The U2 Spaceship landed in Raleigh and rocked for over two hours while a crowd of around 70,000 stood in awe; in awe of its massiveness, the band’s importance in rock history, and the show’s importance in the area’s entertainment spectrum. It was the first appearance by the world’s biggest rock band since they played in a rainy Kenan Stadium in 1983, opening for Todd Rundgren. Since those days of politically charged, angst rock, the band has matured, becoming a staple in dentists offices and Adult Contemporary radio stations around the globe. They are truly the world’s most accessible and versatile band, cemented as one of the 3-decade greats in rock history.

While we are lucky to live in an area that can support such an impressive evening of live entertainment, I found myself wondering: what took so long for the band’s return? It isn’t like the area hasn’t proven itself with a strong local music scene as well as its ability to fill one of America’s first 20,000-seat sheds, Walnut Creek, summer in and summer out. U2 had a date scheduled here in 1997 for their abominable Pop Mart tour, but the show was mysteriously cancelled, widely believed to be the victim of poor ticket sales. However that shouldn’t count against us. Rather it stands as a testament that we don’t shell out the bucks for badly slumping entertainers! U2 really found their stride again in 2000 with “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”, and the Triangle certainly would have responded well to a date on either of the last two tours! Nevertheless, we got our date, showed up in a big way, and had a great time.

It was an absolutely perfect night for a concert. After a day of watching football, fans trickled into the Carter-Finley lots throughout the late afternoon. We entered the East parking lot at 6pm, and had plenty of time mingle with friends before entering the stadium.

Muse took the stage around 7:15 with a gorgeous sun-setting backdrop and temperatures hovering around 75. It was the first glimpse of the awesome quadrapod canopy that became the highlight of the night. More on that later, because Muse was so good we didn’t really care about the canopy. Their set was flawless, though the sound engineers had far too much kick-drum in the mix. Their set lasted around 45 minutes to an hour, which gave the entering crowd their only chance to hear a hard rock band all day. They closed with “Starlight” (one of my favorite songs of the decade), then an impeccable “Time Is Running Out”. Muse is not for everyone, and to be honest, I’m not sure they were the ideal act to get typical U2 fans revved. They are a fantastic band, but not a strictly fun band, like the Black Eyed Peas are. I imagine the crowds seeing some of the Pea-opening dates will be a little more excited when U2 hits the stage.

The four-legged theatrical housing is awesome as billed. Taking 4 days to assemble, the massive structure’s footprint took over half of Carter-Finley’s field space. It will take two days to strike the set. Therefore there are actually two (and perhaps three) of these sets in the U.S. right now. The separate crews will leapfrog dates in order to provide the band a show date every 3-4 days.

The giant canopy housed the entire PA system, numerous lights on its exterior and interior, and a video cylinder made of thousands of small elongated hexagons. Later in the show the cylinder stretched downward almost to stage level, resembling a basketball net and offering a fascinating tornado/basket visual effect. The real genius of the canopy is that it was extremely lightweight at its base, affording ticket sales in 360 degrees.

The circular stage did not rotate, but was surrounded by a full circle outer stage, accessible by adjustable bridges. The band’s equipment was kept to a minimum, and afforded excellent sight lines for most of the 360 degrees.

The big surprise of the canopy was its exterior lighting. The visual artists made masterful use of the vertical spine that ran from just above Larry Mullins’ head up to around 40 feet higher than the canopy. It had mirror balls in its termini, and contained a myriad of internal and external lights.

The band had a tough task at hand: making a venue for 70,000 “intimate”. They worked all parts of the stage all night, and never seemed to sound musically distant from one another.

The light show was phenomenal. With a unique lighting program for each song, the concert never seemed redundant. Even at the end we were surprised with some lighting tricks: lighting from all around the stadium.

