U2 is not, to put it mildly, the kind of band that seems sheepish about its own popularity, and so tonight’s concert didn’t aim to surprise or confuse or tease the audience. This was an intensely satisfying performance by a band that has figured out what it does best and seems content to do it. Some bands get swallowed up by big arenas, but U2 was built for them: the Edge’s echoey guitar lines are only improved when they bounce off concrete walls, and Bono’s lyrics are best when they’re delivered by tens of thousands of fans.
In 1997, when U2 released the ambitious, electronica-influenced album «Pop,» the group didn’t seem quite as bulletproof as it does now: you got the sense that, for better and for worse, its members were struggling to stay current. But these days, current seems less current than ever. U2’s old-fashioned earnestness and big, ringing guitars seem right at home in today’s old-fashioned alternative-rock world. Not coincidentally, the band has booked old-fashioned young alternative-rock bands to open for them, including the Killers, Snow Patrol and Kings of Leon, who opened tonight’s performance.
One of the night’s final songs was «Yahweh,» which sounds faintly ridiculous when it appears at the end of «Atomic Bomb»: «Yahweh, Yahweh/ Always pain before a child is born,» Bono cries out, and you might wish he were delivering nonsense syllables instead. But when the band played an acoustic-guitar version near the end of the concert, it was transformed into something powerful. Yet again, Bono tilted his head back and asked the fans to join him – an audacious gesture, but not a misguided one. As Bono knows better than anyone, it’s hard to smirk when you’re singing at the top of your lungs.