But Didn’t He Deceive Us?

The Obama spinners would tell you how canny and clever their man was–concealing that Iranian secret nuclear site and now using it to, well, set a new deadline, I guess. But he’s darn tough, that Obama. Marty Peretz calls foul, reminding us that Obama concealed the Iranian plans from the public and our allies:

Which, of course, means that the whole public discussion was conducted under the shadow of half-truth and misleading assurances. We had little reason to expect the truth from the Bushies. But we were promised a real change by the successors. In the end the truth came out because Iran sent an enigmatic little missive to the International Atomic Energy Agency admitting it had been constructing another nuclear facility.

Were the put-downs by U.S. intelligence of Israel’s urgency about Iran’s atomic accomplishments not distortions? I believe so. The only top security person who was honest in public was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen. I believe that Israel was “canny” but didn’t make public all that it knew simply out of deference, first, to President Bush, latterly to President Obama. . . .

So what is going to happen with Washington’s highly vaunted engagement with Tehran? How much kicking around will the president take?

Not very much from the mainstream media and the Left blogosphere. Funny how, in good faith, George W. Bush acted on the best available U.S. intelligence estimates concerning Iraq (estimates shared by every other Western power and his Democratic critics) in defense of American security, while Obama plainly concealed the risk to American security posed by Iran, presumably so he could continue doing nothing for as long as possible about the Iranian nuclear threat.

Something is very, very wrong. But you’d never know it from the Obama sycophants for whom no justification for Obama’s egregious irresponsibility and timidity is too far-fetched.

How Can You Stand Next To The Truth And Not See It? - U2 at Giants Stadium

Hat Tip - @U2

"We've got a spaceship," Bono said in reference to the massive staging above his head in the center of the stadium, "but we're not going anywhere without you."

He didn't just invite the audience on his otherworldly journey, he also invited Someone Else: at the end of the first song, "Breathe", he closed his eyes and knelt slightly. With one hand holding the microphone and the other palm-toward-heaven, he pleaded, "Spirit breathe."

And like the cool September breeze that gently graced the stadium throughout the show, the Spirit did indeed descend, to transport us to another place.

Several songs into the set, the band performed "Magnificent":

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn't have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar
Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent‚ Magnificent

My friend Phil was standing next to me. While Bono worshiped using the above lyrics, Phil turned to me and said, "How can people not know what he's singing about?!" I agreed completely.

The next song was Elevation. It's a song that fits the "spaceship" theme: "You make me feel like I could fly, so high, El - eh - vay - shun!" And to make the point even more obvious, Bono looked at the crowd and said, "It's my prayer for you." And at this point in the church service--I mean, concert--I started to think about a question that the band sings in a lyric on the new album:

Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot
How can you stand next to the truth and not see it?

Perhaps I'm wrong, and there was no single person in the crowd of 84,000 who didn't "see it" like I was seeing it. Perhaps everyone in the place understood that the spaceship was a cathedral, that the lead singer was a priest, and that the setlist was a liturgy, designed specifically to facilitate an encounter with the God of the Universe.

It couldn't have been more clear than at the end of "One", when Bono sang:

Can You hear us coming Lord?
Can You hear us call?
Feel us knocking
We're knocking at Your door!

When this portion ended, he led us in an a cappella--84,000 strong--version of the hymn "Amazing Grace", which blended into "Where the Streets Have No Name". "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see... I want to run, I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. I want to reach out and touch the flame, where the streets have no name."

At this point in the evening, Bono was no longer explaining his intention to have us meet God, or to take us away in his spaceship. No, at this point, we were already gone.

We held our arms aloft, reaching out to the touch that flame. And for a second I still wondered if someone could be in that place, standing next to the Truth but not seeing it. But when the next song started I decided to let Bono's question be asked of me, instead of those around me. Was I the idiot going out with Beauty? Was I the one standing next to the Truth but not seeing it?

My answer came in the next song, "Ultraviolet", one of my all-time favorites. I interpret the song to be in reference to Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." God as an ultraviolet light: we can't see it but it illuminates nonetheless. For this song, Bono dressed in a suit of lights. A rope hung from heaven (where the spaceship was now flying) above him, and it too was lit up like John chapter 1. As he hung from the microphone/rope like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline, he sang,

Sometimes I feel like I don't know
Sometimes I feel like checking out.
I wanna get it wrong
Can't always be strong
But Love, it won't be long.

I used to think the chorus "baby, baby, baby‚ light my way" was a plea to some carnal lover. But now I realize that the "baby" is the Christ child, and his enduring love is my only lifeline. "I'm in the black, can't see or be seen. Baby baby baby, light my way." How many times in my life have I gone on thinking I am strong enough? I am capable enough? How many times have I not reached out for that rope of illumination and clung to it, as if my life depended on it? So many times, the Truth is right there, and I don't see it.

The concert ended in surrender. (Where else could it end?) The liturgy was sung:

I've been in every black hole
At the altar of the dark star
My body's now a begging bowl
That's begging to get back, begging to get back
To my heart
To the rhythm of my soul
To the rhythm of my unconsciousness
To the rhythm that yearns
To be released from control

And this is when I stopped noticing the people around me (judging their ability to "see it" or not) and simply focused on my own encounter with Jesus, my own surrendering to him.

At the moment of surrender
Of vision over visibility
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me

U2 & Saturday Night Live

U2: coming for the music or the message?

By John Baiata, NBC News’ Senior Editor

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Political activism from rock stars has a long lineage. You can trace it all the way back to George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" in 1972, the "No Nukes" concert in New York in 1979, "LIVE AID" and "We Are the World" in the 1980's, and many more. Today such activism is ubiquitous. Concert-goers are urged to support a wide range of causes, and artists' web sites act as grass-roots organizations for a multitude of high-minded projects.

But no band – and no band leader – embodies this ideal more today than U2 and Bono. The band supports the efforts of Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Chernobyl Children’s Project. Bono has used his fame to put considerable pressure on countries to reduce the burden of debt on developing countries and to draw attention to the fight against AIDS in Africa with his RED project.

Evan Agostini / AP

Lead singer Bono of the rock band U2 performs with the band during their 360 world tour stop at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on Thursday.

