By: David Schultz

We are well beyond any debate over whether U2 is currently the biggest band in the world. They assumed that mantle quite some time ago and show no signs of relinquishing their stranglehold on the title. Unlike anyone since the Beatles, U2 makes you feel like part of something larger. Since putting away The Fly’s sunglasses and shedding the ironic patina of megalomaniacal excess that they wrapped themselves in at the end of the 90s, U2 suffused All That You Can’t Leave Behind, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and the recently released No Line On The Horizon with their passionate desire to change the world without resorting to pandering, preaching or hyperbolic hypocrisy. The Beatles thought all you needed was love and that we should give peace a chance; U2 is a bit more proactive and a lot more politically engaged.

Last week, U2 carted one of the most extravagant stadium sets into Giants Stadium for a pair of weekday shows in the Garden State. Primordial let modern, the immense stage included one of the more amazing video screen constructions ever seen in a concert setting. Due to the NFL moving Sunday’s New York Jets game up three hours, U2’s Friday night party in New Jersey had to be relocated to Wednesday. The midweek show may have dimmed the collective inebriation of the crowd but it hardly doused the electricity. A U2 concert is nothing short of a life-affirming event: if you don’t leave the show having been uplifted in a deeply existential way, rock and roll may not be the thing for you to be spending your time on. “Walk On,” dedicated to Burmese dissident and political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, not only came with an explanation as to who she is (which c’mon, you wouldn’t have known without Bono), it had a parade of children displaying her photo in a quiet and moving protest. In the lead-in to “One,” a video of Desmond Tutu reminded the audience of the power that human beings have to effectuate change. That it may have echoed the same sentiment expressed in the Pele speech from Vision Quest made it no less inspiring. The power harnessed by U2 and unleashed on their massive crowds is the exact type of influence that those hysterical suburbanites worried about in the Fifties. Fortunately, U2 adheres to the good side of the force. Blackberry bends to Bono’s whims, not vice versa.

With a monstrous in-the-round stage at his disposal, Bono is the living embodiment of a rock star. In perfect control of his surroundings, he conveys meaning with every gesture and action. Every move is equally calculated and improvised; that’s his genius. Bono’s credibility has reached the level where even his most sophomoric lyrics sound like pithy maxims expounding great truths. There’s no other explanation for “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” which could be ripped directly out of a teenage girls diary. However, when Bono sings about global change in the simplest of terms, we don’t think that he’s a goof: we think of him as profound. He’s found the perfect way to express the kernels of truth that underlie all clichés and make them sound inspired. Even silly stunts, like selecting a child from the audience to take a lap around the expansive ring that encircled the stage or swinging from the gigantic microphone apparatus during an encore rendition of “With Or Without You,” seem possessed of a mighty grandeur.

In the end, it’s the music everyone comes for. Parsing over the pros and cons of U2 in a critical context is an unsatisfying endeavor Hardly diluting their effect, The Edge’s razor sharp guitar riffs, Adam Clayton’s driving bass and Larry Mullen’s martial drums are unlikely to send anyone scurrying for transcriptions. They will, however, bring a crowd to their feet and keep them there for more than two hours. They can play gracious hosts too. Making reference to Bruce Springsteen’s 60th birthday, U2 offered a cover of “She’s The One” in the building that The Boss can call his second home, running the song’s Bo Diddley beat into their own “Desire.” Bono also acknowledged Quincy Jones’ presence by warbling the chorus of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” through the ending coda of “Beautiful Day.”

Unsurprisingly, U2 featured many songs from No Line On The Horizon, opening with “Breathe” and then quickly loping through the grandiose “Magnificent” and the Escape Club riffage of “Get On Your Boots.” They didn’t leave people wanting for their back catalog. For me, the New Wave styled “New Year’s Day” and rebellious “Sunday Bloody Sunday” brought on a flood of nostalgia, bringing me back to high school keg parties held in moonlit empty fields. Gauging the younger members of the audience, they drifted backwards wistfully during “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” and “Mysterious Ways” and an even younger segment may not have had far to travel but they went somewhere during “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” Very few bands span generations in this manner. Although Springsteen, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan have remained active for longer than U2, their fan base remains relatively static; they aren’t capturing the imagination of a new generation or attracting legions of fans each new album.

A TRAVEL NOTE: The U2 shows marked the first opportunity for New Jersey Transit to show off their new Meadowlands line. In every sense of the word it was a monumental clusterfuck. A great concept, NJ Transit executed it with such extreme incompetence, it’s shocking that Michael Brown wasn’t involved. After widely publicizing the line, putting U2 in the banner ad on their Web site, NJ Transit greatly underestimated the number of people that would actually show up. At Penn Station and the Secaucus transfer, travelers were greeted with a woefully insufficient number of ticket booths, enduring lines of anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes in length. Having failed to schedule the proper number of trains, U2 fans were crammed onto every available car like cattle . . . and then had to suffer while a half hour train ride took anywhere from one to three hours. All this occurred with people making staggered treks to the stadium. After the show, with everyone leaving at once, NJ Transit seemed equally unprepared and their staff uninterested in providing information, directions or guidance which only added to the confusion and frustration. “Heck of a job, NJ Transit!”

Labels: U2