The U2 Vertigo Tour

I finally saw U2 in concert.

This Friday Ann and I and two of our friends (Ian and Katja) saw the Vertigo tour at Heysel stadium in Brussels. It was a beautiful day which turned into a cool night. There were two decent opening acts before U2 took the stage at about 9:30. It was a beautiful pink, purple and gold sunset. I remember thinking that only U2 could pull that off after forecasts of rain, him being so close with God and all.

They opened with “Vertigo”, which wasn’t a favorite of mine, but I have to admit, live, with fifty thousand screaming fans counting down the beginning of the song with Bono, the song took on a whole new dimension. I finally am ready to give “Vertigo” credit for being a truly hard-rocking song.

It got dark enough for them to project onto the huge silver backdrop behind the stage right about the time that “City of Blinding Lights” was played. That IS one of my favorites on the new album. All in all, they played about half of the new album, and a lot of their previous stuff.

Ann and Katja, who have both seen multiple U2 concerts, said they were a little disappointed with the sound quality (Bono was hard to hear above the rest of the band), but I wasn’t about to complain. I mean there they were. Bono, Edge, Larry, Adam. Right there just a hundred and fifty yards away and really really tiny. But still… right there. Playing for me. (And the 49,999 other fans that shelled out seventy euro for stadium seats.)

Bono truly is a performer. He did his schtick, interacting with the audience, ad libbing every now and then, costume changes. He wore a headband with the Star of David, a cross, and a Muslim crescent all artfully employed to spell the word “coexist” and, in case you didn’t see his close-up on the jumbotron, they projected the same image onto the humungous backdrop.

That, and a mention of the upcoming G8 meeting just before playing “Where the Streets Have No Name” was about as political as Bono got all evening. He projected a number for people to send SMS messages to and told them to text him their names. Rock concert for a new age really (more on that later). A few songs later a huge list of names started scrolling across the backdrop: everyone who had texted in had their name displayed in front of 50,000 fans, but more importantly, right behind Bono’s head. Probably ten thousand more people whipped out their cell phones after that, each of them donating to some good cause I’m sure. Bono would have done well in marketing methinks.

There were a few times when I would look around at the crowd and get that awesome feeling of being totally engrossed in the same thing as 50,000 strangers. You have to pick your head up and look around every now and then just to see what a hundred thousand hands clapping together looks like. To see everyone’s heads dipping in unison, see all the people singing the choruses together.

And oh did we sing. For our part, we responded by creating the largest group of free background vocalists. I’m sure we broke at least four EU union laws. We did it all. The Sunday Bloody Sunday “no more!” the “eh-leh-vay-shun” in Elevation (where the band would go absolutlely still just for a second and the lights came on full force), the “uh-oh-oh-oh”s of Pride. We just would not be stopped from contributing.

I realized again that when you play an anthem in front of fifty thousand people who know the words, it becomes their anthem. The crowd takes it and makes it theirs and the band is just the facilitator, giving all those people something to have in common. Something to throw their entire vocal chords into and clap their hands red for.

Can’t get that from an MP3.

During Running to Stand Still, Bono suddenly called for the entire audience to bring out their cell phones and light them up. “Come on! It’s the twenty-first centurly. I want to see all cellphones! All cellphones! Cellphones!” It wasn’t lighters. Or flashlights. But the entire stadium became dotted with blue and green LED displays. A constellation of communications technology being completely appropriated by rock and roll. That was fun.

I also had a blast calling all my friends in the US from the stadium and shouting “Guess where I am!” and then holding the phone up for about a minute. Yeah, I’m a dick like that. Deal with it.

U2 left for the first time at about 11:15. They came back in Zoo TV getup and played a bunch of Achtung songs. The Fly. Mysterious Ways. The End of the World. Nice flashback. Nice tribute for the fans who saw those shows.

We convinced them to come back one more time and they played another four songs or so before ending with a repeat of Vertigo. Bono was walking around the runway and said, “Okay, we’ve got a choice for you now, there’s two songs we can play, and the decision will be made by… mister Larry… Mullen… Junior.” He started up the beat for Vertigo and Bono said, “Alright, we played it for you at the beginning, and now we’re gonna fucking play it again!”

It was a good note to go out on.