U2 was the first big band to play in Sarajevo after the Bosnian war, launched an effort to put thousands of musical instruments back in the hands of New Orleans artists after Katrina, and have been very vocal in their support of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Many of their songs over the years have drawn on socio-political events for inspiration – from the fighting in Northern Ireland to the civil war in El Salvador.

The band’s latest world tour, in support of their most recent album, "No Line on the Horizon," has drawn praise from critics. The tour’s latest stop, at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, sold out for its two nights. With 84,000 attendees per night, that’s more over 160,000 to rally to the cause(s) in just two nights. (According to U2's Web site, they broke every record for attendence in the stadium - breaking the record previously set by Pope John Paul II in 1995.) Do the math for the rest of the tour, and you begin to understand the extent of the band’s reach, and that of others with similar followings.

But what’s the real draw, the music or the message?

For Kevin Sheridan, 37, an advertising salesman from Malverne, N.Y. the two go hand in hand. "I tend to like those (musicians) with a message. Usually the music is better, because it comes from the heart." Sheridan drew the line when it comes to Hollywood, however. "These artists write their own music, which reflects their views, and you know going in where they stand. But I don’t want to be preached to by someone just because they’ve starred in a movie."

Blair Thill, 22, of Little Silver, New Jersey, said Bono’s activism was part of what attracted her to the band to begin with. His involvement in the fight to eliminate AIDS in Africa even inspired her to do a fundraising bake sale during high school in support of the cause. But, she said, "I would venture to say most people are going to this concert for the music, not a social cause."

John Baiata, NBC News

Images of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a song dedicated to her.

Dori Kenyon, 38, a representative for Amnesty International manning one of several booths outside the venue, did not entirely agree. "You get all types. Some people are here because they [U2] have been around for 30 years, and they love the music…There are others who are here because they believe in what we’re doing, and Bono supports that."

Kenyon had made the drive from Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her son because she said, "We have a responsibility to everyone around the globe." She was collecting signatures in support of three causes – a bill guaranteeing maternal health benefits for women in the U.S., a petition urging U.S. lawmakers to deliver a plan that fulfills "the human right to health care," and another urging the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all other "prisoners of conscience" in Myanmar.

Suu Kyi was in the spotlight on this night almost as often as the band members.

The group’s Web site encouraged fans attending the show to download and print a mask of her face, and to wear it during their performance of "Walk On," a song written for her. Her image was beamed over the giant video screens above the set as Bono talked about her lengthy detention and fight for freedom.

Her plight was probably news to most in attendance. Not a single fan I spoke to beforehand had even heard of her, and no one visible in the crowd had donned the mask of her image.

Yet all eyes were on Bono as he spoke, and as he sang, in part:

"You could have flown away

A singing bird in an open cage

Who will only fly, only fly for freedom"

South African Bishop Desmond Tutu’s video message to the crowd, which preceded the encores, received a raucous cheer. Tutu reminded the crowd that they were "the same people" who protested for civil rights in America, against apartheid in South Africa and the troubles in Northern Ireland.

John Baiata, NBC News

A video message from Bishop Desmond Tutu preceded the encores.

A few minutes later we were reminded that contributions from Americans to the "ONE" campaign had helped deliver life-saving drugs to 34 million African schoolchildren, along with a couple of other encouraging statistics.

When the concert was over, those in attendance began to file out, talking excitedly about what they’d just witnessed. And while none I heard were talking about Aung San Suu Kyi, they’d all been given a primer as part of the price of admission.

U2 manager delighted to bring stage show full circle

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - As U2 wraps the 2009 dates of its groundbreaking 360 world stadium tour, the band is expected to gross about $300 million and sell about 3 million tickets to fewer than 50 shows.

Rather than a high-end ticket price, the big numbers are more about a unique staging concept that boosts configurations at stadiums, and fans know that U2 is again pushing the production envelope. The tour is in support of the band's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon," and if it isn't scaling the sales heights of previous sets -- since its March release, "Line" has sold 991,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- the band's manager, Paul McGuinness, credits that more to overall market conditions than a decline in the act's popularity.

Though sometimes outspoken about industry issues -- his 2008 MIDEM keynote excoriating the industry for its lackluster response to digital distribution still resonates -- McGuinness is anything but riled as he sits in an office backstage at Chicago's Soldier Field just before U2 went onstage. "What do I possibly have to be pissed off about?" he wonders. Both pragmatist and gambler, McGuinness guides the career of what has become arguably the biggest band in the world, and it has been a banner year for the group he has represented since the start of its career.

Much like the band he represents, McGuinness continually focuses on breaking new ground, and he's constantly looking for new ideas. The 360 tour is U2's first under a new 10-year Live Nation multiple-rights deal. While he doesn't claim to have all the answers, McGuinness is open to new horizons, as evidenced by "the claw," the massive staging concept that makes U2's 360 tour truly an all-encompassing experience.

Billboard: How did the European leg feel to you on this run of the 360 tour?

Paul McGuinness: Incredible. We played to staggering numbers. We've broken records in every building we play because the effect of this production economically is to increase the capacity by about 20 percent routinely. For instance, in Berlin at Olympic Stadium, we held the record already jointly with the Rolling Stones at 70,000. This time I think we put in 90,000. Every building we play we will break whatever record there is there.

Billboard: So you feel good about the live part of U2's business?

McGuinness: Absolutely, because in a way there's a memory in the audience. They've always known that when you come to a U2 show -- even when we were doing theaters -- we would do as much production as we could afford. Once we got into arenas, we loved it -- we always played in the round in the arenas -- so this seems natural to be in the round in the stadiums.

The engineering problems are enormous and costly. We had to find a way for it to be aesthetic and figure out a way of doing video. That cylindrical screen we have -- that didn't exist, we had to get somebody to invent that. We had to design this four-legged thing (the claw) -- and build three of them.

Billboard: How long will it take to get into the black?

McGuinness: When do we hit the break-even point? We haven't hit it yet. But we will sometime between now and the end of this leg.

Billboard: So next year is gravy?

McGuinness: Not exactly gravy, because whether we're playing or not, the overhead is about $750,000 daily. That's just to have the crew on payroll, to rent the trucks, all that. There's about 200 trucks. Each stage is 37 trucks, so you're up to nearly 120 there. And then the universal production is another 50-odd trucks, and there are merchandise trucks and catering trucks.

Billboard: Why do that when you can go out and set up a stage and still play stadiums and be in the black before you reach these shores?

