 |
| |
|
| |
Live Review
by SashaS
20-8-2001
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| U2 Bono |
|
Live: U2
Earls Court, London
Sunday, August 19, 2001
U2 – The Irish idols confirm, as if anybody doubted, they are the greatest rock band in the universe…
Let’s start with a conclusion: U2 are the greatest Rock band these shores have produced in a generation or two. It is the music that cuts through the bullshit of musiqarium and delivers it as it should be: grandiose, anthemic and mass-popular. And yet, they are going, upon completing this touring commitment, become the biggest earners in the history of Rock with some £125 million. Worth every penny…
From the opening ‘Elevation’ everybody is part of this celebration of music, the familiarity of tunes, that unmistakable guitar-sound, the Great Wall solid rhythm section and that vocal. The heart-shaped stage set extends into a runway on which Bono gallops among the outstretched arms of fans that surround it. The video screens – democracy in action as each member has his own – flicker monochrome images and the energy remains stuck on – high.
Even if you are casual fan the familiarity of songs is overwhelming and everybody can, and does, sing most of the lyrics: ‘Beautiful Day’, ‘One’, ‘Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of’ (dedicated to his friend Michael Hutchence but now including Paula Yates), ‘Kite’ (written for and tonight dedicated to his father…) that stirs emotions like a magic ladle. ‘Where Streets Have No Name’, ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’…
Everybody goes loudly mental at the occasion being so huge it makes this structure – fit for assembling Concordes – feels like an intimate club. Forget Black Sabbath (at Milton Keynes), Madonna (here), Eminem or Slipknot (at Reading Festi), this is the show of the year all other will be measured against.
The band members, if you don’t know their names then you must reside in the cyber-village’s equivalent of the Outback, come on stage almost unnoticed, without big fanfares, full house-lights on because they are just one of us. You too.
10/10
SashaS
20-8-2001
U2's back catalogue is available on Island/Universal
Wordage: 328; Mon., August 20, 2001; 10:53:06 am
|
|
|
