as intentional trainwreck travesty, “Mothers of the Disappeared” still shows up as a solemn tribute. We could sing it for any mother and every mother. But mothers of sons cut down too soon by brutality, they need this song. When Bono took off his hat, bowed his head, and raised his fist, it’s like I could see that 1987 ponytail again. It’s the young man inside the old man from Dublin, said the young man inside this fan-man who chased this band back then and chases this band now.

At Houston, when they moved “Miss Sarajevo” and “Bad” to the first encore spot, this meant I could have my stupid-cry all in one place. These songs prompted me to bawl for different reasons, the first for collective grief, the latter for spiritual relief. The early “Bad” in Dallas was also dynamic, if a little disconcerting, as that track always felt like it fit in the middle or end of a set.

After first seeing the show in northern California, I frankly didn’t anticipate how well the Syria footage and Omaima plea would play in a place like Texas. So in Houston, I turned my back to the stage and walked towards the fans, scanning faces both on the floor and in the stands. I saw more tears, some quizzical but mostly sincere and solemn gazes of people drinking in the predicament of how wrong this world can be when we abandon our better selves for selfish systems. The singing about surrender promises at least one solution. Get out of self, get out there and help others.

Thanks to more setlist rearranging in Dallas, this meant that on Friday night, my two Texas shows in three days would end with a crescendo. “Beautiful Day” is always a beautiful thing, even in this rainbow-colored, space-age rendition. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the new track, “The Little Things That Give You Away,” but it feels like an odd way to end this show. I just wish they would release the next album already! So after “Beautiful Day,” the call of the exit ramps echoed in my gut, the tug of the idea of beating some traffic back to my AirBNB. By the time they finished an energizing “Elevation,” which is always better live, which always feels like I am at the gym, getting my workout on and hard, I had left the GA mainfloor and was bouncing around the concourse, close to the doors. So when Bono said “We can do this” and pulled an improvisational audible call for “I Will Follow,” it sent me into happy, zappy boyhood orbit once again. An usher and I danced on the outskirts, each of us in our own personal head and heart zone of rocking, sonic, cosmic, boundless, bounding bliss.

Leaving a U2 always comes with mixed feelings. This concert left me exhilarated, but I regret that my current run with them has already passed its halfway point. Three shows down, two remaining! This hobby costs more than it did in 1987, so I am grateful to my two jobs for the flexibility and income and my dear family for the support they offer me in zipping around to these gigs. -Andrew William Smith, @teacheronradio 

Photos are from Pasadena shows, by Justin Kent. http://www.justin-kent.com/

First Tree Reflections 2017: Primary U2 is Music and Poetry for Peace and Justice

Back in January, the Edge showed up at the Los Angeles version of the global women’s march during #45’s first weekend as president to play a jagged version of “Pride” with cinema star Juliette Lewis on vocals. As it turns out, that was not a one-off nod to the current wave of feminist fury against the gendered injustices of the current predicament. Indeed, the Joshua Tree’s 2017 revival reminds everyone in attendance about the vulnerability of women’s rights and the vision for universal equality.

Bono and the band reframe several songs as statements about sex and gender in the context of poverty and power. The encore of post-Joshua Tree songs come packaged in a searing cinematic tableau of agit-prop feminist and Womanist organizing. The re-invention of “Ultra-Violet” is ultravisionary for the audience member who can suspend the dark doubt of denial.

Somehow, U2 once again risks but transcends the white-liberal guilt-trip with a global testimony and altar call to activism. The videography blasts the buzzed and tired masses with a prophetic message packaged in sensationalized documentary footage. These are crimes against humanity, the disasters we privileged and paying customers might not want to stomach after already surviving so much cacophonic bombast and Bono preaching, unless we give in with our tears and a commitment to real social change.  Making “Miss Sarajevo” about Syria, the band brings Omaima Hoshan, a teen activist in the tradition of Malala Yousafzai, to speak for the hopes of young people in a war-ravaged region.

If you resent and recoil when Bono asks you to organize not agonize — as one fan tweeted, that the singer was talking “at” him and not “to” him — you may go ahead and beat the traffic at this point. When the cut-out mask gimmick with Aung San Suu Kyi didn’t really take on the first leg of 360 in 2009, this next stunt is a U2 crowd- engager in a history of such audacious and seemingly silly risks. A giant cloth photograph of Omaima is passed through the crowd; it’s kind of like “the wave” meets summer-camp ice-breaker, and that is when I started to stupid cry. We humans are better than our borders, biases, and bigotry, and we thank Bono and band for reminding us.