McGuinness: Well, we have been trying to find a way of doing 360 for years. This was not something we decided to do recently -- we just couldn't find a way of doing it. The engineering to build a temporary structure capable of bearing the weight that this carries, hundreds of tons, nobody had come up with a way of doing that. (Set designer) Willie Williams and (architect) Mark Fisher had been teasing at it for years.

The other thing that has come such a long way is the LED technology -- those little guys -- we started the use of them for the industry with the PopMart tour (in 1997), and they weren't completely reliable in those days. We had a lot of technical trouble with that. The kind of modern production style really can be traced back to ZooTV (in 1992), which was a groundbreaking production. Building this cylindrical screen was only made possible by the trellis on which it's mounted, which was invented by this guy named Chuck Hoberman.

The coming together of those LED skills, the engineering skills, the imagination of the band, Mark Fisher, years of talking about this and years of seeing occasionally somebody performing in the round in a structure that would take a week or two to build and a week to dismantle. You couldn't truck it, you certainly couldn't take it up and down in a couple of days. This had to be transportable -- and it is, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Billboard: The fans seem to get it that you're bringing them something they've never seen before.

McGuinness: Each one of these shows there are 10,000 $30 tickets -- so even though the gross is expanded by the increase in the capacity, we see what's happening in the marketplace, people don't have much money. And so worldwide we came to the decision to have really low-priced tickets. We have some expensive tickets, but our expensive tickets are $250; they're not as expensive as the Rolling Stones' or Madonna's most expensive tickets. I think it's a very fair pricing. The scaling of this tour has worked everywhere we've played.

Billboard: Any comment on the state of the music industry right now?

McGuinness: I don't have a recipe for the solution to the woes of the record companies and the recorded side of the music business. It's very, very important, it must be supported. And there are an awful lot of people and an awful lot of industries and individuals -- the telcos, the (Internet service providers), the device manufacturers -- that have enjoyed an absolute bonanza since music went online. And I just think they should feel more responsible out of a sense of fairness to the community of creative people who make that music, which is now in so many cases completely free. Times change, mechanisms for distributing music change. I would like to see a greater recognition of the obligations the tech side of the business have to the writers and musicians.

I've nothing against big companies. Big companies are there to be infiltrated, they want to be infiltrated, they want you to come in and tell them how to do it, what to do. I've never found a big corporation hostile to anything we wanted to do. Similarly with Live Nation -- our relationship is very close indeed. This is our fourth tour with Arthur (Fogel, global music chairman for Live Nation). The first tour we produced and he promoted. The second one he produced and promoted, because that was better. And as (Live Nation) developed their plan to take Live Nation out of Clear Channel I was absolutely behind that, and I'm totally behind the plan to merge Ticketmaster and Live Nation. I think it's very good for the industry.

Click, click: What U2 hears when they hear U2

In Obama we trust ...less each day

As President Obama described his new policy on missile defense against Iran in Europe, I felt reassured when he promised that scrapping the Bush plan would actually strengthen America’s security.

Then I quickly remembered Obama also promised his health care overhaul wouldn’t add a dime to the deficit.

Yikes. Run for your life.

The moment captured for me what is the greatest mystery about our young president. Why does he continue to squander the public trust he worked so hard to build and that he will need for the many battles to come?

The central problem is his relentless push for health legislation the public doesn’t want. The harder he pushes — five TV interviews are scheduled for today — the more the country resists.

One result is a shocking trust deficit, as reflected in a recent Quinnipiac survey. By a whopping 68 – 26 percent margin, voters in Connecticut reported they don’t believe Obama when he says the health care plan will not add to the deficit. The findings mirror national ones reported in July.

Imagine that — an American president is not believed on his signature claim by nearly 7 in 10 people. Yet he insists, without evidence, he is right and they are wrong.

A president can go broke fighting public trust. As it stands, Obama will soon be like the little boy who called wolf too often.

Surely he knows how that story ends, so why continue on this destructive course?

That’s the mystery.

Irish Boys on The CTA: U2 Wrap the Windy City in a Mighty Wind

September 16, 2009 · Print This Article

Opening the North American leg of the 360 tour with a two-night stand at Soldier Field, U2 unveiled its visually opulent and sonically stimulating spectacle with two impassioned performances.

A gift to the people of Chicago and those who had traveled from all over the world, the current transcontinental crusade reclaims stadiums as an appropriate venue for a rock and roll show. Drowning out the dispatches of detractors banging ‘puter keyboards and blasting out blogs with their smug disses and dismissals, our chorus cascaded across a canyon of steel and cement, an uncynical kiss to the future, to the resilience of “love and community.”

Throughout both shows, Bono shared the sentiments of Snow Patrol lead singer Gary Lightbody in his Chicago Bears tee-shirts, showering the hometown crowd with specific local references to the elements, to the lake, to various street names, and the public elevated train system also known as the CTA. On Saturday, Bono bragged about being the wind in the windy city (no one can argue that brother Hewson is long-winded), and on Sunday, he even said he wanted to kiss Chicago’s collective ass. Despite his usual self-aggrandizing and grandstanding that makes him the rockstar equivalent of the mega-preacher he once mocked, Bono still has both the balls and biblical background to mean it and make it work for all of us.

With “Beautiful Day” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” early in the set, the choir director set the tone where the secular, sacred, and spectacular might converge. Unafraid of his own churchy sentiments, Bono gleefully greeted and guided his congregation, often leaving the mic to look at us, to let us take the chorus, the sound of our own combined voices giving everyone the chills. Whether it’s outstretched arms or bended knees, Bono’s never shied away from spiritual symbols and messianic moments, and at the shores of Lake Michigan, he fed more than 60,000 with loaves of loose electricity and cosmic fish of a millennial fever.

While some fans decry keeping “Elevation” in the set, tracks like that and “Vertigo” rocket fans on a non-stop flight with an engine that sounds like Edge, Adam, and Larry on the loud clouds of funk-punk gymnastics. What angels and demons other than the sound of God’s voice inside your guitar would possess a 50-year-old millionaire and soundscaping zen guru to pogo around the stage like a righteously naïve adolescent on the Vans Warped tour? Of course, it’s exactly that still boyish commitment to studying craft that makes Edge Evans so important to not just this band but to the history of rock and roll.

