By the time U2 arrived on stage at Green Point Stadium last night, the
Golden Circle had become somewhat tarnished, as the Big Gig took its
time in settling into Cape Town.
With echoes of old James Bond themes, soul music and the theme from
Shaft still ringing out over a drizzly auditorium, the lads were
somewhat hard-pressed initially to whip the soggy Cape Town crowd at
their Popmart concert into some sort of willing enthusiasm. So they
switched on their giant TV set.
That did it. Lights, music, action!
And away went Bono et al, thumping through a whopper of a set flanked by
a lemon and an olive, singing and thrashing under a big cheeseburger
arch.
They looked old and somewhat tired, and so they should be after the
umpteenth gig of their world tour, and their music never really touched
the spirit, try as they might.
Some 11/2 hours after their damp beginning, though, they hit their
stride in The Streets Have No Name, and it was pretty plain sailing from
then on to their climactic finish.
Not that the concert had been at all bad up to then.
They'd done the obligatory South African thing of singing Shoshaloza,
not a black face in the 30,000-strong crowd, unfortunately paid a quick
tribute to the late Michael Hutchence of INXS Bono cried "Michael
Hutchence going going " then raced into a song and sang a song for Water
Affairs Minister Kader Asmal.
But, lace the gig with pop psychedelia as they might, it stayed
moderately cool as a leftover chicken leg.
And this begets a point with groups like U2 on the big stadium gigs
where ageing giant rockers have to pump their testosterone higher and
higher with whirlier and whizzier sets, are we seeing a change in the
very face of rock?
U2 made it seem as though such heresy is not far off. Bono, like Jim
Kerr of Simple Minds, leans heavily on the ghost of Jim Morrison in his
cadences, and one wonders where that wild Moses would now have led the
people had he the biggest TV in the world at his disposal.
But Bono still has the octave thing the vocal click-switch into higher
register and it's very nice to hear him pull it off in songs like In the
Name Of Love.
He's still got the kick, Bono has, and, bless him, he's one of the few
rockers these days who isn't too arrogant to have a decent conversation
with his audience now and then.
In all, the fans were jumpin', the rain wore off and the night began to
cook sometime after 10.
But final impressions are of a somewhat tired band these days, musically
immaculate, chained to beautifully melodic music and overarched by a
light show that, for all its size and gizmo-appeal, should have been
less 70s and more 2000-ish.
Just Jinger said it was the greatest night of their lives to be support
act to such a band.
They have no reason to hang their heads after a fine cover of
Rodriguez's Sugarman.
Still, U2 has that indefinable essence of rock greatness, that
unquenchable fire, and it built into a pretty warm glow by the end of
the evening.
Even the Golden Circle regained its shine.
All Material copyright Independent Newspapers 1998.