Citation de Fabrice le 15 octobre 2023, 3 h 26 min

Pour les anglicistes, les impressions mitigées d'un fan du bon boss et du bon o.

Initial thoughts just on the performance, they sound great and Bram does a good job in the very hard position of replacing Larry but the show lacks artistic fire. The 2017 Joshua Tree shows had a real perspective because they took the album and made it all about America under Trump. The performance of AB was not on the same level, though amazing to hear Love Is Blindness in particular again 3 decades later.

MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE

As noted above, the show lacks artistic fire. A big part of the problem is the performance of the record. The first part, which opens the show and is the same sequence that was done to open ZooTV, is the high point. The Fly and Even Better Than The Real Thing are full of energy. After the first part of the record is finished (it’s not played in sequence), there is a 4 song acoustic segment. On the first night Bono said that they would be rotating this segment through various albums but that mainly hasn’t happened. Last night, the four songs were all off Rattle & Hum. Desire, in particular, had no bite to it as compared to previous versions. The energy during these songs was really low in the building. This is part a long section of the show where the screen is used minimally or not at all, the right move artistically but a problem in a building where much of the audience is so high up that the band looks like ants.

Also, the acoustic segment of the show cries out for songs from Zooropa, the companion record to Achtung Baby that is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month. Many of those songs have been rarely or never played in the US and fans were hopeful that they would be featured at The Sphere.

Following the acoustic segment, the band completes Achtung Baby with a number of the quieter songs off the record including So Cruel and Love Is Blindness. These are songs the crowd didn’t seem to know and again the screen was sparsely used.

The encores begin with Elevation (again?) and that’s followed by Atomic City, which in terms of both the performance and the use of the screen, is one of the big highlights of the night. From there, we get 4 standard greatest hits played in their normal arrangements. Following Vertigo with Where The Streets Have No Name is a real head scratcher. With Or Without You and Beautiful Day then close out the show. WOWY in every way was far superior on the 2017 JT tour in terms of the graphics package and performance (obviously as Larry Mullen is absent).

U2’s use of the screen is very well done as you’d expect but having seen every tour since The Unforgettable Fire dating back to 1985, it’s definitely not their best work in this regard. It’s a spectacle when it’s used well (The Fly, EBTTRT, Atomic City) but it doesn’t feel as motivated as previous shows. As with Bruce, the lack of new material is an issue. Atomic City is the only song from the past 23 years that’s played. In 2015, which was the best U2 tour IMO since the Elevation Tour, they used stunning graphics to add to the story that was being told about innocence and experience. Instead here, the show doesn’t feel anywhere near as cohesive. It’s a very solid show that U2 fans will enjoy but it doesn’t feel essential.

Now on the building, the biggest problem Dolan has is that the outside may be the most impressive part and you can’t charge people on a public street to look at your building. For concerts, the one thing that lives up to billing is the sound is insanely good. The rest of it everyone I was with was like “eh”. It’s certainly impressive but it’s so unfriendly to the concert experience. Much of the crowd is ridiculously high up, on tiers so steep that it’s hard to stand during the show. Rock and roll is ultimately about a band engaging with the audience. The building makes it very difficult and instead tries to use the gimmick of the screen to compensate. The crowd was totally dead except on the floor, which does live up to billing. Because the stage is so small and the crowd surrounds it, it really does feel like a club show. There’s also the bizarre fact that the entire back third of the 100 level is obstructed so that very little of the screen can be seen. This was somehow not discovered until after the tickets were sold. Those who have experienced say it is really bad. Hard to see how that happened.

So the question is who is this building for and what acts can play there? Very few acts have the ability to put together a show that has a chance of working there. It’s more of curiosity than anything. Give me a show at the Garden or Forum any day.

Apparently, the film that’s playing there, Postcards From Earth, is awesome but it’s an 18,000 seat building. It’s a lot of movie tickets to recoup a $2.3 billion construction cost, that’s for sure.