U2 never lets the massive 360 Tour props dwarf the music


(Bono, left, and bass guitarist Adam Clayton give the fans what they're looking for at U2's 360 Tour launch in Chicago Saturday.)

By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
CHICAGO — U2 deserves props for the prop, a menacing metallic four-pronged "claw" rising 150 feet from the stadium floor, its core a brilliant lighted pylon with a broad cylinder of interlocking LED panels. It looms over a massive stage with ramps and two steel bridges that sweep like clock hands around the light-rimmed circular runway.
At Saturday's launch of U2's 360 Tour, this War of the Worlds contraption seemed poised to dwarf the players, swamp the songs and squash any communal spark.

Such would be the fate of bands less disarming than U2, who since 1992's Zoo TV Tour again and again have triumphed over the fallow and vast acreage of stadiums. With 360, the band comes full circle to Zoo TV's high-tech/higher-hopes master plan with dazzling and daring production and, more important, songs and skills big enough to fill the space.

Over the course of 2¼ hours, the District 9 spectacle does on occasion overwhelm the musicians, but never the music. The Irish quartet works up a sweat pounding out a raw, spirited, briskly paced show built on a transcendent thunderous noise and bold, brash emotions, turning that cold, futuristic hulk into an unlikely transmitter of human passion.

The agenda is set with defiantly optimistic opener Breathe, the first of seven knockouts from 12th studio album No Line on the Horizon. The brazenly sexy Get On Your Boots, gorgeous Magnificent and cathartic Moment of Surrender are no less astonishing than such reliable showstoppers as Sunday Bloody Sunday and Pride (In The Name of Love).

While U2 primarily powers through seismic sonics from Elevation and Beautiful Day to Vertigo and a psychedelic City of Blinding Lights, the band creates pockets of aching intimacy in their cavernous workspace, particularly with the always heartbreaking One and a poignant Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get out Of, an acoustic duet with Bono and Edge, who briefly upstages his singing partner with a tender falsetto.

The band has never sounded stronger. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and bassist Adam Clayton drive the rhythms with a furious intensity. Edge's guitar remains a kaleidoscopic wonder. And Bono's tenor soars with an effortless grace and vigor. The sound? Full, crisp, crystalline, not the muddy echo typical of stadium rock shows.

No question, concerts at the local football field can be a logistical pain. U2 has fine-tuned the experience with fine tunes pouring from an extraterrestrial jukebox that manages to radiate charisma, warmth and imagination. It's a band that still gives you something you can feel. In a word, liftoff.

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