But last night was the Bay Area. And I cannot help but wonder how these bits will play when U2 reaches — where I will be for the rest of my shows this tour — the American South? Will the band keep this bit for the terror-mongers of Texas, the stoners at Bonnaroo, or the Bible thumpers in Kentucky? I remember the 2001 Lexington show when a fan cheered for Charlton Heston and against U2 during the gun-control version of “Bullet The Blue Sky.” Omaima might really inspire the crowds in Texas and Tennessee, in Kentucky and Florida, in ways the band might not anticipate, but that does not mean they should change the show. I don’t think they will. Just be ready for the masses to challenge this boldness.

Added to this are dynamic themes about diversity and the dogged ghosts of racism and genocide that haunt our content. From the U2 curated anthology of American poems that scroll on the screens on an empty stage while fans wait for the show to start to the sepia tones of Anton Corbijn films and photos, the shows runs on a rugged hope and passionate honesty; the band’s status gives them courage to challenge us, after all these years.

Before performing the Tree-in-sequence for the massive and meaningful middle section, the fans get going with a suite of War and Unforgettable Fire songs that send us singing and jumping and arm-waving. A reimagined “Sort of Homecoming” is the hard-core fan’s favorite addition to this tour, and it brings many of us back to our teenage years, first discovering this band on MTV and on vinyl records in our basement family rooms and poster-decorated bedrooms.

After a song by the Pogues, the band walked out, one at at time. Larry sits alone for the drum cadence of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and catapults us into the song Bono once said he hoped to stop singing. The world requires us to keep singing it. Same for “New Years Day,” “Pride,” and “Bad.”

We need to hold onto these songs of hopeful defiance. But other things we need to surrender. We fans need to surrender any second-guessing about the motives for this tour, for this is pure U2 in its primary colors. We need to throw ourselves into the enduring meaning of this tour and let go the rest. We need to let it all go, not just addiction and loneliness but also cynicism and hopelessness, resentment and the need for revenge.

I am so grateful to have four more shows yet to see, and I hope to write much more, as these morning-after musings just scratch the surface of everything we experienced with thousands of our friends on the third night of this inspiring annivesary tour and this present-day testimony to the power of music and poetry as means for peace and justice. -Andrew William Smith   @teacheronradio

Photos from opening night in Vanouver courtesy of Remy at www.U2Start.com 

 

All Gretchen Wanted Was U2

All Gretchen wanted was to get on stage with U2. Gretchen already has a stage of her own with the Boston garage band the Knock Ups, but being onstage with U2 would be something else entirely.

I first met Gretchen in May of 2005 as we stood outside the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Boston. U2 was in town on their Vertigo tour, and we both waited to meet the band. As is always the case when diehard U2 fans meet, we started exchanging U2 stories; it soon became clear that Gretchen loved U2 as much as I did. This was the start of a brilliant friendship with the woman I now refer to as my U2 soul sister.

Our U2 history is long. She was raised by a mom who was a U2 fan and was completely immersed in their music from the time she was twelve years old. I was born and raised in Boston and grew up listening to WBCN radio—the station that first broke U2 in the US. I vividly remember the moment I heard “I Will Follow” and was literally stopped in my tracks as I heard a sound that “made some sense out of the world.” When U2 came to the Paradise Theater in Boston on their Boy tour in 1981, I stood captivated in the audience watching a powerful, spiritual, punk rock performance that changed my life.

From the beginning of our friendship, Gretchen wanted to get onstage with U2. Born for the stage, she started singing and performing in local theater groups at a young age. Years later, she fronted the Boston punk rock band, Black Barbie. Gretchen had both the confidence and the talent to play with U2; it was just a matter of figuring out how to get her up there.

The Vertigo tour returned to Boston in October and December of 2005, but in October we weren’t scanned into the ellipse, so were too far away for Gretchen to be considered. In December, although we had rail spots for both shows, Bono chose an Elvis impersonator and Santa Claus to go up with him. In 2011, in Montreal on the 360 Tour, we were front row/rail, and Gretchen came close to being chosen, but it wasn’t meant to be.

As the dates for Boston’s iNNOCENCE and eXPERIENCE tour approached, Gretchen and I talked endlessly about our U2 plans for 2015—our GA meet and greet strategies, the pros and cons of main stage versus E stage, and the biggest challenge: getting her onstage to play with the band.

After many months of waiting, U2 week in Boston finally arrived. On the night before Boston 1, we headed down to U2’s hotel and saw Murphy, Bono’s bodyguard, standing outside on the sidewalk. It was quiet, and he was alone, so we introduced ourselves.

