The U2 Experience

On 20 July Sara and I went to the long-awaited fulfillment of my 2009 Christmas gift: the U2 360 concert at the Meadowlands. The show, billed to start at 7:00, opened at 7:45 with a mediocre heavy rock/metal band called "Interpol." Then the two-thirds-full arena entertained itself for half an hour while, we presume, the star act made itself ready. Finally, at 9:15, the Irish four took the stage to open with some of the classics from Achtung Baby.

Since the Zoo Station tour of the late '90s, U2 has combined good showmanship with technology and videography at their concerts. Perhaps emboldened by the fact that in an 80,000-person stadium the nosebleed seats can't see a lead singer, U2 has put cameras and oversized screens to good use. They amplify both sound and light to make a larger-than-life impact on the masses. The performance was as stunning as I'd hoped; what surprised and intrigued me was less the band and more the audience.

We used public transit to get to the stadium, which involved standing on the train platform for about an hour waiting for rerouted trains to get in order. As the platform filled up with fans ready for U2 action, I watched the restless throngs. I saw middle-aged couples with wedding bands; I saw college frat boys; I saw Baby Boomers who looked to be enjoying the first fruits of retirement, preppy high school kids, washed-up hippies, and dapper dressed professionals. I even saw a six-year-old girl with black ug-boots, tutu, jacket, and purple streaks in her blonde hair; she could have been a fast-forward version of my own daughter. The U2 age demographic would make most Church congregations jealous. Only skin color was uniform; my rough estimation, from observations made until the lights went down for the main event, is that the crowd was ninety-five percent white, two percent Asian, two percent Latino, and one percent (or less) African-American.

The repertoire for the concert revealed what I saw at the Pop Mart concert in 1998: as a whole, U2 fans connect more with the old classic songs than the new ones. The songs from the early '90s elicited more clapping, dancing, and singing along than those from the last four albums. When the band played I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, all eighty thousand fans were on their feet, singing, clapping, and swaying. All around us were closed eyes, raised hands, and straining voices, anticipating every line and echoing every refrain. Under the night sky, immersed in the amplified beat and soaked in The Edge's aching string-work, I sang along with Bono, lifted my palms to the sky, and wept. Like the ancient clans brought to tears by Gaelic bards, I succumbed to the power of music. And it felt like . . . worship.

Now I know why folks follow bands like U2 across the country for entire tours. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. They want to feel larger than life, ecstatic with sound and light so bright they can only come from heaven. They want to be carried out of themselves, if only for a moment, and into something powerful and orchestrated and harmonious and . . . more than human. They want to worship. And the opportunity comes only once very four years at the cost of one hundred dollars a pop.

~ emrys