U2 Vertigo

What an appropriate name. Watching U2 from a friend's box last night at the Garden was a vertigo inducing experience: but the location of the box may only be the half of it. Yes, it was the classic rock and roll stadium anthem show. Bono was in fine form, but you know, for all his prancing around the stage, it was his other band members that made the greatest impression on me.

Larry Mullen is simply brilliant, providing the driving beat that makes the songs possible. Brilliant. The Edge was strident, no less a force than Bono's voice: that guitar sings in a particularly Celtic fashion that send shivers up my spine. More on that later. Adam Clayton was similarly powerful, his bass guitar providing the mellowness that reinforces that beat. Essentially, without their genius (I am sorry all music snobs, they are in fact that good), Bono would merely be a good singer. Thats all. The whole is truly greater than the parts.

Interestingly, the concert was an all-northern European affair. There was almost no African-Americans to be seen. I saw two. Total. U2's impact cannot be that directed ... can it? What was even weirder was the impact the martial quality of the Celtic music: the crowd went ballistic when they played Sunday, Bloody Sunday. It seemed to tune in to the psyche of the crowd. Note, that this was not dance music, or R&B ... that is, something to feel good to. This was the descendent or derivative of war music. Derivative of the amping of the soul to go forth unto the world and smite it. Very different from soul ... but a Celtic musical version conveying the message of gangster rap. Mess with me and some shit's gonna come down. For white Celts/Anglo-saxons. And the mood was strong. Celtic music you say ... what in @#$% can he mean. Listen to the Edge and feels the riffs, listen to those drums ... that is pure Ireland there, folks. People with red hair, beards and freckles. Who in years past carried swords, hammers and axes. People who to this day enjoy gaelic football and hurley (think about carrying a stick and being able to whack someone over the head with it without incurring a penalty). And U2 seems to speak to those of Scottish extract, too, along with Brits, Swedes, Danes, Germans and Dutchmen. But this observation would probably wound the band members grievously: they could in no way be called racist. And I hope that nobody presumes or assumes the music to be. Which sets up an interesting tension between message and music.

There were some latinos there too, but few. Few, also, people of more Mediterranean backgrounds -- at least by appearance. And you know, the music did not have latin or southern heat, either, let alone any african-american soul. I just couldn't hear any in it. Even the song about the killing of MLK (Pride (in the name of love))... its Irish, the driving drum beat bringing to mind not a Memphis sky, but the Ring of Kerry. Perhaps that is the result of seeing them in Boston, a very segregated place.

All in all pretty weird. Bono strutting about the stage, secure in the knowledge that he is the superstar he thinks he is. The frontman for what is arguably the world's most "important" rock and roll band. Or music act, event/group of any form or kind. That's a rush. But he also believes deeply in what he preaches. That in of itself puts him/U2 apart from the rest.

But the music was merely so-so.