He was kind and gracious, and as we chatted, he mentioned that he recognized me from previous tours. He readily agreed to have his photo taken with us, and then, handed us his business card and asked us to email him a copy of the photos.

We said goodnight to Murphy and headed to the Garden for the GA check-in. We were overjoyed to have the contact info for Bono’s bodyguard: the man who is responsible for keeping Bono safe and who also plucks fans out of U2’s audience and gets them onstage. It felt serendipitous.

We emailed Brian the photos along with a note thanking him for his time and his kindness. We also spoke of our long history with U2. We further went on to mention Gretchen’s band The Knock Ups and her mad guitar skills.

We put in our request: would he please ask Bono to consider bringing Gretchen up to play one night in Boston?

That night at Boston 1, the most magical of the four Boston gigs, we were on the south side rail at the crease where the E stage meets the catwalk. Murphy was doing his bodyguard thing—walking up and down the catwalk, keeping his eye on Bono and on the fans in the arena. He saw me and came over, clasped my hand, addressed me by name and told me to enjoy the show. Ultimately, U2 didn’t play ‘Desire’ that night, but we went home full of optimism knowing that there were three hometown shows left.

For Boston 2, after much discussion we decided to do the south side catwalk rail. On the E stage that night, U2 played “Desire,” but they didn’t bring anyone up. However, as they segued into “Angel of Harlem,” Bono looked around and wondered “is there a girl guitar player in the audience who wants to come up and play?” There was no answer. He looked around and asked again. Still, no reply.

Gretchen was devastated that she had blown an opportunity by not being at the E stage.  When Bono couldn’t find the girl he was looking for, he instead chose a thirteen year old boy to play with them and, in a magnanimous gesture, gave the boy the guitar.

During the days off, we hoped for another U2 meet and greet. Back at the Ritz bar, luck was on our side as we ran into Adam outside on the sidewalk. He was charming as we spoke of our history with U2 and impressed that I was one of the fans at their Paradise show way back when; he thanked me for sticking with the band for so long. He graciously accepted Gretchen’s gift of a Knock Ups CD and t-shirt and laughed when we suggested that he wear the t-shirt onstage one night, since he’d been wearing punk rock band t-shirts all throughout the tour.

For Boston 3, Gretchen and I headed to the designated meet and greet spot outside the Garden. Before long, the black Cadillac Escalades started pulling up. Out of one car stepped Murphy and Bono, who started working the line.  Bono reached us. Gretchen gave him a CD and t-shirt while telling Bono that she was the lead singer and guitarist in a local band called the Knock Ups. She went on to say that it was a dream of hers to play onstage with U2. Would he bring her up tonight? He asked her what her name was, and when she told him, he said, “Well, Gretchen you never know how these things are gonna go” before he moved onto the next fan.

Later that night, we found the perfect position on the E stage rail. The show began, and soon, Murphy approached Gretchen to let her know that she’s going up; he gave her instructions on how to climb over the rail and fall back into his arms when it was time. We couldn’t believe it! For three tours, we had waited for his moment, diligently trying to make it happen! We were ecstatic and had difficulty focusing on the show as we waited for Gretchen’s moment. Gretchen was excited, ready, and not a bit nervous.

U2 finished playing “Crystal Ballroom” and we heard Bono say, “Gretchen, Gretchen, where’s Gretchen?” He scanned the rail, saw her, and within seconds, she was onstage with guitar in hand. I stood there, dumbfounded, as my U2 soul sister is coached by Bono on the chords to “All I Want is You.”

Watch the video to see what happens next. I can’t do it justice except to say that she, with her nerves of steel, killed it, becoming a celebrity in her own right.

Finally, in a week full of many surreal moments, at the fourth Boston show, imagine our surprise and delight to see Adam wearing his Knock Ups t-shirt when U2 came back onstage for their encore!!! I think Gretchen was more excited about this than she was about playing guitar with the boys. After all, instead of her giving a gift to the band, they were giving something fantastic back to her.

How sad we were to see our U2 week come to an end, but what a magical mystery ride we lived. Boston had seen four of the best gigs of the iNNOCENCE & eXPERIENCE tour—high energy, emotionally-charged shows that left us joyous and wanting more; and, if that weren’t enough, a lifelong dream had come true for my U2 soul sister. U2 sings of dreaming out loud, and now, the dreams of another diehard have certainly come true. Viva U2. –Donna Lane

Boston born-and-raised, Donna Lane is a mad U2 fan since her first show at the Paradise in early 1981. Follow @donna_marie40 on Twitter.