From climbing the rigging at the Us Festival in 1983 to diving into the arms of a girl and a worldwide television audience at Live Aid in 1985, frontman Bono as medicine man has always grabbed for ginormous gestures. And the other three have mostly condoned and cooperated, although sometimes reluctantly, in a career filled with an evangelical dedication to intimacy and inspiration and an artistic fascination with musical trends and cultural tremors. From building a tricked out and tripped out spaceship of a stage to sharing a carefully choreographed selection of hits and hymns, sleepers and surprises, this tour—because of and in spite of its inherent arrogance—marks a culminating crescendo in a distinguished career.

When the “born to sing for you” business of “Magnificent” entered the ears beneath the graying locks of Generation Xers in attendance, this mostly middle-aged and mostly modestly-dressed mass realized that we are the “you”that Bono’s wrapped his operatic poems around for almost 30 years, and once again, we are mentally transported back to our suburban bedrooms where we first ripped the cellophane off our vinyl copies of Boy, October, and War.

The tracks from the new and risky record all blended beautifully into an auspiciously ambitious setlist, one that changed significantly between Saturday and Sunday. Some of Horizon’s subtler, more ambient tracks like “Unknown Caller” and “Moment of Surrender” really shine live thanks to Edge’s ability to create a healing tonic through the Tai Chi moves of modern electronics.

Neither over the top like Zoo TV nor stripped down like Elevation and Vertigo, the current tour attempts to make stadium rock relevant again (with perhaps only Madonna or the Rolling Stones as peers), while striking a balance between U2-specific strands of cheese and sleaze. For those who long for yesteryears of either earnest religiosity or of culture jamming frivolity, we get tastes of both and then some.

We get the tribal remix of “Crazy”–replete with MC Bono testifyin’ on behalf of our communal sanity within a world of commonplace insanity and Larry Mullen paradin’ the promenade and poppin’ the djembe. We get truly rare tracks thrown in for the hardcore fans: in Europe, they got “Electrical Storm”; in Chicago, we got “Your Blue Room.” The second night in Chicago also included rarely-played-this-tour-tracks like “Until The End of the World” and “Stay.” Without losing the coherent unity of the core songs, this tour has included sufficient shifts to please the out-of-town, long-time traveling fans and setlist-statistic crunchers alike.

From the back catalog, we still get singles like “One” or “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” but we also get the regular inclusion of tracks like “Unforgettable Fire” and “Ultraviolet (Light My Way),” tracks where the layers of sound get overlaid by the overall presentation, by polychromatically pleasing tweaks of color from the creative palette of show designers Catherine Owens and Willie Williams. In the encore as Bono lit our way, his laser lit jacket designed by the technician of fashion Moritz Waldemeyer sent rays of red into the crowd and out to the sky At the same time, he cradled a strange,circular mic, perchance the steering wheel of the spaceclaw. Some of my concert companions found these touches too gimmicky; me, who sadly missed Popmart and didn’t appreciate Zoo TV for what it was when I saw it, I loved them.

While he certainly framed himself as more of liberal, radical Christian peacenik back in the day, Bono’s middle-age, millions of dollars, and meetings with people like Bush, Blair, and Bill Frist have turned the shaded crusader into a bit of a political moderate. Outside of U2’s fan community, Bono’s activism is mocked from left and right as the penultimate rich white man’s pandering hypocrisy. Inside the fan community, Bono’s activism gets mocked for its earnest employment of grand gestures that often slow the show with speeches, videos, and altar calls to the One campaign.

Despite these critiques from all sides, a U2 concert would be utterly incomplete without its peace, unity, freedom, and social justice message, and the 360 tour keeps the tradition alive. Outside the shows, fans could visit booths for One and Amnesty International and the Burma campaign. At the Burma table, fans could get the paper mask of Aung Sang Suu Kyi that they could wear or hold up during “Walk On.” The tour program promotes these and other organizations such as Greenpeace, perhaps the latter being more important than ever as a counterweight to the purportedly wasteful nature of this massive caravan.

During the concert, potent videos re-frame “Sunday Bloody Sunday” as a song supporting democracy in Iran. “City of Blinding Lights” is an important politico-spiritual part of the show, not only because Bono dedicated it to Obama in Chicago or because he brought a boy out of the crowd on the second night, but because of the way he emphasizes the closing line: “Blessings not just for the ones who kneel, luckily.” This sense of generous universalism could outrage some who are more pious or partisan about politics and spirituality, but humble and open others to a unity that supersedes difference. I must admit I find myself in the latter category.

In further amplifying this theme, before the song “One,” we witness a moving sermon by Bishop Desmond Tutu whose cosmic Christianity suggests that we are all “the same beautiful people,” concluding “we are the same person.” As idealistic as it is heavy, this notion unites the thousands and throws this show into the transcendent realms whether we like it or not. It’s hard not to feel inspired, to simultaneously feel the wind from the lake on your face and feel moved in your heart when the right reverend says that “God will put a mighty wind at our back.”

For me, the most transcendent moment came Saturday night with the inclusion of “Bad,” still, after all these years, my favorite U2 song to hear live. On all my Vertigo shows, I missed hearing this piece and almost fainted when the familiar opening strains began to echo into Soldier Field. According to those near the stage, the song was not on the setlist, and Bono called for this one like a quarterback uttering an audible. I can’t help thinking that my praying hard for this all day might have had something to do with such a lovely twist for this fandom’s fate.

Despite what others have suggested, I find “Moment of Surrender” the perfect coda to this concert. Sung by Bono in a reverent soul-gospel mode while Edge expertly works both the keyboard and guitar, this song is one of the defining moments on the excellent No Line On The Horizon and expands a spiritually pivotal theme that U2 have addressed in one fashion or another since the early 1980s.

Even at over two hours, this is a show that I dreaded seeing end on both Saturday and Sunday. While emotionally and physically exhausted and completely satisfied by the experience, its ending still came too soon. With two shows left on this autumn’s U2 itinerary, I imagine I’ll begin pining for the rumored summer 2010 shows as soon as this leg is over.

