Vertigo In St. Louis

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS LONGER THAN MY NORMAL POSTS: JUST SO YOU ARE AWARE OF THE LENGTH BEFORE YOU GET GOING.

I had such a fantastic time at the concert last night. I continue to be blown away by how good of a live band U2 is. They put out great studio songs, but there is something special about the way they come together as a band and perform live… it is hard to explain until you see them live. Their music transcends any genre… it soars through the whole building. Even people that aren’t die hard U2 fans usually walk away impressed after a show.

This was my first Vertigo tour show, but my second time to see them live. I was surprised by a number of things. When I walked in and saw their stage set up, I kind of wondered where all their lighting was going to come from. I was incredibly impressed with the light and video show that they put on. Most of the lights and screens are hidden from plain view. For instance, as you can see from my pictures below… they had lights along the floor of all the staging. During Vertigo, they had those lights moving all over the place… I guess they were trying to make those of us in the nose bleeds experience a bout of vertigo. It was neat.

They also had these big strands of light bulbs float down… and each bulb flashed a light and when you put all the bulbs together… the formed video pictures. Bono would even walk through these video bulbs like they were a bead-strand doorway. Very cool stuff.

Speaking of Bono, I do not think there is a better front man in the business. Bono’s voice was strong… even with them being pretty far into their tour. He was playful with the crowd at times… He was dramatic at times… He was passionate at times… He was an activist at times.

As far as his politics are concerned, I can agree with his ‘end’… but I don’t always agree with his ‘means to an end’. Maybe I’ll blog about that sometime. Even though he was very much against war… he was still respectful about American soldiers and even sang snippets of ‘Johnny Comes Marching Home Again’… and eventually sang something along the lines of ‘hope they come back safe…’ or something like that. He did it in a much more moving way than I’m explaining it.

He was very interactive with the crowd. He brought a little boy up during ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ to help him shout ‘No more’… he sat the kid down on one video prompter and Bono sat down on the other like they were just hanging out. The crowd got a kick out of it. Later, during Stuck In a Moment, a high school or college student was asked to come on stage and play piano with them. At one point, both Bono and The Edge were standing next to this kid while he played… how awesome would that be? Of course, towards the end, Bono brought up a young girl to dance with him during ‘With Or Without You.’

His passion just bleeds out of him. He had everyone in the stadium, even the ones way up in the nosebleed seats, eating out of the palm of his hand. He is so willing to invest bunches of energy in his performance and dramatics that even the people furthest away want to invest back into him. In fact, during the song Miss Sarajevo, there is a part on the song that is usually sung by one of the top opera singers… and I wondered if they would overdub the voice in… and when I realized that Bono was going to try and sing it… I was kind of worried that the crowd wouldn’t ‘buy it.’ As he powerfully hit the few final high notes… the whole crowd just roared with him as he sang. I really think the crowd bought into that moment because Bono had been investing in them all night long.

They played ‘Gloria’ last night, a song off of their second album, which came out in 1981. The guitar riff on that song sounds like it could have been written yesterday. I’ve always said that pretty much anything off of Joshua Tree could still be played today and it wouldn’t sound like most anything else that came out of the 80’s. Their musicianship last night was spot on. The Edge tried a few new leads on guitar… Larry and Adam aren’t flashy on their instruments… but they are rock solid and hold everything else together. Their music is timeless.

Here were my top three songs from last night: 1) Where the Streets Have No Name… amazing. No better concert moment anywhere, in my mind, than when the lights blaze across the whole stadium during one of the vocal bridges of that song.

2) Until the End of the World… a very close second. This is my favorite live U2 song as a whole. The lighting and musicianship are just outstanding. The Edge and Bono, who, during the last climatic moments of the song, started on opposite ends of the ellipse and eventually starting chasing each other around it… I think Bono got around that thing twice. It looked like a big game of Duck, Duck, Goose… but what was amazing is that the The Edge continued to play a complicated riff… all the while running as fast as he could away from Bono, who was obviously much faster without the guitar holding him back. Very cool.

3) Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own: Very moving song about Bono’s dad. Bono tells a story about his dad, takes off his sunglasses and invites the crowd in to be a part of this painful moment in his life. Bono ends the song by singing snippets of opera in honor of his dad… who loved opera. It was just a moving moment of the concert… not one that you would expect from one of the biggest bands in the world.

The guy who went with me (Melissa got sick at the last minute and couldn’t go, unfortunately) made a great observation: At most rock concerts, the attitude coming from the stage is: All of YOU are lucky to be here seeing US play. Over and over again last night, the attitude that poured off the stage: WE are so lucky to have all of YOU here to hear our music.

All of these guys are pushing fifty… but you wouldn’t know it seeing them in concert. They all still move around the stage like they are still in their twenties. They still seem so passionate about what they do. You could take away the lights and smoke, the amps and the staging... and it wouldn’t matter… because when everything was said and done… the concert boiled down to four guys who got together in a room because they just love creating and playing music together. There just happened to be about 20,000 people listening in. I’m really glad I was one of them…