“Gay Pride In The Name Of Love”: U2 & Their Fans Celebrate Marriage Equality

David Wichman grew up in the 1980s listening to U2. He also grew up gay during the early days of the AIDS pandemic and experienced the double humiliations of bigoted demonizations and heartbreaking tragedies.

In the last 30 years, the fights against AIDS and for gay rights have come a long, long way, and some of the key allies for progress have been artists, actors, and musicians, including Bono and his bandmates in U2.

On Sunday, June 28, the day of gay pride parades in Chicago and around the world, millions celebrated the recent United States’ Supreme Court decision effectively legalizing gay marriage at the national level. But David Wichman took his personal Pride rally to the General Admission (GA) line at the United Center.

With his hand-decorated rainbow flag in tow, he wanted to get a place close to the stage. His flag simply said: “IN THE NAME OF LOVE – THANK YOU!” Wichman wanted Bono and the band to know their work as allies has not gone unnoticed.

Of course, dozens of fans bring their banners and signs to the GA floor on each night of the tour, but not every fan has their banner or sign lifted hjgh by the lead singer onstage. As Bono had done in May in Arizona after the news of Ireland’s successful marriage referendum, he turned this spirited Sunday night show into a celebration of marriage (his wife Ali in attendance) and a joyful tribute to the civil rights advocates who worked to make marriage equality a reality for the entire USA.

U2 had made their support for Ireland’s marriage reform known on the band’s official website U2.com, and these sentiments had been picked up by mainstream media. Now that support had come to the American audience on the North American leg of the Innocence + Experience tour in a city where one million people had particiapted in the Pride celebrations earlier that day.

Bono took Wichman’s rainbow flag and paraded it onstage during “Pride (in the name of love),” a track that has been soaring and shining this tour as a new civil rights anthem, not only for gay rights, but for the people of Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charleston. To see Bono dance the catwalk and approach the mainstage unfurling the universal symbol of gay rights was  not just a bold statement for the new equality paradigm but also an affirmation for all the bands’ fans who are proundly part of the LGBTQI community.

David Wichman shared his jubilant and eloquent response to the evening on his personal Facebook page, writing: “What does it matter that I tossed my pride flag onto the stage last night? Fans all over the world throw things on the stage and Bono happily acknowledges many of these gestures with love. What does it matter for Bono to take the time to acknowledge Gay Pride and the SCOTUS marriage decision?”

Wichman continues, “It matters because to have one of the most famous and loving generous humans on the planet support you and your community, this saves lives. People from every corner of the planet were watching Bono dancing with, spinning, and then gently carrying this flag across the stage, holding it up and then hanging it on the stage.”

He shares from his history of struggling with shame, “Some of them are just like me. They grow up in a world that tells them that they don’t count. A world that says that their life is a shameful disease. A world that feels like the only alternative to the pain of being who they are is suicide or blotting out reality with alcohol & drugs. So when your heroes and idols tell you that you matter, there is real hope.”

The pain and then hope Wichman mentions are real: “I buried a generation of friends and watched helplessly as many of my brothers & sisters around the world continue to be publicly brutalized, hanged, killed, shamed, and imprisoned. This counts! This matters!

I am so proud of this moment right now. My U2 family is more than just a fan base we are a worldwide network of Awesome.”

Bono’s celebration of David Wichman and the many fans like him is not just a humanitarian gesture for universal rights. It’s an acknowledgement of the unique beauty and struggle of the LGBTQI community for its integrity and its sanctity.

Bono’s activist crusades to fight AIDS in Africa have involved overt gestures of honest conversation and sometimes conversion with evangelical Christians. Bono is a respected Christ-follower among the fans who share his theology, and his faith inspires his advocacy; perhaps his bold unapologetic support for gay rights intimates a shift in Chrisitianity more generally, where full inclusion for LGBTQI members is now policy in many major mainline denominations.

Certain songs in the band’s setlist have generally accompanied Bono’s remarks for full equaliy, songs like “Pride,” “Beautiful Day,” and “One,” with these songs attaching themselves to the ascending rainbow consciousness and the ubiqitous motto #LoveWins.

During “Pride” with Wichman’s flag in his hands, Bono announces, “Gay pride in the name of love.” During “Beautiful Day,” Bono tweaks a line: “A rainbow of colors right in front of you.” Before “One,” Bono boasts that Ireland beat America to full equality by putting “the gay into Gaelic” and continued to speak eloquence on how difficult commitment is, but “Love rules! Love wins!” After dedicating the finale to the Pride marchers, the fans carried the closing song as a group singalong, 20,000 voices strong.

