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"'Streets' is the gift that keeps on giving. The way it reinvents itself every tour is probably part of the magic -- we've never got bored with it." -- Willie Williams, 2002 |
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"'Streets' is the gift that keeps on giving. The way it reinvents itself every tour is probably part of the magic -- we've never got bored with it." -- Willie Williams, 2002 |
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Grace on the Gridiron
@U2,
February 07, 2002
-- Bono, 1992 Never let it be said that Bono is a man who doesn't keep his promises. On January 30th, he was at a press conference touting U2's Super Bowl halftime gig in New Orleans, and was asked if he (like many other previous Super Bowl halftime artists) would be lip-synching to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Raising an eyebrow ever so slightly over crimson-lensed wraparounds, Bono smirked at the notion. "I'm gonna be singing from the only place I know how -- I'm gonna be singing live," he said. "I mean, call us 'old fashioned,' but I thought it might be novel to actually hear, ya know, a guy run out of breath." And then, almost as an afterthought, Bono made a slight but good-natured dig at teenage fans who worship aerobically-inclined boy groups and girly pop acts that don't necessarily emote vocally during their respective, on-stage cardiovascular routines. "It might catch on with the kids," he quipped. On February 2nd, the St. Louis Rams and the New England Patriots had barely left the field for their respective locker rooms when U2 swooped into the New Orleans Superdome with its heart-shaped stage...and effectively transformed an annual American pasttime into an uplifting, impromptu rock concert. Just six minutes after the two teams cleared the field, the stage was set, the lights went out and the crowd let loose with a cacaphonous, unified roar. Out of the darkness and into the eye of the camera, the ubiquitous Bono -- decked in light blue-lensed wraps and a black and white leather jacket appropriately emblazoned with the red Roman numerals XXXVI on the chest -- shouldered and swaggered his way through the surging, screaming masses. Then, with a knowing smile on his face, he opened his lips and began to sing. Live. "The heart is a bloom," he sang. "It shoots up through the stony ground..." Girls crushing in around him shrieked at the camera...groped for his hands...tugged at his jacket...at times, almost drowned out the vocal. Yeah, it definitely seemed to catch on with the kids. Granted, I'm a U2 fan and I'm certainly no kid anymore, but the idea of a rock singer singing live is not a novel idea to me. It's a given. A band as great as U2 has always played live. That's why they're worth paying to see. These guys have always been worth my money. What was great about last Sunday night, though, was that I didn't have to pay any money...and I still got to see something that I never in my lifetime believed I'd ever see, and that was U2 playing the Super Bowl. Let me say that again: U2. PLAYING. THE SUPER BOWL. For the average bear, to have seen this event for itself -- whether as a fan of football or rock 'n' roll -- is to have witnessed a band at the peak of its form, a band in its best element. As a U2 fan, it thrilled me beyond words. It made me realize that millions of people, of all ages, would be seeing the band that I had fallen in love with back in 1980 before the whole world was listening to them. What's more, I couldn't wait for the music. As it is, U2's music makes me want to jump and run around. At a concert, were it not for super-tight security, I'd dive on stage with the band and sing at the top of my lungs ... assuming they'd let me. This desire probably comes as no surprise to the average U2 fan...for it's when U2 plays live, before the collective cry of an adoring, trusting crowd, that the band truly thrives. I guess that's why, in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl performance, I was blown away that it was not completely obvious to everyone in America that U2 was an act appropriate to play the Super Bowl. But the decision to have U2 play was questioned (i.e., "Why is an Irish rock band playing such an American event?"), and the question itself drew some caustic responses from both camps even in the days leading up to the main event. On the one hand, you had cynical sports writers, who declared U2 were but a televised musical distraction designed to keep people from switching channels. On the other, you had cynical rock 'n' roll writers -- a number of whom alleged that U2's appearance was an easy way for the band to cash in on the corporate sponsorship the NFL so readily rides to ratings glory. But the biggest challenge by far was getting fans and pundits on both the football and rock 'n' roll benches to see why a band like U2 would even want to play the Super Bowl. Even Bono seemed to sense that U2's decision to play there was a dangerous idea...albeit one that almost made sense. "Can you imagine what it feels like to be Irish and to be at this most American of occasions? It's really overwhelming," he said at the press conference. "You know it's a strange thing if you're in a rock band, when you play these venues, because every night you win. It's an odd thing for us to go into