U2-Vertigo Tour-Opening Night

bono once said u2's greatest fear when they embarked on their journey to rock and roll immortality was that they would grow up and suck. well guess what, even after all these years and their advanced age, u2 still does not suck. (but they may be working on it. . .)

i want to establish my authority to review u2, which is tricky business. i don't have the authority of a press pass or a gig writing for some rock mag. i am neither a friend nor an enemy of the band. i don't want to give the typical adam sandleresque rundown of the shows i've seen etcetera but, i have followed them since the early part of their careers.


*adam sandleresque rundown of shows*

• first saw them at the long beach civic auditorium in support of the unforgettable fire, (i think.)
• saw them twice more in la at the sports arena, same tour.
• (missed them touring for the joshua tree as i was in japan.)
• ended up not going to mann's grauman's chinese theatre for their impromptu show on the street at the hollywood opening of rattle and hum.
• saw zoo tv tour indoor broadcast at the same san diego sports arena i saw them open the vertigo tour at last night. clutched hands with bono during until the end of the world. i had great seats-they had a tiny stage thrust out about 15 rows into the crowd.
• saw zoo tv outdoor broadcast (w/ the sugarcubes and public enemy,) at dodger stadium.
• saw popmart at jack murphy stadium in san diego, mile high stadium in denver, and the coliseum, in la.
• saw all that you can't leave behind tour at arrowhead pond and at staples center, in la.
• counting monday, march 28th at san diego, that's nine times i've seen them live.
• i own some u2 memorabilia which has increased in value from when i purchased it by 2,000%.
• you get the picture, i'm quite a fan.
• but i'm not loony. it is not as if u2 can do no wrong in my sphere. while i am forgiving, i like to think i am fair in criticism, even when considering some of my favorite artists ever.
  
  so let me tell you about monday night. 91x, the only san diego radio station worth listening to, played only u2 songs on monday and touted the fact they would not be repeating any version of any song. i was able to listen for several hours during the day and those songs helped me get excited about the show. (i even heard a couple of songs i had not previously heard, thanks to the ipod release of their every track.)
  
  they opened with a song from how to dismantle an atomic bomb, (i think it was city of blinding lights,) then rolled right into vertigo. i think vertigo is a great song. thanks to u2's marketing campaign with the aforementioned ipod, i have little desire to hear it these days but i still like the song. (market saturation sucks-u2 does not.) to me the song is about vertigo, it's about the loss of equilibrium and balance in the age of information and sensation overload. it is brilliantly crafted so the music and the pulse of it, (along with the lyrics,) contributes to the overall message/feel of the piece of art that is the song. it would fit on radiohead's ok computer only where those songs speak of the isolation of the age of technology, of the chill of the confrontation inherent in solitude, of the confusion of media, vertigo admits those possibilities but suggests you may dance anyway. (and let's face it, i'm all about dancing.) when bono sings, "i can feeeeeeeeeeeeel!" it is typical u2, ever hopeful and positive in the face of confusion. the ad campaign for which u2 did not accept any royalties beyond the countless kids brought into the fold of u2 fans, seems to have discounted the real value the song merits.
  
  soon after vertigo, u2 fired up the time machine and went back to boy in conjuring stories for boys and an cat dubh/into the heart. wow. this portion of the show was easily the highlight for me. i didn't expect such a treat. and u2's sound and those songs stood the test of time in so much as they sounded like they could have been played on any alt-radio station last week. in fact, (speaking of radiohead,) u2's sound was as it really was back then, atmospheric and moody. i remember the days of the unforgettable fire when critics would describe u2's music as ethereal and spacey, these words seemed to be a denouncement of their ability to make a pop song or a love ballad or something that was truly radio friendly. boy, october and the unforgettable fire were filled with songs that evoked similar descriptions. and this inability to reach the masses so early in their tenure was likely a blessing, (because i believe they would have if they could have.)
  
  to be honest, the show never really went south. i could listen to u2 play live for as long as they could play live-i'm pretty sure. but when it ended, i was disappointed. in the course of their set, they played some great songs. they played bullet the blue sky and where the streets have no name. they hit, all the hits, (mostly.) beautiful day, elevation, one, sunday bloody sunday, pride (in the name of love,) zoo station, the fly, new year's day, etc.
  
