Review by Shawn Perry
Photos by Alex Kluft & Shawn Perry
Whenever U2 show up in Southern California, it’s an event. Actually, it’s an event everywhere, much like the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney. Yet, Southern California has been the place for some of the biggest U2 moments. There was their appearance at the US Festival in 1983. The video for “Where the Streets Have No Name” was filmed on a Los Angeles rooftop and won a Grammy Award for Best Performance Music Video. Their November 18, 1987 show behind The Joshua Tree was also filmed in Los Angeles, the Memorial Coliseum to be precise, and eventually released on DVD. So was their 2009 appearance at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It’s little wonder their concerts in Southern California sell out the minute the tickets go on sale. So I considered myself lucky to see them when they opened a two-night stand at the Forum behind their 2018 eXPERIENCE & iNNOCENCE tour.
Picking up from where 2015’s iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour left off, U2 played a large chunk of selections from their most recent album, 2017’s Songs Of Experience. Similar in style and tone to its predecessor, 2014’s Songs Of Innocence, the album isn’t so much a collection of high-energy anthems that U2 made their name with as it is a broad reflection of the times we live in. Of course, with U2’s brash political leanings, it would have been only too easy for the band, their charismatic singer Bono out front, to have a field day with the world’s leaders and influencers in their sights. To their credit, they steered clear of any mudslinging at the Forum.
Instead, they employed video screens to spread messages of love, peace, poverty and equal rights. They pulled out of the deep at just the right moments to dazzle the crowd with more familiar arsenal, beginning with “I Will Follow” and winding down with “One,” which was given a monumental lift by the flood of smart phone flashlights from all corners of the venue. The catalog received a fairly comprehensive scrubbing, though they left a few things out, namely any songs from The Joshua Tree. Maybe that’s because they played it in its entirety during their 2017 stadium tour that celebrated the album’s 30th anniversary.
Much of the Forum floor was transformed into a performance set with the most dedicated of followers vying for space and hoping for a possible one-on-one encounter with Bono, notorious for plucking out random audience members and providing them with the memory of a lifetime. The production — a standard stage at one end, a smaller “E” stage at the other, separated by an arena-length runaway and an equally long screen overhead — definitely helps propel U2’s bigger-than-life presence. But it’s the songs that have kept the band at the top of the heap for four decades. Even though Songs Of Experience and Songs Of Innocence arguably lack the bluster and zest of U2’s earlier efforts, mid-tempo ditties like “Cedarwood Road,” which had Bono walking along a virtual roadside, the uplifting leg-shaker “You’re The Best Thing About Me,” and the tunefully tender “Get Out Of Your Own Way,” all registered favorably with the masses.
Of course, most of the folks who parted with car-payment-sized amounts for a seat wanted to hear their favorites, and on that note, U2 delivered. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” had them marching before images of British troops clashing with Irish civil rights protesters, while the band stood on the runway like soldiers of fortune; “Beautiful Day” and “Elevation” got the sprite and lively jumping in unison; under the din of red lighting, “Vertigo” taught the room how to count to four in Spanish; and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” reminded everyone we could use Martin Luther King, Jr. now more than ever before.
There were slices of pure brilliance that underscore why, putting aside ego and celebrity, U2 is still a damn good rock and roll band. “Until The End Of The World,” a standout from Achtung Baby, exudes drama, mystery and excitement in one full swoop. Bono leaped about and teased the audience from the “E” stage as The Edge scratched out a solo, standing on the walkway between the screen suspended over the runway. At one point, Bono’s image popped up on the screen and towered over The Edge. He began spitting streams of water, which appeared to land right on his guitarist’s head. Meanwhile, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. relentlessly drove the pace without pause or loss of momentum. They all instinctively let the music lead the way.
Just before “Acrobat,” Bono played to an onstage video camera, rapping the first verses of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil,” the eerie likeness of a devil superimposed upon his gothic-pallored face. Once Bono and The Edge were alone, they strummed through a beatific “Staring At The Sun.” For the encore, Bono serenaded the females in the room with Jim O’Rourke’s “Women Of The World,” prodding emphasis with a hashtag and videos of women celebrated in all shapes, sizes, beliefs and nationalities. For all that was there to see, hear and feel, the one constant that reverberated throughout was love. It’s a predominant theme in U2’s music that invartiably spreads and takes hold. By the end of the show, love seemed like the only viable solution to all of the problems of the world. Coming from U2, it’s as real and sincere as one could ever hope.
