U2 – Elevation

The quote I chose sounds totally sarcastic, but it really isn’t. Not long after The Towers came down, this was one of the first songs that I went to. “I can’t believe the news today. I can’t close my eyes and make it go away.” Now, nearly two months later, the song, along with about two more hours of U2′s songs, helped an entire audience come together as one and get through its feelings about this national tragedy.

Pretty lofty for a rock band, huh? But U2 has always been more than just a rock band to its loyal legion of fans. Those of us who are in the U2 “in-crowd” consider their concerts as near-religious experiences. This is only my second U2 concert (and the first one I only really saw about half of because I had to go backstage to help strike the stage…not as cool as it sounds. The best thing I can say is that The Edge drove by on a golf cart about 30-40 feet away from me.), but I would have to say that this is their best tour since the old days of The Joshua Tree/Rattle And Hum tours. Certainly their most intimate.

But let’s start at the beginning. The concert was at the Frank Erwin Center, which has to be one of the smallest venues that U2 has played since before The Joshua Tree tour. But I think it helped make this a very intimate evening with some of the biggest rock stars in the world. And being on the floor in front of The Heart, didn’t hurt, either. (The Heart is a heart shaped pit just in front of the stage. Bono uses it as a runway to walk out into the crowd. From where I was it looked like he was walking just above the crowd, maybe from hand to hand or maybe just levitating. And the people inside were going wild.)

Then there’s the opening band: No Doubt.

Yeah, the group that is almost in the “has-been” category opened for the band that by all logic should be in there with them. (But, because they ROCK they will never be has-beens.)

What was really surprising is that No Doubt was actually great! Full of energy. Full of life. And full of some pretty damn cool songs. Even “Don’t Speak” was brought a new lease on life. And their new songs rock pretty hard.

But enough about the hottie with the Hammer pants (Gwen Stephani still looks really good in short shirts) and the drummer with the diaper (their drummer still looks like a dork). They weren’t the main attraction and they knew it. Gwen kept saying things like, “Are you ready for U2!!!???” She sounded just as excited to be opening for them as we were to see them.

After No Doubt we had about half an hour to wait until Bono and the boys came out. So we had to listen to some techno-babble music for a while. Then Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground came on and a strange thing happened. People cheered. I’ve never heard an audience cheer pre-show music. That’s when I knew that this would be awesome. The crowd was really into it.

Then, just to make my evening complete, they started playing my other favorite band, The Beatles. “All You Need Is Love” came on and everyone cheered again. Then “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” More cheering. We still love these guys.

Somewhere in the middle of the song I leaned over to my friend and said that it would be really funny if, just after the Beatles sang, “Biiiiilllllyyyyy Sheeeeearrrrrrsss!” they stopped the song and U2 came out and did a cover of “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

Little did I know how close I was. They did stop the song and U2 came out, in full house lights, and did “Elevation.” It rocked harder than the album version and everyone was on their feet. (Not that we folks on the floor had much choice. No chairs.) Then “Beautiful Day.” Even better than the original.

The audience was part of the show this time out. Last time it was all about props, big stages and huge tv sets. This time, though, it was about the music and the togetherness of the masses. The house lights were up for quite a while during the show and when they were down there was almost always a spot somewhere in the arena shining on us.

This first part of the concert reminded me of how it must have been to see The Doors in concert. Hear me out, here. Bono and Jim Morrison are both kind of considered poets of a generation. They both know how to get the audience going. They are both amazing performers. They both front bands that aren’t quite backing bands, but you can’t help but feel like there’s got to be some envy going on. And they both tend to do a lot of onstage posing. BUT it works so well for both of them that no one (except their worst critics) faults them for it.

But suddenly the evening took a different turn. It was no longer about fun. It was about a large group of people sharing their emotions, being of one mind and just being. When they started to bring out “Sunday Bloody Sunday” all of us knew that it would be mentioned, but we didn’t know that it would be done without words and so effectively. There was a rage in Bono’s voice that I could hear in the audience as we all sang along. I could feel it coursing through me. When he sang over and over “No more! No more!” we all felt it. When he ended the song with “I’m sick of it!” so were we. And as he sang “Tonight we can be as one” we all believed him and we were as one. All of us shaking our fists in the air with rage and catharsis.

And then, during the instrumental break, Bono stopped, picked up an American flag from an audience member and just embraced it for about a minute and a half. At that moment he had all of us. For the rest of the evening we were his and every song helped us to come to terms with the feelings that we’ve had for the last two months. Even though none of the songs were written after the events of Sept. 11 they all seemed to be written for it. Even “Where The Streets Have No Name” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” seemed to be filled with the hurt and loss we’ve all suffered. From “Please” (about religious and political fanatics…Who knew?) to “New York” (obviously). From “Walk On” (which had already been picked up by some news stations as a theme for the heroes) to “One” (during which they scrolled the names of all of the passengers of the airplanes and the NYPD and FDPD who were killed over a screen behind them and all over the audience) to their heart-felt rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On.” Yes, some of it was pretty shameless and manipulative, but we’ve all come to expect a lot of drama at a U2 show and it worked so well that no one really noticed.

For most of the concert I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. But that was a great thing. This concert was one of the most cathartic, amazing things I have ever been a witness to. And I’m not just saying that as a huge U2 fan. I’m saying that as someone who has just seen a huge group of people come together, get over their differences and just enjoy a great band. After “One” I saw a group of friends nearly in tears just hold each other. But they weren’t tears of sorrow really. They were tears of relief and release.

You may think I’m putting a lot onto these four guys from Ireland. After all, they’re just a rock band. But tonight was really something more. In another time, another place this may have just been another concert. But in our time and our place it was almost like a rock and roll sermon saying that, no matter what, we can get through this and be even better than before.

“One life, but we’re not the same. We’ve got to carry each other.”

Or another theme of the night:

“You’ve got to leave it behind.” Don’t leave behind the memory, but leave behind the pain, the fear, the hurt and even the anger. And then try like hell to find a way to make this world a good place.

As Bono said, these people hopefully didn’t die in vain. There is a togetherness that the world is feeling right now the likes of which we have never seen before. And tonight I felt it in a small little auditorium in Austin, TX. If music has that kind of power maybe that’s what we should be fighting with.