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And it came alive with style and substance. Of course, at the heart of the set was the album they'd come to not just celebrate but re-examine through a new lens with a fresh perspective. With that, the stage was set for a show whose highlights ranged from that opening salvo of early material ("Sunday Bloody Sunday," "New Year's Day," "Bad" and an anthemic "Pride (In the Name of Love)") to "Miss Sarajevo" and "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)." "Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away / How long? How long must we sing this song?" "I can't believe the news today," Bono began in a suitably weary voice.
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strolled onstage, sat down behind the kit and kicked into the martial beat of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," a song inspired by the Troubles, as the natives call the Northern Ireland conflict, its opening verse still depressingly relevant 34 years later.
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There's no mistaking the tone of this concert for the brutal, unrelenting Trump attacks of Roger Waters' latest tour.Īnd it rocked – with passion – from the moment Larry Mullen Jr.
#Fair condition u2 the joshua tree vinyl 1987 issue tv
His harmonica playing, it turns out, was great.īut the fact that Bono is an Irishman will no doubt lead to many in the "Shut Up and Play Your Harmonica" camp dismissing his unwavering belief that "one day," as a wise man once suggested, "this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal'" as unwanted advice from an Irishman who doesn't have to come in here and take our money if he doesn't like the way we treat our huddled masses yearning to be free.Īnd those who stayed away from Tuesday's show because they didn't want to hear that kind of talk? They missed out on a truly inspirational performance of a classic album in a show that celebrated what it means to be American as much as it suggested that we could – and should and must – do better.ĭuring "Pride (In the Name of Love)," one of four early songs U2 played on a sparse little stage at the end of the catwalk before diving into "The Joshua Tree," Bono said, "From the left, from the right and those in between, we are all welcome here tonight."Īnd although “Exit” was preceded by a 1950s TV clip in which a smooth-talking con man named Walter Trump rides into town and warns the citizens of that community that only he can save them from certain disaster by building a wall, that was it for the Trump-bashing, really. Then, he lightened the mood with a self-effacing, "It may not have been built for Irishmen who cannot play the harmonica" as they kicked into "Trip Through Your Wires." The American Dream was a running theme in Tuesday's concert – a dream that "so many of us are waiting to wake up in," as Bono was moved to acknowledge during a stirring rendition of "Pride (in the Name of Love)" that ended with the words to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech projected on the massive screen behind him,Ĭoming out of "In God's Country," Bono asked, "Wasn't this country built by dreamers for dreamers?," connecting the dots between the American Dream and the Dreamers of D.A.C.A. "The Joshua Tree," at its core, is an album of coming to terms with the frustrating contrast between the often harsh realities of what "liberty and justice for all" have come to look like in America and the loftier Utopian ideals on which this country was supposed to have been formed. This is about how a landscape can change in a person, in a country, in a town, when you're not looking, but how we have to stay awake to dream. Some songs have changed in their meaning and some have not. And as Bono explained onstage in Glendale while welcoming fans to Side 2 of the album, which may have developed a few more cracks and hisses in the vinyl, "Time has helped us to understand some of these songs that we wrote and played and recorded back then.