The band did a tasteful job of pushing its humane politics without being too pious. The pressing message of the night came during Walk On, as hundreds of children filled the circular ring holding in front of their faces pictures of political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. It was a defiant challenge to the Burmese captors who apparently will imprison anyone carrying a picture of the Nobel Peace Price winner. Bono also acknowledged the efforts of both the John Edwards and Jesse Helms families for their work toward the “One” program. It was a classy way to disarm a crowd with strong personal feelings for these two local political giants.

While the concert was truly a phenomenal entertainment event, it wasn’t without its shortcomings. While the lighting canopy set new standards, the sound quality did not. The entire PA system was centralized, so the sound was projecting from a pinpoint spot among the immersive visual experience. It created a slightly muddy mix where instruments were not able to stand out and be heard by themselves. Overall the quality of that sound was adequate, it just wasn’t as complete a sound as we have heard in previous stadium shows like Pink Floyd and The Who.

Additionally, Bono’s microphone had a distinct digital sound to it, which did make his sometimes strident voice even edgier. Perhaps it was the major factor as well with our inability to understand what Bono was saying between songs. For instance, at the beginning of “City of Blinding Lights”, Bono pulled a boy up on stage and said something about why he was doing it. Because of the muddiness, we have no idea why they proceeded to run a lap around the ring and stop for Bono to sing a song about a city with blinding lights to him.

The setlists for the tour have been changing quite a bit. The Raleigh setlist contained some peculiarities that seem to be consistent throughout the tour. The band opened with “Breathe”, which really set the David Letterman crowd into a frenzy in March, but didn’t quite do it for this crowd. After a good performance of the annoying “Get On Your Boots”, the band launched in a huge crowd-pleaser, “Mysterious Ways”. I never expected to hear that song live due to the prodigious amount of sound tracking the song contains. “Beautiful Day” was really good, but the band didn’t really hit their stride with this audience until “Elevation”, which had just about everybody at field level and most in the stands bouncing. Early in the concert, it was painfully obvious that Bono had no idea just what you say to a crowd in Raleigh, NC. However at this point the concert was really taking off and Bono found his groove with the City of Oaks.

The most baffling song of the set was the incredibly gorgeous “Magnificent”, which was a complete flop with the audience. The movement of this song within the setlist throughout the tour proves that our response wasn’t unique. The band simply cannot figure out how to sell this song. They opened with it in Boston, but apparently that didn’t work because it was immediately moved into the middle for the next show. While the song has been a flop on the charts, a key problem with its live presentation is the lighting. They are keeping a constant bright aqua lighting theme throughout the song, which is unfortunate. If anything, this song should be sung under the cloak of near darkness and incorporate strobes and hyper lighting changes during Mullin’s pulsating drumrolls that spill into the chorus.

The set list needs some life at the end as well. I felt like the climax of the show came during Sunday Bloody Sunday, a full 45 minutes before the show’s end. After that point we were treated to “MLK”, “Walk On”, “One”, “Where the Streets Have No Name”, “Ultra Violet”, “Without or Without You”, and “Moment of Surrender”. This is ENTIRELY too much slow music for the last 45 minutes of a concert. Streets was excellent, but while Ultra Violet is up tempo, it isn’t a strong enough song for this set list.

WRAL FM’s Lynda Loveland and her husband sat behind us and it hit me during the show; U2 is an Adult Contemporary band. “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, “Elevation”, “Beautiful Day” are really good rock songs, but the bread and butter of U2’s catalog is really songs like “One”, “Walk On”, “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, etc. I realized that 90% of the show’s songs are extremely appropriate for playing in my dentist office, which means that this really is not a rock band with an “edge”, but rather one of the legendary Adult Contemporary artists of our time.

The Irish rebel band with bad haircuts found themselves at a crossroad with their fame and fortune. Instead of falling into the trap of writing noisier songs to deny their progressing age, U2 wrote better songs and reached out to more people. Their slump in the 90’s taught them some humility, and taught them that they cannot rest on their laurels. They still get out there and work their fannies off, and judging by people’s comments, U2 surpassed expectations. They may not be the hardest rocking band on the planet, but they are the biggest, and the Triangle has missed them in a big way.

5 stars (out of 6)

Setlist

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