Break out the best wine. Place the fatted cow on the spit. Roll out as many biblical allusions as you can. The four horseman are returning. Their crusade to foreign lands has ended. Now is the time to hear them preach to us at the highest of high alters.
A great homecoming is upon us. Four dark November nights will blaze with excitement. The Liffey itself may part as they begin to play.
U2 are on their way.
I technically saw U2 twice. I say technically because I had the worse case of vertigo when they played Croke Park in 1985. They were perfect seats. Upper-tier of the old Cusack. What happened? I froze. Not just froze. My body became utterly rigid. My poor brother had to man-handle me down to the pitch to try to calm me... I don’t remember the gig.
Fast forward to their last Croke Park gig. A last minute ticket found me right on the stage. Right under the tentacle of the spider thing. I could nearly touch Bono. No vertigo this time. I was ready.
Ready for...
Not a great deal. The songs were all there. Edge’s riffs, Bono’s babastic lines. The nod at human rights. They were all there but by the end I was thinking that listening to a recording would be just as pleasing.
Is it because there’s just four of them on stage? An outdoor arena?
That couldn’t explain it. They’ve been on the road for 30 years now. Are they in a comfort zone? Do they think visual spectacle is enough? The staging was amazing but the band were proficient. Good but proficient.
I hate to drop names here but Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohan stake out the same ground that Bono wishes to lord over. I’ve seen both since the Glass Spider tried to lure me into its web. Both swatted the spider away. I hate to say it but the spiritual moment young Hewson craves to give his audience was evidenced in buckets when Bruce began rocking and St Leonard of the Blessed Bedsit lulled us and gave us the chance to see life on a different plane.
None of it was forced. It washed over you. U2 just went through the motions the night I saw them. For them and for me, it seemed that we were both ticking boxes. They played at home and I got to see ‘brand’ U2 in Dublin.
Box ticked. Move on.
Sad but true. Although, with or without me, they're coming home.