  two songs stand out as having sounded exceptionally good. u2's rhythm section took new year's day and drove it right into my chest. it thumped and pumped and edge's guitar fill just sort of loomed over the whole thing and bono intoned the lyrics in a heartfelt way without seeming overwrought. listening to it i was reminded of bono's story about how he imagined lech walesa's reunion with his wife upon release from prison when he wrote the song. when u2 played the song, i was transported to that cell walesa lived in. i imagined the moments he must have longed for his wife and felt like the world would stop when they reunited and he would be with her, (be with her,) night and day. and to me, this is where u2 slays all other bands except the beatles. their lyrics are better. period. bono is a poet on par with bob dylan. running to stand still was also outstanding. gone were the theatrics of bono puncturing his arm with a heroin-laden syringe but what was left was what was always there: a tender and moving rendering of a person stuck in a moment of weakness. and it sounded like we all knew the song and we all sang along; "hah-la-la-lah-di-day, hah-la-la-light-o'-day, hah-la-la-di-day. . ."
  
  a couple of non-musical moments were nice as well. first, they opened the show with slow-falling, glittering confetti dropping from the center of the arena, and second, they had an interlude featuring the text of the united nation's declaration of human rights with an entreaty to fans to go to www.one.org to help create global equality. bravo to u2 for fighting for social justice.
  
  this is really just one of many reasons why i adore u2 but they tend to have themes and causes they promote and lend their support to, from record to record and tour to tour. from bono's recent efforts on behalf of jubilee 2000, (all that you can't leave behind,) to the band's campaign to increase the membership for amnesty international, (joshua tree,) to their seminal days raging against the violence that ripped families apart in ireland, (war,) u2 recognizes their position and status and they do not back down from it-in fact, they are responsible with it.
  
  in many ways, i feel like i have journeyed with u2. when i was a teenager, i was drawn to u2 because they were positive. it's that simple. i liked bands in those days like the cure, who were dark and seemed pessimistic. i liked the eurythmics and depeche mode who seemed more stylish than substantive and for this reason precisely, i championed u2. i told everyone i knew about this band, carried their cassettes around with me as if i was the u2 evangelist. and yes, i was something of an evangelist and that did play into the equation. when bono sang on tomorrow, (off of october,) "i want you to be back tomorrow, i want you to be back tomorrow, will you be back tomorrow. . .open up, open up, to the lamb of god, to him who made the blind to see, he's coming back, he's coming back, i belieeeeeeeve, jesus is coming!" i rejoiced. when on the zoo tv tour the band played running to stand still and bono began singing hallelujahs with outstretched arms and head tilted back, twirling in a circle under the spotlight, it felt more pure and worshipful then anything i ever experienced in a church. it was a celebration.
  
  in the late 80s, when i was living in japan, it seemed everyone was listening to bon jovi. i remember a friend coming back from the states, (from arizona, specifically,) telling me u2 was blowing up stateside, on mtv every 20 minutes, contests and radio airplay galore. . . i went home weeks later and sure enough, u2 was hitting it as big as i had always predicted. i felt like the preacher who had predicted christ's return on so many sunday afternoons and finally witnessed the rapture. well, those late 80s years were the worst i ever encountered musically. after u2, (and the pixies,) it was difficult for good bands to get airplay because the airwaves were clogged up with trash like poison, warrant and skid row.
  
  years later i was fortunate enough to hear and enjoy nirvana, pearl jam, radiohead, jeff buckley, and of course there were a lot of other great bands or artists along the way but u2 had the rare ability to retain their dignity, act responsibly and be commercial. in being commercial, it could be argued that they "sold out," in any number of ways but what being commercial really means is reaching a wider and larger audience. i suppose selling out can be a valid term if the process involves somehow not being true to oneself and/or lowering one's values in some way. but u2's quality of product has always been high. they're lyrics are second to none. their humanitarian efforts are more effective than others. (have a concert and send food to ethiopia and feed the people for a day. get ethiopia's debt forgiven and increase the value of their currency and you practically teach them to fish.)
  
  so while i enjoy some dark bands, (surely there is no better 2am music than leonard cohen,) i love u2's commitment to positivity. here's an encapsulated version of some of the messages i heard u2 sending over their life span as artists:
  
• "i can't change the world, but i can change the world in me." (rejoice - october)
• "i will follow." (i will follow - october)
• "In te domine...exultate...miserere." (gloria - october)
• "a new heart is what i need, oh god, make it bleed. . .let the bells ring out." (like a song - war)
• "if i want to live, i got to die to myself some day." (surrender - war)
• bono, on u2's charity/activism efforts: "it's anything you can do, if you can just do it with a bit of dignity."