And if there were any lingering doubts, after the band leaves the stage each night, “Same Love,” Macklemore’s anthem in support of marriage equality, is the first tune to blare from the loudspeakers as the house lights go up. -Andrew William Smith @teacheronradio

Photos in this story by Justin Kent @justin_kent and David Wichman

YouTube link to film of “Pride” by Tim Newell: https://youtu.be/LbwPJIjoTtI

When The Psalms Came Down

Until Thursday, May 14, 2015 in western Canada, it’s been a decade since U2 did a predominately indoor tour, alternating as they have been between football stadiums and basketball arenas since the Joshua Tree days. While some folks speculated whether the vast shimmering audacity of the stadium-seasoned Claw could ever be rivaled, U2’s designer Willie Williams had been working behind the scenes. The Elevation tour’s “heart” has been cut in half by a cross-like stage that crosses the entire mainfloor of the venues that seem tiny compared to the grandeur of the 360-tour jaunt in 2009-2011.

Fans in the General Admission standing-only section have been split into the “North” and “South” sections that represent parts of Dublin. The setlist has been severed at the middle by an intermission that brackets innocence and experience, but there is nothing inanely “innocent” about the teenage fury of a set prefaced by vintage tracks by the Clash and the Ramones and snippeted with the likes of Johnny Rotten’s “God Save The Queen” sneaking into “Vertigo.”

Brought from the invasive iTunes download of 2014 to an even more in-your-face tour theatric, this is a radically reflective midlife crisis that goes beyond the hopeful chimes of Boy onto the barricades of a religious battleground. From youthful disillusion and despair, Bono and the boys answer like the romantic William Blake from whom they stole the album and tour titles. U2 respond to the unspeakable by speaking the only language they can conjure: a punk rock prophetic and apocalyptic ecstasy, the spiritual vision quest that must pass through nihilism and terrorism to seek redemption and release.

On Friday, the death of blues icon B.B. King brought “When Love Comes To Town” into the set. Leaving very little trace of No Line On The Horizon in the show leaves room for Rattle and Hum and the vibes that recently went busking with Jimmy Fallon into the New York subways. Creatively squeezing more than three decades of creative output into less than three hours means some flexible switching and slippage in the setlist from night-to-night; this will be especially welcome to the hardcore fans as the tour later lands for extended residencies in cities like Chicago and New York.

U2 have always claimed to be more punk than hippy, more blues than gospel, and it’s from a devotional fascination with the Psalms that Bono derives so much lyrical power. Surely spirit moved in mysterious ways as the band plotted the dramatic arc of the first half setlist, finishing strong with an emotionally potent trio of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” > “Raised By Wolves” > “Until The End Of The World.”

A heartbreaking and slow acoustic “Sunday Bloody Sunday” stops for the audio-video assault that recalls the 1974 Dublin bombings that prompted the words for “Raised By Wolves.” This is one spoiler fans might be grateful to be able to emotionally prepare for—but the reality that requires the realism of this song is an aspect of violent human folly that we’re all still wrestling with.

The biblical language of last suppers and epic betrayals sitting atop crunchy guitars and effects that makes “Until The End Of The World” a live U2 staple after all these years takes on an even deeper effect after what precedes it here. The times we live in today are no less apocalyptic than those that inspired the fiery poems of Blake or the flammable bombast of punk. The world is always ending for someone somewhere. It’s only the first half of this show closing, but suddenly it’s raining paper, like the chaotic debris after the Dublin bombs, yet it gets called confetti on Twitter. Pages ripped from Alice in Wonderland, Dante, and Eugene Peterson’s Psalms. Fans can take these shards of fantastic wisdom with them. From the fallout of terror and ultimate human error, God’s blessings are still falling from the sky.

U2 are much more comfortable than they were in the late 1970s, but that doesn’t stop them from making us all uncomfortable with our mere mortality and political complicity and complacent spirituality. Bono had to take us back to his adolescent bedroom on Cedarwood Road to show us the cauldron where his poetic pyromania first sparked. And then, he had the mad idea to transform that bedroom into a traveling punk-rock tent revival that he could take on the road to rouse middle-aged rock fans from their workaday slumber. From what the world witnessed in Vancouver (and thanks to the instant gratification of Twitter, fan forums, and YouTube, we really witnessed this, albeit remotely), this is a mad idea worth nurturing and a revival worth partaking in when it comes to your town. With psalms raining down, with love it is coming to town.

—words by Andrew William Smith @teacheronradio

Photos of pages, collected from the first Vancouver show, by Beth Nabi (@bethandbono on Twitter)

 

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