–Andrew William Smith, Editor

Photos from fans on the Interference forums by INSTCUWSUMVC, trevgreg, suzanneb

Written by Anu · Filed Under Featured Articles, U2 Event Coverage
Tagged: 360 Tour, Adam Clayton, Bishop Desmond Tutu, bono, Catherine Owens, Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Soldier Field, U2 News & Features, Willie Williams

U2 interview on Chicago Public Radio

Love 'em or hate 'em, Bono and U2 are one of the biggest forces in music today. Tune in to hear Jim and Greg trace their path from Dublin kids to stadium giants. Later they review the new album from heavy metal band Anvil.

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Reviews: (link)

Listen to the MP3 Stream: (link)
Download the Podcast: (Download the MP3)

Interview with U2!

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Video Highlights from U2.com

Does He Lie?

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 18, 2009

You lie? No. Barack Obama doesn't lie. He's too subtle for that. He . . . well, you judge.

Herewith three examples within a single speech -- the now-famous Obama-Wilson "you lie" address to Congress on health care -- of Obama's relationship with truth.

(1) "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future," he solemnly pledged. "I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future. Period."

Wonderful. The president seems serious, veto-ready, determined to hold the line. Until, notes Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, you get to Obama's very next sentence: "And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."

This apparent strengthening of the pledge brilliantly and deceptively undermines it. What Obama suggests is that his plan will require mandatory spending cuts if the current rosy projections prove false. But there's absolutely nothing automatic about such cuts. Every Congress is sovereign. Nothing enacted today will force a future Congress or a future president to make any cuts in any spending, mandatory or not.

Just look at the supposedly automatic Medicare cuts contained in the Sustainable Growth Rate formula enacted to constrain out-of-control Medicare spending. Every year since 2003, Congress has waived the cuts.

Mankiw puts the Obama bait-and-switch in plain language. "Translation: I promise to fix the problem. And if I do not fix the problem now, I will fix it later, or some future president will, after I am long gone. I promise he will. Absolutely, positively, I am committed to that future president fixing the problem. You can count on it. Would I lie to you?"

(2) And then there's the famous contretemps about health insurance for illegal immigrants. Obama said they would not be insured. Well, all four committee-passed bills in Congress allow illegal immigrants to take part in the proposed Health Insurance Exchange.

But more important, the problem is that laws are not self-enforcing. If they were, we'd have no illegal immigrants because, as I understand it, it's illegal to enter the United States illegally. We have laws against burglary, too. But we also provide for cops and jails on the assumption that most burglars don't voluntarily turn themselves in.

When Republicans proposed requiring proof of citizenship, the Democrats twice voted that down in committee. Indeed, after Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" shout-out, the Senate Finance Committee revisited the language of its bill to prevent illegal immigrants from getting any federal benefits. Why would the Finance Committee fix a nonexistent problem?

(3) Obama said he would largely solve the insoluble cost problem of Obamacare by eliminating "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" from Medicare.

That's not a lie. That's not even deception. That's just an insult to our intelligence. Waste, fraud and abuse -- Meg Greenfield once called this phrase "the dread big three" -- as the all-purpose piggy bank for budget savings has been a joke since Jimmy Carter first used it in 1977.

Moreover, if half a trillion is waiting to be squeezed painlessly out of Medicare, why wait for health-care reform? If, as Obama repeatedly insists, Medicare overspending is breaking the budget, why hasn't he gotten started on the painless billions in "waste and fraud" savings?

Obama doesn't lie. He merely elides, gliding from one dubious assertion to another. This has been the story throughout his whole health-care crusade. Its original premise was that our current financial crisis was rooted in neglect of three things -- energy, education and health care. That transparent attempt to exploit Emanuel's Law -- a crisis is a terrible thing to waste -- failed for health care because no one is stupid enough to believe that the 2008 financial collapse was caused by a lack of universal health care.

So on to the next gambit: selling health-care reform as a cure for the deficit. When that was exploded by the Congressional Budget Office's demonstration of staggering Obamacare deficits, Obama tried a new tack: selling his plan as revenue-neutral insurance reform -- until the revenue neutrality is exposed as phony future cuts and chimerical waste and fraud.

Obama doesn't lie. He implies, he misdirects, he misleads -- so fluidly and incessantly that he risks transmuting eloquence into mere slickness.

Slickness wasn't fatal to "Slick Willie" Clinton because he possessed a winning, nearly irresistible charm. Obama's persona is more cool, distant, imperial. The charming scoundrel can get away with endless deception; the righteous redeemer cannot.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Blackberry’s U2 App Arrives – An Inside Story

Back in March, I found myself in a Boston bar next to Bono. It was a meet’n’greet event following the last of three trans-America club-shows-and-radio-broadcasts. Research in Motion and U2 had recently announced a partnership involving a Blackberry tie-in for the upcoming U2:360 tour.

This was big, big news given that U2 and Apple seemed to have had an unbreakable friendship. I mean, Steve Jobs once hugged Bono in public. Steve doesn’t hug anyone. What happened?

“I’m fascinated to see what you and RIM are going to do,” I said.

“RIM is going to do what Apple wouldn’t,” Bono replied, “Give us access to their labs and their people.”

Whoa. This was a scoop. Nothing had been reported about this. Knowing that I had about 30 seconds before Bono’s handlers hauled him away, I pressed on, grasping at...anything.

“I could see RIM developing some kind of app that would involve some kind of social networking with the audience on any upcoming tour.”

Bono paused and then smiled. “Something like that,” he said. And then he was gone.

In the months that followed, we saw RIM introduce the Blackberry Tour world phone. There was also this commercial entitled “Blackberry Loves U2.”



But where was that app Bono hinted it? There was at least one online teaser campaign, http://na.blackberry.com/eng/u2/ but the entire opening leg of the tour passed without anything new from RIM.

It finally arrived Tuesday (September 15) in the form of the U2 Mobile Album. Given that RIM is a proudly Canadian company, it was cool that everyone held back until the tour actually touched down in Canada.

But how did RIM land this deal in the first place? What happened to the supposedly solid relationship with Apple? And you’d suspect—rightly so, too—that every single mobile handset manufacturer in the universe coveted a chance to work with the Biggest Living Band in the Universe™. How did RIM end up with the gig over Apple, let alone Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and all the rest?

Since that fast Bono encounter in March, I’ve had a chance to talk to a number of people close to the situation. Here’s what I learned.

The Apple Deal

No one does business like U2. Principle Management and U2 Ltd, led by manager Paul McGuinness, knows exactly what they’re doing every step of the way. They work in a cycle of four to five years centered around an album release and a tour. In order to make each cycle as successful as possible, Principle and U2 Ltd incorporate a variety of partners who help with ancillary projects.