a crowded Superdome and realize that half of the audience are gonna go home in tears." There's no doubt that many Americans, myself included, have been in tears during the past five months. But not over football games. Ever since September 11th, we've been on edge, still reeling in the wake of terrorist attacks that killed thousands of innocent people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. It was on the heels of those attacks that U2 returned to America to play the third leg of its Elevation Tour 2001 and found themselves in conflict with current events. It was as if the very idea of playing a rock show to people in mourning, to a nation clearly frightened in the face of a devastating loss, didn't make sense. That's when U2 made a decision: the band would acknowledge those lost during its concerts. At the end of each show, on a giant video screen system, the band would scroll the list of names of the victims -- on the ground, in the air, all those both in and out of uniforms. It was a moment of grace, to be certain, and one that might, in some small way, help the country get back on its feet. On the other hand, such a seemingly simple gesture had potentially serious consequences. And the band knew it. "You have to understand, the tribute we did for September the 11th in New York," Bono said. "We spent a lot of time deliberating whether to go ahead with that or not, and we had a lot of advice to say that we should not." The concern was legitimate. The band knew some people could misinterpret the gesture as stagey or assume the band was trying to exploit the tragedy. Instead, U2 discovered how much both their music and the gesture meant to fans, some of whom went out of their way to tell the band how good it felt to have their losses acknowledged with names instead of numbers. "It is clear that people who have lost loved ones in that tragedy never tire of hearing their names or, in this case, of seeing their names," Bono said. "You have to keep reminding yourself that these are people's lives we're talking about, not statistics. These are fathers, mothers, and children." Bono said he was most humbled by the idea that survivors and the loved ones of victims were taking U2's music to heart as they went on with the healing process. "I was really moved to hear that," he said. "The whole year that we've had here in the United States has been really extraordinary. I mean, you're never the author of your own success anyway, but fate really took hold and really changed those songs. I didn't know what they meant anyway, but if a song is any good, you never really do know where it could end up. I suppose post-September 11th, to have (our music) mean so much to people -- it's made this year very special for us." I would like to think that when U2 used its music to make that same gesture at the halftime show in the Superdome last Sunday, it was just as special. After a rousing, rowdy rendition of "Beautiful Day," a towering, almost-transparent scrim rose up from the stage to the moody dirge of "MLK," a song Bono wrote in honor of the slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King. When the names of the victims of Sept. 11 began to scroll up behind the band, the words to the song took on a different meaning for me. "Sleep / Sleep tonight / And may your dreams be realized..." Bono faced the crowd the entire time; he didn't look over his shoulder, didn't look up. Just after the show, he would tell a reporter on the field why. "I can't look at the names," he said. "If I looked at the names I wouldn't be able to sing." Perhaps that's why the band chose not to sing "Walk On" as its closing number, opting instead to play a slightly-altered version of "Where the Streets Have No Name," a joyous tune that, to me, better captured the country's spiritual hopes of a heavenly reward for those lost and still-missing. "I'll show you a place / Where there's no sorrow or pain," Bono sang. "Where the streets have no name." Near the end of the song, the scrim abruptly dropped and the seemingly-endless list of names suddenly flew heavenward, to the ceiling of the Superdome, where they continued to scroll as Bono turned to the crowd and exposed the inside of his leather jacket. It was, as it has been since well before Sept. 11th, lined with the American flag. "It's all I can do / It's all we can do," Bono roared. As a fan still struggling to deal with personal losses from September 11th, I find it fitting that, amid a year of such intense heartbreak, a band like U2 was still hauling its heart-shaped stage around the country. It comforts me to know that U2 opened up that same heart to some of its own heartbroken fans. At the Super Bowl, U2 opened a different heart, its own, to show love for America. Perhaps that's the real reason why I think it's fitting U2 played this particular Super Bowl: not because they wanted to play it, not because they were asked to play it, but because of their love of America. Maybe they were meant to play it. U2's decision to accept a gig at the Super Bowl need never have been debated by the pundits and punk rockers. And now the nostalgic flash back to that cheeky, off-the-cuff remark of Bono's from 10 years earlier truly hits the mark. "Football and rock 'n' roll." It all made perfect sense. © @U2/Byrne, 2002.
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