[concerts] U2, United Center (9/20/2005)

One of the useful anachronisms of the current concert industry seems to be the "behind the stage" seat. For this week's U2 show, that meant a healthy price drop for seats that ended up being the closest to the stage of any section on the mezzanine level. Maybe the real trade-off was the glacial service at the beer stand in the concourse, I don't know. But the view was really good.

Anyway, we arrived for about the last four songs of Dashboard Confessional, and it wasn't bad. Their singer looks older than I would have expected, giving his high-pitched adolescent-themed emotivity. Their sound was also better than I would have expected, given the room. This gave high hopes for the headliner, who I had seen only once before in the cavernous confines of the old Soldier Field.

It's worth noting that the songs played over the P.A. between acts were very contemporary, with a string of Beck (who was appearing the same night elsewhere in the city), Interpol, Radiohead and The Killers. If nothing else, it made the time go by more quickly. That, and seven-dollar beer through a straw, but you do what you have to do to keep entertained.

Right around 9pm, the lights dimmed, and the band came out to the one-two punch of "City of Blinding Lights" and "Vertigo." Early on, Bono established the recurring motif for the night, which would be airdropping lyrics from any number of songs and/or hymns into the breakdowns and vamps of the U2 tunes. Some of them worked better than others, but a quick look on the Net had me surprised that he opted for Smashing Pumpkins in Toronto and not Chicago.

While I was waiting in the interminable beer line, the singer apparently forgot the words to "Walk On," and had them handed to him on a couple of sheets of paper. I'm going to have to recount that one to Anto, as I'm sure he'll appreciate it.

The lights were cool, even if we couldn't see the images on the electronic beaded curtains. The sound, despite high hopes mentioned previously, actually wasn't as good as the opening act, but I've heard much worse.

Overall, the first half the set was neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. It just kinda was. I did get pretty jazzed to hear "Electric Co.," but other than that, nothing really stood out. Until they got to "Sunday Bloody Sunday," anyway. That song, along with "Electric Co.," made me think about the now-ancient Under A Blood Red Sky album and video, and the overarching feeling was that the band didn't have the same kind of political urgency playing that song in 2005 than they did twenty-some odd years ago. The feeling was short-lived, though, as the quartet immediately segued into "Bullet The Blue Sky" and followed that up with a very powerful rendition of "Miss Sarajevo" from the Passengers album, complete with Bono covering Luciano Pavarotti's part at the end.

One note about that song is that it really rammed home the degree to which Coldplay can borrow from these guys. I was almost able to hum the words to "Speed of Sound" over it.

From there, it mostly stayed intense, although "Where The Streets Have No Name" didn't quite fit into the mold of "Pride" before it and "One" to close out the set. In the midst of this, Bono being Bono, there was some degree of preaching, with the odd contradiction of "putting people before ideas" and "falling in love with the idea of America." I'm not sure if those were intended to be taken together to say that people are more important than America, or what.

After the politically heavy ending to the 100-minute main set, I thought to myself that it would be pretty funny if they came back out and went in a totally different direction, say with something like "Discotheque" from the much-maligned Pop record. Lo and behold, they did just that. Six songs spanned two encores, with the big, big ending being "Bad," which still can occasionally give me the shivers, and did, interspersed with the refrain from "40."

Tthe concert as a whole isn't going to land in my top ten, but especially with the faux-obstructed view seats, it was certainly worth the money.