The Story
Oh You Look So Beautiful, Tonight: U2 Alive
The house lights dropped in the MCI Center, and as the sounds of The Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” faded from the overhead speakers a more vibrant tone rang into the black, sending a shock of electricity into the already buzzing crowd. Then, under a pale glow, the source came into view as Edge, U2’s guitarist and the only entity lit in the entire place, began ringing the riff for “City of Blinding Lights.” Moments later the piano started in a dazzling, visually spectacular fashion, and brilliant streams of color fell in time with the music down curtains of beaded light that hung down from the rafters to the stage.
“The more you see, the less you know, the less you find out as you go- I knew much more then, than I do now,” said a voice everyone had little trouble recognizing. As the chorus hit, the arena was bathed in light and the collective anticipation of the throng became a full-out, 20,000 strong frenzy. Floor to fourth tier jumped, slamming their fists in the air in time, yelling out Oh- You- Look- So- Beautiful tonight- just as passionately as Bono was to them.
All band members appeared and sounded in good form. Bono, everyone’s favorite rock star/debt relief advocate, strutted around the “Ellipse” (the cat-walk stage extension wrapping around a section of the arena’s floor), as expected and to the audience’s delight, as if he was the biggest face in Washington that evening. And although Condoleezza Rice was in attendance, he probably was. The band made live performance come across as easy, with no technical difficulties to speak of. More importantly, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, despite the fact that they’d played the same venue the night before.
This was most evident during one of the most engaging stage plays of the evening, which was the interaction between Bono and Edge during “The Electric Co.” As white smoke blew all around the cat-walk, they retooled the pseudo-bullfight done on previous tours during “Until the End of the World,” play-fighting for superiority of guitar vs. voice.
The set relied heavily on cuts from latest album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and the beloved classic The Joshua Tree. Fans of the popular 1991 release Achtung Baby enjoyed an unexpected, full-band rendition of the haunting “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.” Also, rather notably, the show included two songs from their first album: the above-mentioned “The Electric Co.” and “Out of Control,” a gesture indicating a cycle full circle after twenty-five years as a band.
Bono wrote the latter on his eighteenth birthday and they performed it in D.C. for their second American show. Its boisterous performance this time around spun up the idea of two bands. One is established and experienced, and the other is on the way up, full of “big ideas” and lyrics like “One day I’ll die/the choice will not be mine/will it be too late?/you can’t fight it,” with a chilling relevance. These songs, paired with those featured off the recent album, brought midlife crisis back to childhood crisis and showed that, while maybe our priorities change, our fears sometimes don’t. But the downer of something like ultimate mortality was negated by the band’s obvious aversion to stagnation in performance.
Indeed, the only noticeable lull in energy came near the close of the first set. After beckoning the crowd to join him in a nice “Happy Birthday” to Luciano Pavarotti, Bono started into the relatively obscure “Miss Sarajevo” (the album it comes from isn’t even specifically attributed to U2"it was created as a soundtrack for a nonexistent movie). It certainly showcased his voice, showing that he could quite beautifully and powerfully replicate the verse sung by Pavarotti. It also tied in with the similarly politically-singed songs around it. However, a loss of interest was evident in the crowd. Since the ballad was placed after some of the band’s most evocative, strident hits like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bullet the Blue Sky,” it really proved to be an energy killer. Luckily, shortly after they brought the crowd back with a robust “Pride (In the Name of Love),” a song enjoyed by even the most casual of fans, who ran back from beer runs upon hearing its signature ringing guitar riff.
That song was followed with “Where the Streets Have No Name.” This song stands as their definitive live song, having played it in every concert on every tour since 1987 when it opened the Joshua Tree Tour. It was the best received song of the night, with the intensity of its buildup rivaling that of the show’s opening. The crowd cheered louder and louder in hopes to “tear down the walls” that held them inside, whatever they might be.
While the hanging lights from the show opener were certainly impressive, more so was how they were used over the course of the entire performance. These, along with the ones embedded in the stage and ellipse, could be made any color and animated in every way imaginable, and really added an impressive visual dimension to the performance. Since their popular, multimedia-saturated ZooTV tour in the early 90’s, the band has been known for their innovative ways of integrating light and video into their tours. Different uses included a pulsing blue comet circling the outline of the catwalk in “Miracle Drug” and racing faster as the song built energy. In contrast, there was the image of a forlorn man slowly pacing in place during “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own,” a song written in memory of Bono’s father.
Indeed, the combination of the pulsing strobe lights and the red flashing outline on the ellipse and stage set to Larry Mullen’s drumming unexpectedly intensified “Love and Peace or Else.” This is a rock song a few felt the band had no business doing when it came out on their album, but this is simply not a feasible opinion after seeing it live.
The show closed with “Bad” after a two and a half hour whirlwind of hits and admittedly, a whole lot of soul. Bono reached out. He beckoned, ran around, preached (give money to the poor!) led a sing-along, jumped out into the crowd, and even slow danced with someone during “With or Without You”. But now he was urging that we “let it go, and so fade away.” And yet, even as the last strains drifted off and the band waved and disappeared under the stage, it didn’t. The house lights popped back on, and your eyes had to adjust a bit to reality, but they had made sure that it wouldn’t fade. Wide awake, not sleeping.
U2 played at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. on 19-20 October and their concert DVD, Vertigo 2005//U2 Live from Chicago will be released on 11 November. Their most recent album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, is available in stores.