For example, a big part of the strategy for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb centred around the Apple, the iPod and iTunes. Apple issued a limited edition red-and-white U2 iPod, used “Vertigo” in a TV commercial around the time of the album’s release and then released 150+ U2 tracks via iTunes, including many rarities, unreleased recordings and exclusives.

And it went deeper. Anytime you opened a Best Buy or Future Shop flyer, the photos of all the iPods featured that shot of Bono in profile singing into a mic. And if you go to your iPod menus on your Touch or iPhone, you’ll see that the icon for “Artists” is a silhouette of that same photo of Bono.

Meanwhile, Bono turned into an Apple fanboy, evangelizing the glories of the company and the design prowess of Jonathan Ive and the iPod team. Here’s what he told me.


As you’d guess, Apple was given the first crack at doing something cool when it was time for U2’s next five year plan. So what happened?

I’ve long maintained that Paul McGuinness is the smartest and best manager in rock. He and the band know that if they’re going to continue this little enterprise that they need to change with the times and the technology.

Having seen what’s become of social networking and anticipating what is just now being dubbed “social music” by mobile media experts, he and the band approached Apple about doing something cool for the next five year plan.

Apple, of course, was interested. But sources close to the situation say that Steve Jobs went a little too far with what he expected in return. I’ve heard—but can’t confirm—that Jobs asked for exclusive rights to distribute the next album for a period or one or two months. When U2 pointed out that this would hurt them in territories where Apple doesn’t have any reach—think of all the countries where you still can’t get an iPod or access iTunes—things began to break down.

U2 is a global brand worth billions of dollars. Why would they sacrifice album sales—still a huge source of revenue for them—for Apple? And with file-sharing being what it is, pirated digital copies would simply spread around the globe within hours of any exclusive Apple release.

If you’re a I’m a fan in, say, Uruguay, how would you feel knowing that fans in more plugged in countries could get the while you had to wait two months for it to appear in your local store? And knowing how McGuinness feels about file-sharing and the role of ISPs, this whole idea was a non-starter. But Jobs wouldn’t budge. The love affair was over.

RIM Gets the Gig

With Apple out of the picture, McGuinness sent feelers out to all the other handset manufacturers, including RIM. I’ve been told that all the big players made very good, very technical pitches about the programs they could write, the networks they could access and the devices they could deliver. So how did RIM win the day?

Here are some things to consider:

• The Blackberry and the iPhone have been going head-to-head in the smartphone wars for years. Blackberry owns the business world while the iPhone is a consumer favourite. Each want to get into the other’s real estate. RIM saw a U2 alliance as a way of extending its global brand even further—and into the consumer space.

• RIM chief Jim Balsillie is a HUGE music fan. This is a guy who paid Aerosmith, the Hip and Van Halen do play private shows for his employees.

• Jeff McDowell.

• Who’s Jeff McDowell?

Jeff is a U2 fan from way back, a guy who started buying albums in the early 80s. Today, it’s the VP of Global Alliances with RIM. The story goes like this—and I hope it’s true.

Jeff was apparently called to pitch U2 on RIM’s capabilities at the last second and thus didn’t come with the PowerPoint dog-and-pony show like all the other manufacturers. Instead of getting all geeky and technical, Jeff merely reminisced about how much U2 had meant to him when he was growing up. He talked about going to shows and how he loved the look and feel of The Joshua Tree album when he first held it in his hands. He was obviously an unabashed U2 fan.

Although the U2 folks liked what the other handset manufacturers were offering, it was this emotional appeal to the band’s creative side that swayed them. Just like Bono rhapsodized about the design elegance of the iPod, he and the others were convinced to go with RIM—and specifically Jeff--because they got it when it came to making an emotional connection with fans.

A deal was signed and delivered. Access was given to labs and people. And as of this past Tuesday, the results of Jeff’s appeal to the band are finally becoming more apparent. Now we can sit back and see what kind of effects RIM’s U2 app has both on Blackberry sales and the way U2 interacts with their fans.

I wonder what Steve Jobs is thinking?

Amazing Grace & Where the Streets Have No Name

The Pinnacle of Power: What I saw at the U2 concert.

Sometime in high school, I acquired the idea that attending a rock concert, for a middle-class kid anyway, was a transgressive act. It was a step out of the sedate norms of suburban life into an exhilarating, dangerous netherworld, an intoxicating haze of smoke, primal rhythms, and throbbing sensuality—throwing off the shackles of predictable conformity and throwing down the gauntlet of rebellion.

Well, earlier this week I joined 60,000 Midwesterners at U2’s 360 Tour concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field, and can report, with faint disappointment, that the most transgressive act I managed to commit, or indeed witnessed all evening, was talking with some friends in the narrow stairway of section 443 before the concert began, thus impeding the path and incurring the wrath of the vendors of Miller Lite. (“ONE CAN LIMIT,” their coolers proclaimed.)

The concertgoers streamed into the Chicago Bears’ home stadium in attire that can best be described as Apple Store Clientele—casual cool with an extra helping of organic sustainability. Befitting U2’s long and protean career, they were strikingly intergenerational. Four teenage boys wearing school T-shirts from the Near North Side, cleancut and fresh-faced, stood right in front of me, singing every word through the whole show. A couple rows down, two late-40s parents escorted their teenage daughter and preteen son. Or was it the other way around? I saw lots of parents accompanying pre-driving-age teenagers, making me wonder whether the parents or the children had been the ones to make the case for going to see U2. Perhaps the predominant demographic, at least in the nosebleed seats, was twentysomething couples, few of whom betrayed the nervous electricity of first dates: my bet is they were either married or contentedly cohabitating. All in all, it was a perfectly domestic evening.

The show was spectacular, of course—conducted in the round under a superstructure that was part circus tent, part spacecraft, part church spire, with a pantographic video wall whose versatility was probably the best surprise of the evening. (It’s hard to remember or believe that rock acts used to fill stadiums without using video, so essential is the medium for bringing the tiny figures on stage to life.) Perhaps my experience was affected by the third-rate sound at our level (one friend said that given the multiple echoes, it was like we were attending three concerts each two seconds apart), but what captured my attention most of all was the visual drama of the night, not the music. And what really began to captivate me was what was happening in the seats, not on stage.