there are many biblical references and much biblical imagery in u2's lyrics, (not unlike leonard cohen.) right up through pop, these references abound. after pop, (all that you can't leave behind and how to dismantle an atomic bomb,) they seem to become more overt, (almost as overt as on october, at which point in time their obscurity as a band tended to mask their would be credo, especially from the listener who is backtracking.)

u2 may have shown a dark side when they wrote surrender, (for war,) or running to stand still, but in those days their dark side wore a halo. they were the innocent observer of darkness, writing their poems about friends and acquaintances who succumbed to addiction or worse, but it wasn't until achtung baby that they actually showed their own ability to delve into the pit of sin or destruction. maybe silver and gold from rattle and hum showed a glimpse of the grittier side of life they were approaching? in that song they seem to recognize the nature of currency and perhaps, capitalism.

"the warden says the exit is sold, if you want a way out, silver and gold."

if they were remarking on or exploring an aspect of societal inequality or expressing any iota of outrage, who knows, but in achtung baby u2 can be heard as men, finally. corporeal, sage, balanced, men. zoo station is about a subway station in berlin where people can be seen shooting up drugs in public. in this way, it is said berlin is a 48-hour city-many people, (especially in the inner city,) stay up for 48 hours at a time, (for obvious reasons.) the band went to berlin because history was occurring, (also in public.) they thought the events of the day and the place would infuse their work with an energy and creativity perhaps they had not previously known. (i recall these things from being a fan, from reading the articles in the various magazines, from reading bill flanagan's u2 at the end of the world and eamon dunphy's unforgettable fire books, and perhaps from being on the u2 wire fan club thingy in my earliest days of surfing the internet. i haven't the time to cite quotes or even research or fact check but i believe i am accurate in the essence in these things.) and it did. actually, i would guess their age and circumstances played a greater role in the final product achtung, but it all played. edge went through a divorce and bono wrote about it/imagined it. axl rose called one the greatest rock ballad ever written, (this from the band who couldn't. . .) and i concur with his estimation. one is sublime in its grip on the pain and vertigo of love relationships.

"you say, love is a temple, love the higher law, you ask me to enter but then you make me crawl, but i can't keep holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt."

in its simplicity, ("one heart, one life, one love. . .) it conveys basic human emotion and it is like the water of rock songs, it is for everyone. in its complexity. . .

"have you come here for forgiveness?
have you come to raise the dead?
have you come here to play jesus to the lepers in your head?
did I ask too much?
more than a lot?
you gave me nothing, now it's all I got.
we're one, but we're not the same. we hurt each other, then we do it again."

it is achingly poignant. in one you can sense the dance of lovers and leavers. why did he or she come to the other? when nothing is offered and nothing is what is retained, it fucking hurts, man. you know what i mean? can you feel it right there. bono grew a pair of sarcastic nuts on this song. while one ends positively enough, ("we get to carry each other. . .") three songs later he's stroking his sarcasm again on so cruel. (i'm certain i remember bono specifically saying he imagined edge's perspective when writing this song.)

"we crossed the line, who pushed who over? it doesn't matter to you-it matters to me. we're cut adrift, but still floating, i'm only hanging on to watch you go down, my love."

bitter. bitterly beautiful and poignant and real.

"i disappeared in you, you disappeared from me, i gave you everything you ever wanted, wasn't what you wanted."

i knew this girl, (and i don't mean edge's ex-i think her name was aislinn.) i mean the prototype. this is the same girl who reappears in tryin' to throw your arms around the world. she is never satisfied. she thinks there is always something out there bigger and better and brighter and louder and more exhilarating in every way and of course, she's a dumbass. and that is my point about this song and this record, it translates. bono is a master of basic imagery, (hence, the biblical references galore.) but he never got it better than on achtung. he once referred to that record as "a heavy mutha," and he was right. it's so heavy it can't be my brother. it's so heavy the cool british rock press always (correctly) ranks it up there with sgt peppers and a couple others as best rock albums ever. it's so heavy, not even u2 can surpass it.

"the men who love you, you hate the most, they pass right through you like a ghost, they look for you but your spirit is in the air, baby, you're nowhere."

okay, okay, i'll stop already but look at that. this is a universal feeling. if we haven't all known someone who exemplified these passages, we've felt like we did at one time or another. one more thing, bono can't really be sexual. he doesn't seem to have it in him. i guess it is likely because he never wanted to write rock and roll songs about sex in the back seat of a chevy, but sex is obviously another catholic area in the panorama of human experience, fertile area to write about and explore. while he can refer to "the orbit of your hips, eclipse. . ." for the most part, his self image/dogma/messianic complex/ideals do not allow him to write crappy lyrics about sex that end up coming off like a 14-year-old boy fumbling around in the dark for his penis. the closest he came though was on this album when he conjured a dream within a dream of the encounter between judas and jesus in until the end of the world.

