Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Reviews of U2 concert in Philadelphia

The U2 concert on Saturday, May 14 was AMAZING. Here are excerpts from two of the newspaper reviews. Mine will be posted soonly.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/11655999.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 16, 2005

Great songs also on U2's agenda


Inquirer Music Critic

The Man Who Would Save the World brought a long to-do list to the sold-out Wachovia Center on Saturday:

Educate date-night U2 fans about the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Don a white headband that uses the Muslim crescent, the Star of David and a crucifix to spell out "CoeXisT."

Discuss how the July '85 Live Aid concert "changed [U2's] life, and set us on a course" leading to One, the organization that intends to "make poverty history."

And - lest even ardent fans get tired of the messianic preaching from a band built around the notion that rock-and-roll is not about rebellion so much as duty ("One life," the song goes, "you got to do what you should") - shut up every once in a while, and sing........

...While standbys such as "I Will Follow" have been jettisoned, they've been replaced by new songs of spiritual seeking such as "Yahweh," or nearly forgotten tunes such as the stately sing-along and show-closer "40."

Of course, U2 isn't entirely about the guy who introduced himself to two young girls - brought them on stage for "Into the Heart" - by saying: "My name's Paul, but I call myself Bono." He got a little help from the locked-in rhythm section of Adam Clayton and the martial beats of the band's Dorian Gray drummer, Larry Mullen Jr.

If you shifted focus from the bloke who dropped bits of Frank Sinatra's "Send in the Clowns," and the Beatles' "Blackbird" into the set, you'd have noticed the guy who calls himself The Edge. He was the one with the skullcap, shooting off sonic projectiles "Bullet the Blue Sky," playing roiling slide-guitar licks on "Beautiful Day" and switching to piano on the fragile "Running to Stand Still." And making it clear that - despite the outsized ambitions of its grandiose front man - U2 is, first and foremost, a great rock-and-roll band.

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http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/11645550.htm

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