The scene, it dawned on me, was straight out of a Leni Riefenstahl film—the stadium, the adoring crowd, the fists pumping the air, the coordination, not to say manipulation, of emotion, music, volume, noise, silence. The performance was masterful in every sense of the word, including its more sinister sense. The mastery was not just that of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen, Jr.—it was also, even more so, that of a great unseen crew of engineers, designers, videographers, producers. They used every trick in the book, and several tricks destined to be added to books yet to be written, to usher four men, and above all one man, to a position of power.

The tempter in the gospels suggested that Jesus throw himself from the pinnacle of Herod’s Temple—perhaps 150 feet high—in order to gain the admiration and worship of the masses of Judea. But U2’s stage set (which rises to 164 feet if the scarily comprehensive Wikipedia article can be believed), with all its technological wizardry, makes the Temple look like an elementary-school swingset. To be sure, Bono did not ascend its central spire and throw himself down, but if he had, I suspect the crowd would have gone wild.

U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it.

For what became clear, and increasingly distracted me from the brilliant performance, was that the crowd wanted it all. They wanted to look alike (each, of course, alike in their own individually expressive way—each judiciously sized tattoo, placed where it would be covered by business attire, a personal statement). They wanted to pump their fists in unison. They wanted to vicariously exult, suffer, die (at the conclusion of one song Bono lay sprawled on the stage, motionless, just long enough for the crowd to catch its breath in anxiety), and triumph. The boys in front of me—was it so long ago that I was their age, their stage, full of their improbable joy and rage?—were almost palpably desperate to be drawn in. The right man, I thought, could have transmuted all this fervor into something genuinely powerful, genuinely transformative in the world beyond the stadium. Or the wrong man. Ask Leni Riefenstahl.

It is curious to think that in this postmodern age of pluralism, individualism, and self-expression, fascism may not be as far removed as we think. Perhaps it is not incidental that Apple, the ultimate merchant of cool (for whose products I am daily, insanely grateful), enforces its own sort of velvet-fisted uniformity on its devotees. I cannot be the only person to have occasionally wondered if I am worthy, not to mention appropriately dressed, even to enter an Apple Store. But enter it we do, in search of simplicity, beauty, and predictability—a bit of control in a complex and chaotic world. Which is pretty much what all gods offer their worshippers.

All of which makes me glad and a bit amazed that such power has fallen, in the case of U2, into such humble hands. Bono would be the first to protest that he is anything but humble, but of course that is one of the signs of humility. For all the posturing, for all the 30-foot-high closeups on the screen, after much wandering and experimenting (including a phase where Bono dressed up as Mephistopheles) U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it. They have done so by choosing to spend their power on others, and on pointing to Another. The two emotional highlights of the show, for me at least, were a performance of the sublime anthem “Walk On” dedicated to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, with a simple but effective bit of crowdsourced theater on behalf of her cause; and an a capella rendition of the first verse of “Amazing Grace.” The crowd knew the words, and they sang along.

If it is possible for as outsized a personality as Bono to recede from awareness, in those moments he was just one of us, leading us beyond himself to what truly matters. This is something that Steve Jobs, for all his brilliance, has never done—his rare public efforts to address any topic larger than the latest insanely great Apple product, such as his much-quoted 2005 Stanford commencement speech, are no more and no less than a distilled version of the Western cult of self-realization. Steve Jobs has never led a crowd in singing “Amazing Grace.” Maybe someday he will, though perhaps first he will have to go through a phase where he dresses up as Mephistopheles.

As it happens, U2’s 360 Tour was, in a dramatic shift, sponsored not by Apple, which sold umpteen million devices to the throbbing soundtrack of “Vertigo” back in 2005, but by a much humbler fruit, the Blackberry. No doubt that decision was made primarily for commercial reasons (though Bono has also said that Apple wasn’t interested in collaborating creatively with U2, which tells you something about Apple’s corporate confidence). But it’s interesting in its symbolism nonetheless, and suggests that U2 will continue to turn their unparalleled cultural power in unexpected directions. If all the stories hold together, it was Mephistopheles who tempted Adam before he tempted Christ, urging him to take a bite. Against all odds, U2 keep telling that old, wily fool to get behind them, turning the vast unquenchable human thirst for worship toward someone worthy of it. Walk on.

I Found Grace Inside the Sound

Good music is like a diamond; one can look at it from many different angles and see various facets of beauty. The new U2 album is like this, and I could have written a review about many other topics, such as its guitar riffs, its “moments of surrender”, or whether or not it is the “best ever” U2 album. Instead, I’m going to focus on the facet that played loudest to my ears: the repeated lyric, "let me in the sound."

If the title No Line on the Horizon refers to a yearning for the removal of the barrier between heaven and earth, then I assume it is evoked from Jesus’ prayer to his Father, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is an idea displayed in visual form on the album’s cover, which is a photograph of a blurred line where the ocean meets the sky, and an “equals” sign over it (…on earth as it is in heaven). The theme certainly would fit within the larger context of Bono’s theology of eschatological tension (the “already / not yet” reality of Christ’s Kingdom), so poignantly painted in the scenes of Sunday Bloody Sunday and many other examples.

In that earlier U2 era, the tension was mostly focused on the brokenness of life on earth’s side of the horizon line (“broken bottles under children’s feet”). It sometimes alluded to the Kingdom on heaven’s side, showing us that it would include unity and hope (“tonight, we could be as one”). That unity was later analogized as radiant color, for example in the lyric “then [in heaven] all the colors will bleed into one” in I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.

So many times, Bono has pleaded with the Divine to come down through the barrier once again. He would wonder why the delay (“how long must we sing this song?”), especially in the face of such a mess here on earth. He even pleaded by mocking God’s absence in Wake Up Dead Man: “I know you’re lookin’ out for us, But maybe your hands aren’t free?”

But on this latest album he has started to paint a fuller picture of that “other place,” the Kingdom (not yet) come, on the other side of the horizon line.

Moving beyond the color analogy, Bono here describes heaven as full of sound.

In the new song Breathe he has us imagine “the roar that lies on the other side of silence” and in I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight, he sings “…the sweetest melody is the one we haven’t heard.” I think this sound--a roar!--must be the same vision of heaven described in Revelation 4 and 5, where all the living creatures in heaven and on earth say/sing without ceasing “Holy Holy Holy” to the lamb on the throne.

