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Monday, 02 January 2006 07:05

The stage was a simple circle, with an elliptical, six-foot-high platform extending into the crowd. Fans were situated both outside of the platform and between the platform and stage, giving the band easy access to as large a swath of fandom as possible.

View Photos from Concert 

 

Savvis Center, St. Louis 

It has become a cliché for rockers of a certain vintage to play down their new material, slipping one or two new songs into a safe set list packed with greatest hits. The Irish quartet U2, cruising through their 25th year as a band, defiantly spit in the face of this convention as they performed in St. Louis before an ecstatic, sold-out crowd. The band filed onstage to the strains of the Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” before frontman Bono appeared in the center of the crowd to rapturous applause and a shower of confetti, easing into the new track “City of Blinding Lights.” The band bravely front-loaded their set list with huge helpings of songs from their most recent albums, 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, with classics like “Gloria” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” seamlessly added into the mix.

With a history of extravagant stages, U2’s new set up seemed almost modest by comparison. The stage was a simple circle, with an elliptical, six-foot-high platform extending into the crowd. Fans were situated both outside of the platform and between the platform and stage, giving the band easy access to as large a swath of fandom as possible. Bono took full advantage, using the pathway both to excite the crowd into a frenzy during the set’s upbeat moments, and to connect one-on-one during the quieter ones.

The band’s disparate personalities were evident immediately from their stage demeanor. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., seemed content to hide behind his kit the entire night, venturing out onto the platform for “Love and Peace or Else” with his shoulders slumped and a few nervous waves. Bassist Adam Clayton did his best John Entwhistle, standing stock-still more often than not as he held down the groove, often looking at the audience with a bemused grin, as if even he couldn’t believe anyone could be so excited to see him. During the set’s opening salvo of “Vertigo” and “Elevation,” guitarist the Edge briefly switched into rock-star mode, rushing the front of the stage and pogoing along with the jittering crowd, before retreating back onto the stage to let his ringing guitar notes do the talking for him.

Bono, however, remained the unavoidable center of attention throughout, whether he was sharing a quiet moment or goofily shoehorning opener Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks” into the middle of several songs. Removing his trademark shades, his tender tribute to his father on “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” was riveting, and his near-perfect fill-in for Luciano Pavarotti on “Miss Sarajevo” was met with astonished applause. As the main set wound down, however, the energy built up by the stunning “Pride (in the Name of Love)” and “Where the Streets Have No Name” was decimated by the extended infomercial for One.org that proceeded “One.” U2 fans have come to expect a certain amount of soapboxing, but the protracted, seemingly endless lecture on third-world debt—combined with numerous smaller political gestures earlier in the set—was just too much.

All was forgiven, though, when the encore erupted with “Until the End of the World” and “Mysterious Ways,” and a lucky fan’s life was changed forever when Bono brought her onstage for a slow dance during “With or Without You.” A second encore momentarily seemed in doubt despite near-deafening applause before Bono and the Edge returned to the stage, venturing onto the platform for an acoustic take on “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” Clayton and Mullen returned as Bono announced, “Here’s a song we just added to the set list this week,” and the band lurched into a jangling cover of John Lennon’s “Instant Karma!” The song was enough of a left-field choice to catch the crowd off guard, but they quickly warmed to the song’s bouncing gate and eagerly shouted along with its simple, catchy chorus.

The concert came to an end with “40,” the crowd chanting the song’s coda as the band left the stage one by one, easing down from a high few bands could ever hope to supply.