U2 Won’t Stop Until We Get Enough of Its New 360 Tour

The ever-popular U2 clawed its way out of some tough opening-night tangles to offer its trademark tingles to almost 100,000 fans close to the stage called Claw in Barcelona, Spain and thousands more following the first show of the 360 tour on Twitter and U2 fansites that provided setlist parties, cell-phone streams, and up-to-the-second updates.

Opening night offered 22 songs, including seven tracks from the critically acclaimed No Line On The Horizon which hit the streets, airwaves, and interwebs early this year. After beginning with a quartet of new tunes, Bono prefaced “Beautiful Day” by thanking the economically-challenged fans in “the capital of surrealism” for attending the show. According to remarks Bono made in interviews leading up to the gig, the spacecraft-meets-cathedral design of the set represents a blending of the sacred and secular sides of high-tech experiment, expressing a debt to Barcelona’s modernist architect Antoni Gaudi and his Sagrada Familia.

As predicted by several fans, Bono prepared a song to pay tribute to the recently deceased Michael Jackson. Originally written for Billie Holiday, “Angel of Harlem” was the perfect homage to the performer Bono dubbed an “Angel of Indiana.” Towards the end of the piece, Bono jazzed folks with Jacko snippets of the mesmerizing “Man in the Mirror” and a falsetto sexy “Don’t Stop Until You Get Enough.”

Photos from daylife.com via users in our forums

Given the thick flex of Brian Eno flavors on the new record, the band’s revival of one of their first expeditions into Enotopia makes sense. Old-time fans gratefully welcomed the hypnotic grooves of “The Unforgettable Fire” from the 1984 album of the same name.

With Larry Mullen out on the catwalk straddling a djembe, the techno tribal reinvention of “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” reminds us immediately of Pop-era power thump, complete with a rap-chanted middle section where Bono sounds like a possessed voodoo auctioneer selling day passes to the cuckoo’s nest. Not since the demonic preacher inside early versions of “Bullet the Blue Sky” has Señor Vox brought the shamanic noise with a such playful but psycho finesse.

The live standard that was featured at the Barack Obama inauguration, “Pride” perfectly segued into a searing version of the brief but always beatific “MLK.” Dedicated to imprisoned democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the hymn of liberation “Walk On” featured fans on the circular walkway holding up images of the prisoner. These “masks” have been both maligned and misunderstood by many fans who have discussed their dismay at the entire idea of supporting Aung San Suu Kyi in this way. Although the mask idea’s reception covers a range of responses, many of even the most sympathetic fans find it awkward and remain ambivalent at best to the idea of participating in the participatory political theater the band hoped would replace the raised cell phones of the Vertigo tour.

Unfortunately, masks were not the only cause for grumbling about the overall quality of the opening gig. The band’s botching of “One” has fueled flaming from some fans who feel Bono lost his cool when he tried to get his mates back on game. Perhaps this opening day fumble threw off the four and filtered into the remainder of the set. According to some reports, “Moment of Surrender” was an underwhelming ending to a mixed night even though many had anticipated this spiritually and emotionally powerful tune as the perfect closer.

With fans visiting Spain from all over the world and the global media giving the gig and the gargantuan stage set serious play, many will stay-tuned to see what gets tweaked or tossed for night two on Thursday. When the band dialed up the astronauts on the international space station early in the show, they once again revealed the kitschy SciFi sentiments that have been with the band in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways for a long time. With the shimmer and glimmer of the Claw being circulated in fan videos all over YouTube, we can all enjoy the first show’s afterglow with a close encounter of the rocknerd kind.