They came to the United States in 1982 enamored of American culture. They wore cowboy hats, dressed in black and carried replicas of the guitars played by B.B. King, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins.
More than 20 years later America is now enamored with their every move.
Led by their kingly singer, U2 rocked a sold-out crowd Monday night at the TD BankNorth Garden with a sonic throttling of echo-inducing guitars, pounding drums and the screams of thousands of fans. Throughout the show Bono stuttered, strutted and sauntered on a curvaceous walkway that made him one with his audience.
The bond appeared strongest during the band’s most beloved songs. The manic opening sequence proved to be the highlight of the evening, with “City of Blinding Lights,” a song you can now bank as a U2 classic, giving way to proven favorites “Vertigo” and “Elevation.” During this stretch, the crowd raised their arms and sang along like some hypnotic cult praising U2’s staying power.
But alas, U2 is human – albeit a human of the most self-aware and grandiose kind – and moments of a band showing its average age of 44 crept into the mostly electric and focused set. During “Pride (In the Name of Love),” Bono lost his breath and had to stop singing. He stepped to the microphone several times to try to continue the song, but failed, and the band had to play the same chords continuously until Bono finally caught his wind. Still, you can always count on U2 for its solid rhythm section, and bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. personified that solid rock stature behind the flamboyant stage presences of Bono and lead guitarist, The Edge.
Clayton and Mullen rarely strayed from their stage positions. For “Love and Peace or Else,” from 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Mullen played a mini-kit at the top of the long walkway, but in the end, it was Bono hammering away at the snare, hamming it up for the crowd wearing a bandana a fan handed him.
He slow-danced with a fan while singing “With or Without You;” he knelt on the stage execution style and wore the bandana as a blindfold during “Bullet the Blue Sky” and he made sure to over-promote his “One” campaign to raise awareness of world poverty. Clearly, Bono was king, and his thousands of subjects were behind his every word.
Despite this, if any band is able to inject a sense of unity into rock and roll, it is, and has been U2. During “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” the crowd sang the entire first verse and chorus before the band kicked into a rollicking version, and the climactic “Where the Streets Have No Name” tightened the bond like a noose.
These four guys from Ireland, who have unity down to a tee, have found what they have been looking for: They found America, and no doubt, America is still grateful for that. m
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