Review: U2 stuns fans in Adelaide as part of The Joshua Tree tour
U2 have electrified the Adelaide Oval, taking fans down memory lane with The Joshua Tree Tour and treating them to a set list most bands can only dream of. WERE YOU THERE? WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW
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U2
The Joshua Tree Tour
Adelaide Oval, November 19
****1/2
The Joshua Tree, when it was released in 1987, turned U2 from a much-loved Irish rock group into the biggest band in the world.
An exploration of the myth and reality of America, a country that’s always loomed large in the Irish psyche for any number of historical reasons, U2’s fifth studio album sold 25 million copies around the globe and landed them the coveted Album of the Year Grammy.
More than 30 years on, The Joshua Tree still packs an almighty punch, and on a warm Tuesday night at Adelaide Oval Bono and the boys dusted it off and put it through its paces.
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The night opened with former Oasis guitarist, songwriter and co-vocalist Noel Gallagher ripping through a great set of both High Flying Birds and Oasis numbers.
The 52-year-old Mancunian and his band were set a tough task – entertain U2’s adoring fans while the sun still blazed overhead – but they made a good fist of it.
The Oasis tracks, naturally, went down a treat with Little By Little, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Don’t Look Back In Anger and Wonderwall all inspiring singalongs.
The older Gallagher brother signed off with a cover of The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love.
U2’s show started off with Larry Mullen Jr’s iconic drum intro to Sunday Bloody Sunday, the opening track to 1983’s War, and it’s immediately clear that Bono’s voice has lost nothing over the 12 or so years since his band last graced our shores.
Huddled up tight in the middle of the oval, Bono, Mullen, guitarist The Edge and bass player Adam Clayton look for all the world like any four-piece you might find at the pub.
The songs, however, undermine the illusion.
Few pub bands can claim songs like this, or fill a stadium with sound like this.
I Will Follow, with that distinctive ringing chime of The Edge’s guitar, is next, followed by New Year’s Day and Pride (In The Name of Love).
There are perhaps only a handful of bands in the world that could open with four tracks that good and still have plenty up their sleeve.
“Think tonight of the firefighters all over this great country,” Bono says to the crowd, “putting themselves in harms way to keep us safe, women and men, volunteers!”
The completion of this mini-set sees the band withdraw from the intimate space they’d created in the middle of the crowd and take up position on the huge stage at the rear of the oval.
Behind them is a video screen, but this is no ordinary screen.
It is the largest screen ever used in a touring show, 60 metres long and made up of 1040 individual panels, and it will prove to be a visual spectacle the likes of which Adelaide has never seen.
A silhouetted joshua tree – that great symbol of nature withstanding adversity – fills the giant display as Act 2 begins.
Where The Streets Have No Name sees the tree replaced by a monochromatic desert road, beautifully shot by Dutch photographer and long-time collaborator Anton Corbijn, and it’s now that the crowd sees just how incredible this 8k piece of technological wizardry actually is.
But while the backdrop is hi-tech, the band keep things very simple.
There are only ever the four of them on stage, the same four people who have been playing this music for decades.
The fact that the band’s line-up has remained unchanged in more than 40 years is a feat unmatched by few other acts.
The fact that four people can fill a stadium with such a huge sound is astounding.
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and With or Without You are next (obviously, there are no surprises when a band commits to playing a record in full), followed by a raucous rendition of Bullet The Blue Sky that sees Bono turn the camera back on himself for a little 12 metre-high stage time.
After Running to Stand Still Bono jokes that this is where you press stop and eject on your tape recorder and turn the cassette over.
Plenty in the audience would well remember what he was talking about, although the crowd was also peppered with kids whose memories would barely stretch back beyond Spotify.
It’s one of the beauties of a stadium show.
Side two of The Joshua Tree isn’t as strong as side one, but there are still highlights including One Tree Hill, which Bono wrote as a dedication to his Kiwi friend and roadie Greg Carroll who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1986.
The blood-red moon on the big screen adds a haunting touch.
“Thanks for listening to The Joshua Tree,” Bono says at the completion of the album’s tracks, before the band launches into Angel of Harlem off Rattle and Hum, because … why not?
The encore, which is really a third set, sees a bunch of “newer” favourites get a guernsey.
Elevation, Vertigo and Even Better Than The Real Thing raise the energy levels, before Bono and The Edge, on piano now, calm things down a little with Every Breaking Wave from 2014’s Songs of Innocence.
Beautiful Day is, naturally, a singalong favourite, while Ultraviolet (Light My Way), from Achtung Baby, is set against a backdrop of images of women who’ve changed the world in some way – suffragettes, indigenous leaders, artists and activists.
Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way, from 2017’s Songs Of Experience, is the penultimate song before the night closes with, what else, One.
This was, despite the giant tele, a restrained show.
No pyrotechnics nor extended solos, not even much banter – all things that bands who’ve been around for more than 40 years often use to disguise the fact that they might not sound as good as they used to.
The music did the talking.
U2 is a band that has found itself the target of cynical barbs thrown by jaded critics and the cool crowd.
Bono’s outspoken activism, the Apple Music stunt that saw an undeletable record installed on people’s phones and other incidents over the years have all seen plenty of shade aimed their way.
At their core, however, they’re four guys who figured out how to create a truly unique sound and wrote some incredible songs, and that’s something worth celebrating.
“From our little island in the Northern Hemisphere to your gigantic island in the Southern … we are all connected,” Bono says.
Last night, at least, it certainly felt like he was right.
SET LIST
Sunday Bloody Sunday
I Will Follow
New Year’s Day
Pride (In the Name of Love)
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God’s Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared
Angel of Harlem
Encore:
Elevation
Vertigo
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Every Breaking Wave
Beautiful Day
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way
One