"in my dreams, i was drowning in sorrows, but my sorrows they learned to swim, surrounding me, going down on me, spilling over the brim, waves of regret, waves of joy, i reached out for the one i tried to destroy and you, you said you'd wait, until the end of the world."

now doesn't that sound a lot better than "you make a grown man cry?" despite the fact the best sexual imagery he ever conjured was meant to address the age old christian doctrine question about the possibility of judas obtaining salvation, this is a sort of intelligent sexual allusion.

i suspect as u2 ventured into dance music and made zooropa and pop, they figured a diversion would best sustain them from a typical obsolescence, (perhaps the stigma of sting's five good records theory.) the lyrics remained strong, the music was good, pop, in particular, was a really good record. however, they're status on the charts waned.

as an aside. . . (i swear this happened to me. one day, i heard thom yorke being interviewed for a french radio station and he talked about how when he heard some record or another by some other band, [maybe it was air?] he felt ill. it took me a second but i got it. a month or so later, u2 was on kroq suffering through an interview with jed the fish, [or maybe it was a breakfast with kevin and bean when they drank the guiness and champagne concoctions,] and i heard bono say exactly the same thing but about the new oasis or rem records. hmmm. . . i love this guy; bono, but perhaps sometimes he doth protest too much. er, i mean, perhaps sometimes he does seem a bit contrived in his messages to the public. maybe it was sheer happenstance, coincidence. maybe.)

anyway, at that time they were promoting all that you can't leave behind. they really screwed up the titles on these two records, by the way. pop should have been all that you can't leave behind. they couldn't leave behind the disco balls of zooropa, the underground parties of nyc with all the hipsters and cross-dressers, the rock star image of macphisto and the glitter guy. (he just morphed into the muscley t-shirt guy or the unabomber.) all that you can't leave behind should have been pop, because that's what it is. some of the best pop i've ever heard, too. the songs on that record can be played on easy listening stations as well aor stations. some get airplay on alt-rock fm channels, (walk on, in a little while,) some make pop radio execs drool, (beautiful day, wild honey, in a little while.) and then there are peace on earth and grace. there are not more than about six or seven u2 songs i actually dislike, (okay, okay, i'll list them for you:)

• 
  a room at the heartbreak hotel
  even better than the real thing
  peace on earth
  grace
  yahweh

while grace is somewhat less off-putting than peace on earth, they are both trite pieces of steaming crap. (wow, crap twice in one piece and i never use that word. must be bono.) i can see where bono may have thought he didn't care how trite these songs seemed, the point was to reach milling masses of human life with a basic humanist message and maybe there is something to that. maybe in using the vertigo/ipod marketing putsch thereby expanding u2's reach to another generation, they can somehow elevate on a grand scale. why not? (and screw bob dylan for getting in bed with victoria's secret.)

the ultimate question is, can you promote belief in god and christian values and retain your relevance? if u2 is humanist, how can they also be christian? differences in opinion of religion have wreaked a greater amount of death, destruction, havoc and carnage on the human species than any other. u2, (and bono in particular,) are extremely careful when they discuss the topic of religion. if a question is posed to the band relating to religious beliefs, i have actually heard bono say something to the effect of, "ooh, that one's on religion, i'll take that question." reading between the lines, i believe their goal is to avoid associating themselves with a particular doctrine or sect but at the same time, to identify with all who believe and who consider their belief systems to be at the core of their fundamental values and/or, that which restrains them from the pursuit of evil.

(i will try not to digress into this topic too much but. . .) i struggle with religion and religious people. on the one hand, i have friends who are devout christians. they are the salt of the earth-nicest people you would ever want to meet. one practiced jesus-style christianity years ago when he let me live in his living room because i needed a place to stay. (rent free.) on the other hand, there are people out there like jerry falwell who are as intolerant as the day is long, blaming homosexuality for terrorist attacks and things like that. there is osama bin laden out there, believing america and americans evil to the core. there are peaceful sunni muslims and there are more radical shiite muslims. there are mormons in utah who believe in polygamy and there are christians in the united states who believe those mormons will spend eternity in hell, weeping and gnashing their teeth.

