Waiting for U2. The Forum, Los Angeles, California.
U2's political engagement ranges from getting medicine to Africa to helping musicians after Hurricane Katrina. Maybe the key is the personal - carrying each other.
I was lucky enough to see the June 3rd show of U2's Innocence and Experience tour in Los Angeles and have been in swoon ever since. As moving and uplifting as the concert was, I was also struck by the interweaving of the personal and the political.
Lead singer Bono, of course, has been a devoted campaigner for Africa. It was no surprise, therefore, to hear him continuing to raise these important issues during the show. He mentioned that early in the fight against HIV-AIDS there were only enough of the live-sustaining drugs to supply 50,000 Africans, but now, thanks to the United States (he never misses a chance to thank and encourage us), over a quarter million people have the anti-retrovirals and are alive and able to work and take care of themselves and their families.
But the political took a turn toward the personal during their performance of "Bullet the Blue Sky." This tough song from Rattle and Hum was a cry against the 1980's Central American wars that found the U.S. on the side of authoritarian regimes, death squads and corrupt agribusiness instead of the side of the people. Bono had visited the region then and from first-hand experience included lines in the song's middle section rap like "I can see those fighter planes," "Peeling off those dollar bills / Slapping 'em down," and ending with "Pounding the women and children / Who run...who run...into the arms...of America."
In the concert I saw Bono acknowledged that he was "on the other side of the barricades now." He reimagined the song as the protagonist being his younger self chastising the Bono of today.
"You're Irish," young Bono sneers, "but you talk like an American." The lyric "Peeling off those dollars bills" morphed into "Peeling off those hundred dollar bills," and "I can see those fighter planes" became "I can see those private planes."
A lesser artist would have insisted on the original stance of the song, no matter how ludicrous; they would have tried to fit the square piss and vinegar peg into the round house in the south of France hole. In a society that seems intent on mass infantilization (e.g., a commercial wherein the parents are dissuading their kid from having some of their "adult" ice cream) the updating of the song, the simple acknowledgement of how we change, seemed a powerful statement.
I wonder, though, if the most "political" moment of the night wasn't also the most personal.
To get an idea of the stage, imagine a lollipop flat on the table with a butter knife perpendicular, forming a T. Right before an acoustic version of Every Breaking Wave, Bono and (usually guitarist, for this song, pianist) Edge were in the circular lollipop part of the stage. Unfortunately there was some technical glitch with Edge's piano. He just stood there trying to get it going and communicating with some of (invisible to the audience) tech personnel.
Was Edge annoyed? I've since seen footage that suggests he wasn't, but at the concert I couldn't see his face, just "body language", and assumed he was bummed that it wasn't working. Bono took the pressure off his friend of 30+ years and just went around joking with audience members about their signs (including Lesbians for Bono!) and bringing a guy dressed like Elvis onstage for a few lines of I Can't Help Falling in Love With You. The crowd loved it.
So, yes, Bono was professional and kept the energy of the room going, but I also saw it as an act of friendship, of not letting Edge's possible upset get the better of him.
This moment brought me back to my seeing the band perform for the first time, watching the Live Aid broadcast on TV. There, at Wembley Stadium, the young band sang at the fundraiser concert against the Ethiopian famine. During their song "Bad," Bono had gone off the stage seeking to make some contact with the audience. It's probably unimaginable now, a performer "going rogue" at such a big event. But off he went, and all the time Edge, drummer Larry and bassist Adam kept "Bad" going, their lead singer AWOL for several moments.
I've loved U2 ever since. Something about friendship, about trust. Not being scared.
Bono came back onstage that day, finished the song, and, well, the rest is history. Now, supposedly the bandmates gave Bono grief for the stunt but it still doesn't cancel out the fact that they held things together.
In their song "One" Bono sings, "We get to carry each other." I can't think of anyone who's covered the song who sang it correctly; it always becomes "We gotta carry each other." A subtle difference in articulation but an enormous difference in spirit. We GET to carry each other. It's an honor, a privilege, a joy. We GET to help bring meds and fair trade to Africa. We GET to work for clean air and water, for poor kids and Dreamers going to college, for fair wages and health care and, why not? World peace.
And isn't carrying each other the beating heart of any progressive political stance?