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OT: U2 Elevation (long)

Joy.

It's a rare commodity today.

Oh, we have lots of happiness.  Lots of good times. 
Lots of little, pretty things that help us forget for
a while the darker parts of life.

But joy, pure joy, joy that strips the darker parts of
their power?

Not much.

Which may be why it's taken me so long to write a
review of the U2 shows I was blessed enough to
experience.  Joy has a way of catching us off guard,
of screwing up our routine, of putting us off our
game, to use as many cliches as possible.  Not that
this is a bad thing, of course.  But it does make some
things more difficult.

Like getting words and thoughts out of my head.

I first discovered U2 at the beginning of my
adolescence, when I realized listening to John Phillip
Sousa marches was no longer cool.  So the music of
these four mates from Ireland has woven itself
throughout the fabric of my life as no other band I
have found.  I guess I mention that so you might
better understand why this concert was so moving for
me.

I was blessed (and I don't use that term lightly) to
see them twice in five days - first in Cleveland, then
in Columbus.  That's a lot of traveling, a lot of
money, a lot of time.

And it was worth every penny.

On top of seeing my all-time, top five favorite group
for a second and third time (I saw them in KC on the
ZooTV Outdoor Broadcast leg), I was excited to see
Miss Polly Jean Harvey perform before the boys from
Ireland took the stage.  I've always admired her and
her music, though I only own To Bring You My Love. 
That will change soon, I hope.  She was amazing.  In
Cleveland she opened with Rid of Me, just her and her
guitar on the stage.  That moment itself was worth the
price of admission.  Visceral is the only word to
describe it. To hear a solitary woman in the darkness
screaming "lick my legs i'm on fire" is enough to
strike fear into the heart of the bravest man. My
friend fell in love in an instant and is now on a
quest to get all of her stuff.  I know she's been
having second thoughts about opening for U2 and I was
quite frustrated myself with the idiocy of the fans,
the majority of whom didn't even bother to show up for
her set.  Their loss.  I do know, however, that she's
reached at least one new fan and I can't imagine he's
the only one.  I hear she'll be doing a smaller club
tour this summer, so hopefully I'll get to see her
with some of her own fans.

And now we reach the point I've been successfully
avoiding for a week and several paragraphs now.

We all have those things in our lives that are able,
somehow, to reach through the daily layers of muck and
mire of this this adventure called life and liberate
the soul that lies buried there.  For some it's
religion.  For some it's their vocation.  For some
it's friends.  Or family.  Or nature.  The
possibilities are as endless as our imaginations.  For
me, music has always been powerful.  It's never been
just background noise, or the latest fashion craze. 
Music touches me in ways that I can't fully
understand.

And this concert proved that to be true.

From the moment the four stepped onto the stage with
the houselights still on, you could sense there was
something magical, almost transcendent in the air. 
The crowd ceased being a collection of individuals and
for the next two hours, became a single entity, an
audience, more participants than observers, caught up
in a shared euphoria one so rarely experiences in this
individualistic, cubiclized age.  From the stage
design to the soaring sounds, everything worked
together to break down the walls between U2 and their
fans  - and between the fans and each other.  We were
one, but not the same, to quote from one of the songs
they brought to life there on stage.

And bring to life is what U2 did all night.  From
their now 20 year old I Will Follow to the new gems
from their latest album, all the songs were infused
with a fire and passion rarely found today. U2 have
always been far better live than on record because,
for them, the road is where the songs truly come to
life and become, in some cases, better than what they
recorded in the studio.  New York from the new album
benefits greatly from the staging and the performance.
 And Bad live is nothing less than a transcendental
experience, especially with the audience chanting the
classic line "How long to sing this song" from 40 as
it segues into Where the Streets Have No Name,
complete with the classic red backdrop from the Joshua
Tree days.  And it may be this ability to re-imagine
songs and perform them that secures them their place
in rock and roll history.  As someone said following
their show in Columbus, "They make every other band
look like a garage band."  In concert, they have no
rivals.  From the dead on solid foundation provided by
Adam and Larry, to the textures and sounds the Edge
paints with his guitar, to Bono's showmanship, no band
I have ever seen comes close to capturing what rock
and roll is all about.

Say what you will about their grandstanding, their
self-importance, their outrageous ticket prices.  By
the end of the night, none of those things mattered. 
In the end it all comes down to passion - the passion
of the audience for the band, the passion of the band
for its audience, the passion that U2 has for the
songs it plays.  Sure, sometimes it's a little over
the top.  But that's the thing about true passion -
it's not afraid to to make a fool of itself, to dangle
on the edge and know they could fall on their face. 
U2 did that all night, and the exhilaration took your
breath away.  From singing into someone's cell phone
during Stay (Faraway, So Close), to dancing with a
member of the audience during With or Without You, to
the poignant carrying of the Irish flag as a fallen
child in Sunday Bloody Sunday, to singing I Will
Remember You in memory of Joey Ramone, to encouraging
people to think about something as mundane as Debt
Relief, U2 invited the audience to share with them the
spontaneity, the joy of life writ large.  And as they
closed with Walk On, it seemed infinitely appropriate
to sing along with Bono, "Hallelujah!," to rejoice and
sing of the joy we had experienced, the joy that we
knew we would never forget, the joy that would remind
us again of what life is all about.

Thanks for letting me share.
Æ

========================================
"Touch me, take me to that other place."
U2
========================================



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