so given the potential for religious ideas to cause such great division amongst humans, why embrace those images and ideas at all? can they really be seen as humanist? when bono was running around the stage with a white flag, wasn't the flag meant to represent an absence of division? perhaps it represented the idea of surrender in some positive light but the absence of colors on a flag was clearly an absence of division. it stood for brotherhood. it contrasted with the religious warring ever present in northern ireland. religion in this world is all about division. religion causes brother to take up arms with one another. little else has the power to cause such strife amongst humans and yet, u2 has become increasingly overt in their zeal of late.

i didn't like when my rock concert turned into a church service. u2's encore consisted of pride, where the streets have no name, one, all because of you, yahweh and 40. yahweh means god in hebrew. like the entire record and despite the guitars and drums, it is a soft singsongy sort of tune you might have sang with a group on a hay ride at church camp. it is not a terrible song. it's just, who needs a u2 song called yahweh? perhaps it's a metaphysical new-agey positivity thing. still, who needs that? who needs to delve into the religious? is it possible bono thinks we might all still get on the same page some day. (and if so, would he condone the war that caused it to come about?)

40's lyrics come from the psalm of the same number. on monday night they ended their show as they did several times when i saw them in the 80s. as the crowd sang the chorus along with bono,

"i will sing, sing a new song. . ."

bono left the stage waving goodbye. next edge took off his axe and departed as well. soon adam followed and eventually, as the crowd continued to sing the chorus, larry stopped drumming and left 15,000 people singing and swaying.

when i was a young christian, devout as anyone, intent on spreading the gospel and happy to spend a worhipful evening singing songs and studying the bible, i adored this ending. i used to look down my nose at the fans of other bands thinking, 'they just don't get it.' this camaraderie evident at a u2 show pulled me in and if only for an evening, made me feel all those things i looked to christianity for in the first place: a sense of belonging and communion and brotherhood, a sense of purpose and destiny. this may sound overblown but to a degree, this was what it was all about. i would call them, u2; the positive rock band, but that would sell them short since they are so much more. they are artists, exercising and inspiring the imagination. so there is contradiction. it was good then but not now?

and the truth is, losing my faith was the best thing that ever happened to me and u2 played a role in that. through their work and their words, bono encouraged me to think for myself. it's true that i read nabakov's lolita because of sting's line in don't stand so close to me. i often read books because michael stipe said something about one that piqued my interest or some such thing. and bono did this as well. salman rushdie became one of my favorite writers in the world in part because bono mentioned supporting his cause, (and of course, bono supported his cause by putting him up at his house for the better part of a year.) i don't suppose i necessarily understood many of the implications of the satanic verses as they relate to islam but i know an epic novel when i read it. (it is also interesting that while living at bono's house, rushdie wrote the ground beneath her feet, a novel about an imaginary, indian rock band. rushdie wrote the words for the u2 song of the same name and i highly recommend the novel, which is likely rushdie's most entertaining and accessible [for westerners,] work.)

so perhaps it feels to me, upon listening to yahweh there in the ipay1 center, (whatever that is,) like i have grown and evolved but u2 has not? 40 sat better with me if for no other reason than nostalgia, but this entire record rankles me a little. rock and roll is about getting people moving, making them jump up and down and dance and flail about. every band i have ever known or seen who went soft was rejected after a season. (anyone remember journey?) there's a million of those groups. they weren't necessarily hard rock to begin with and this is not an endorsement of harder is better but it is the band that retains that ability to make someone get out of their seat and move around that thereby gains staying power. u2 always seemed to know that. with or without you was followed by bullet the blue sky. for every stay or if god will send his angels, (i know, i know...) there was zoo station and mofo. and the pop record all that you can't leave behind was a quality softening and it had up tempo songs. how to dismantle an atomic bomb seems to seek the same formula but it just misses and it misses most clearly on songs like yahweh.

u2's fate could be worse than the slide the stones took if they don't alter their course. yeah, i feel like darth vader in saying it, but those boys need to move towards the dark side. it's not like conjuring satan at their concerts is required but the fans they are attracting now are as fickle as can be and they're the same ones who bought records from brittany spears and ashley simpson. the encore on monday night sounded a tiny bit like a knell, signalling a descent into irrelevance or obscurity.

i left the show with two thoughts on my mind. one, if i could direct their next action, bono would discard the freaking costume and return to wearing jeans and t-shirts and portraying himself as a regular guy, and two, it sure is nice when you stumble on a new band like mars volta.

it is really a strange thing trying to write about u2. i seem to have wandered all over the place.

the latin from gloria? i think it means something like: in you mister/father, i exult, take pity on me. . .