U2's celebration of The Joshua Tree at Twickenham Stadium was simply magnificent – review
“Thank you for letting us back into your lives,” Bono cooed during the London leg of U2’s 51-date, 2.4-million ticket-selling world tour to commemorate their landmark album, The Joshua Tree, turning 30.
For many, U2 have been a constant that never left. The beaming Glaswegian I chatted to on the train had seen them 14 times, the first of which was at Murrayfield in 1987. “No money could make me part with this ticket,” he assured me, “this has been my life”. Judging by the number of original Joshua Tree tour t-shirts I counted, plenty in the crowd felt the same.
The Joshua Tree was the album that changed everything for U2. It seems strange to say now, but the Dublin quartet weren’t always the all-conquering arena-rock superstars we now take for granted. Indeed, back in 1987, they were at a crossroads. They were household names, for sure, thanks to two UK number one albums and a world tour which culminated in their esteemed 1985 Live Aid performance. But to many they were still considered too punky or too experimental to take over the world.
Their fifth album addressed this doubt. Obsessed with a mythic, pastoral America of sweeping skies and dusty desert roads to nowhere, the album masterfully splicing a bigger, primary-coloured, driving American rock sound with the rhythms and repetitions of Irish roots music. It topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic and pushed Bono and co into the musical stratosphere.
The rest, as they say, is history. Here, for 70-minutes or so, the biggest rock band in the world lived up to the billing. They were simply magnificent, combining power, warmth and verve into as extraordinary an arena-rock salvo as I’ve ever seen.
From the moment drummer Larry Mullen Jr casually strolled down onto the island stage extended 50 yards into the front rows, carefully sat down and started hammering out the military march of Sunday Bloody Sunday, this felt special. When Bono, in all black and hefty Cuban heels, knees bent, back arched, let loose his impassioned howl, it was the perfect counterpoint to The Edge’s effects-laden guitar snarl.
A quick-fire Eighties hit parade followed, with New Year’s Day, Bad and Pride all showcasing the studied musical tension between aggression and tunefulness since aped by Kings of Leon to Future Islands, Editors to Everything Everything. That U2 have endured alongside these younger pretenders owes something to the band’s great chemistry. Here, the four were often not more than a few yards from each other, as if doing a band practise in Bono’s garage in 1976, adding a level of intimacy rarely seen at stadium shows.
Against the backdrop of a huge Joshua Tree motif on a striking burnt orange background, the band played the album in full, as it was intended to be heard in an age where albums were considered works of art and the collection greater than the sum of its parts.
Of course, the individual songs weren’t bad either. The gorgeously melodic guitar ricochets of Where the Streets Have No Name – performed against Anton Corbijn’s breathtaking black and white filmed backdrop of the Mojave Desert – and the elegiac, spectral hum of With or Without You were a reminder that sometimes the most popular music in the world can also be the best.
The band seemed particularly energised by playing songs that had seemed consigned to the vaults, pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. “For 30 years we could never figure out how to play that song,” Bono said after Red Hil Mining Town. I think they might have cracked it.
The stage was set for a rip-snorting finale, but it never quite materialised. The band’s 2001 number one Beautiful Day kicked off the final onslaught, followed by hearty Noughties rockers Vertigo and Elevation. But this self-consciously grandstanding arena rock was somehow less powerful than the quieter aggression that had come before.
When Bono brought Noel Gallagher on stage for an acoustic-led finale of Oasis’ Don’t Look Back In Anger, it felt like a hollow conclusion. I wished the gig had finished 45 minutes before, when U2 were living up to the reputation their landmark album created three decades ago.
