Photo by Nicole M. Vanasse
We’ve got old songs
We’ve got new songs
We’ve got songs we can’t play
We’ve got a spaceship
But we won’t leave without you
With those words, Bono and his friends in U2 launched their rocket ship from its pad in Gillette Stadium to kick off the first show of a two-night stand there. Hours later, I’m not sure that any of us who were fortunate enough to have been in the audience last night have returned to earth yet.
I am what you would call a casual U2 fan. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the music they’ve made over the years. I appreciate the political stands they’ve taken, and the charitable causes that they embrace. All of those aspects of their career were on display last night. Still, this show on their current “360 Tour” was only the third that I’ve ever seen, and my first since the Joshua Tree tour more than 20 years ago.
There has been much talk about the size of the current production. The band has been criticized by their peers and in the press for spending an enormous amount of money on the staging in the midst of such difficult economic times. Guess what? Once the music begins, all of that is immediately forgotten. What U2 has created is a truly thoughtful multimedia experience. This is not just smoke and mirrors for their own sake. Everything has meaning and depth, and the technology is breathtaking. The sound was as good as I’ve ever heard in a stadium setting, and the band was in top form musically. (more…)
One of my favorite Popdose experiences to date came in the wake of 
On March 9, 1987, I was a senior at Northwestern relaxing through the “study period” preceding winter-quarter exam week. I’d slept in that morning, and was walking into town (that’s Evanston, IL, for the uninitiated) just before lunchtime for my Tuesday ritual of checking out the new album releases at Vintage Vinyl. I had just descended the steps in front of Northwestern’s somewhat-famed clock tower when a black, late-model sports car pulled up in front of me and the driver yelled, “Cumshot!”