Pointing us toward that sound, Bono invokes a prophetic tone by asking God to be witness to the truth of the Kingdom (“let me in the sound!”) and then he declares that he’ll be communicating that truth on earth, singing to the hearer, “Listen for me, I’ll be shouting. But we’re gonna make it all the way to the light.” Like a prophet, he then gives a rally cry to his people: “Let’s shout into the darkness, squeeze out sparks of light.” This lyric is an obvious footnote to the Bruce Cockburn lyric that Bono quoted on Rattle and Hum, “gotta kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight.” But here, instead of kicking at evil, Bono asks us to sing into it. He asks us to listen for Jesus’ tune, then sing with him that not-yet-heard melody of the Kingdom.

Walk out into the street,
Sing your heart out.
The people we meet,
will not be drowned out.

The song concludes its last verse with this:

We are people born of sound,
The songs are in our eyes.
Born to wear them like a crown, oh.

Walk out into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out,
Sing my heart out.
I found grace inside the sound,
I found grace, it's all that I found.

Like a minister reminding his flock of their mission to be salt and light, Bono declares to us that we were created to sing of God’s grace. If we would yearn to hear, as he does, the song already being sung on the other side of the horizon, we might catch a note or two. We might “tune our hearts to sing God’s grace”, as the 18th century hymn Come Thou Fount also beckons. We might sing these notes in the darkness until we see sparks of light.

How long must we sing this song? Until that day when Christ returns and there is no line on the horizon.

COUNTDOWN TO LIFT OFF

Sorry, Democrats, racism isn't everywhere

By Michael Meyers
Special to NYDailyNews.com

Wednesday, September 16th 2009, 9:10 AM

When a President's prime-time speech is interrupted by a congressman with the accusation of "You lie!" that is something to talk about. But it is hard to decide who is stricken with a more severe American pathology: the ideologues who can't stop themselves from text-messaging or shouting insults at the President while he's talking to them or the demagogues who can't stop crying racism simply because not every citizen is enamored with America's first black President.

There is grandstanding and tomfoolery on both sides: The tea party crowd protests with signs that depict President Obama as Hitler, and the left quickly plays the race card - saying that such protest is "hate speech" and is directed at Obama only because of his skin color.

As any history student or veteran of the civil rights movement knows, Presidents (all of them white) have always been targets of epithets and subjects of caricature. Some were accused of "murder" and "racist" genocide - including the man from Missouri who dropped two A-bombs, and FDR who authorized the internment of innocent Japanese Americans into concentration camps. Lyndon Baines Johnson, a former segregationist who was adored by many blacks for his anti-segregationist policies as President, was driven into political exile over his insistence on waging and "winning" an unpopular war against the Vietnamese. And, lest we forget, Richard Nixon was oftentimes depicted with a short mustache. George W. Bush, too, was drawn as a monkey and as worse by protesters and artists.

We are a country with a vicious, personal political streak. That's who we are.

It is wrong to believe that in 21st century America, Barack Obama, simply because his skin color is darker than that of other Presidents, can or should be spared similar harsh treatment - including slurs, discourtesy and unwarranted comparisons with Adolf Hitler. Obama isn't the first and he won't be the last President to be hated by angry parts of America - on the left and right.

Perhaps his election ushered in a postracial period of good feelings, but a postracial America never envisioned a silencing of old-fashioned protests or any permanent era of civility. That's not the American way. In our free country, we simultaneously decry and feel pangs of guilt and shame and conscience - or don't - but we always tolerate "hate" and political speech that we don't like and the grotesque signs that depict our Presidents as buffoons, jackasses, apes and even murderers. Our American President does not merit the protections or courtesies and bows accorded a king.

In truth, the protesters on the right who think of Obama as a radical and foreigner and those on the left who treat him as some kind of saint or savior are brothers and sisters under the skin. They're both wrong.

Obama's address on health care reform is a case in point of both sides being wrong.

To my ears, Obama's speech before Congress was a bundle of contradictions - one big, fat lie. I did not buy his claim that real health care reform, the kind we on the left can believe in, won't add a "dime" or even a penny to our out-of-control federal deficit. Nor did I hear anything credible from him about controlling the skyrocketing costs of Medicare and Medicaid. The promises he listed simply did not add up. I said to myself - not being on the floor of Congress at the time - "you lie." That heretical thought did not make me a "racist." Nor did the expression of the idea make Joe Wilson a "racist."

Wilson was, to be sure, boorishly rude, the kind of rudeness we have witnessed in town hall meetings from the left and the right. And Wilson broke with the decorum of Congress. But it is not because he hails from the South or was once a member of the Sons of the Confederacy or directed his outburst at America's first black President that his utterance can be deemed "racist." He surely did not say or intend the N-word or "boy." Those who claim he did are either fantasizing or engaging in racial histrionics.

Indeed, I think those who so cavalierly play the race card are actually insulting Obama. When Obama's supporters feverishly play the race card they know exactly what they're doing - they are trying to stop the conversation. But Obama says he wants to encourage dialogue, so the racialists who back him do him no favor.

America's racist past cannot be denied, but the kind of real racism that was once popularly supported is finished, for good. As Obama himself says, there is now no black race or white race. In any serious discussion about health care coverage, we are therefore obliged to face this hard truth: We don't withhold a blood transfusion from anyone who needs it, whether or not they can pay, whether or not they're black or white or legal or illegal.

The only issue is who pays: Who pays the bill to keep us from contracting communicable diseases from one another and for ensuring our well-being and personal security from a catastrophic wipeout if our insurance doesn't kick in or if coverage is denied?

These are fair questions, not racial in cast.

Someone once asked, "Can't we all just get along?"

Maybe not. But can't we disagree with the President and oppose what he has to say as a "lie" without interrupting him while he is speaking?

By the same token, can't those who object to Obamacare and an Obama Nation be recognized as wholly within their rights to speak up and to ridicule the man who temporarily occupies the White House, without having to genuflect and bow before the President?

As a liberal, I must ask: Why can't liberals who support Obama make an intelligent argument without accusing those who disagree with us of racism, and sideswiping other liberals who, like me, when I heard Obama's speech, reflexively agreed with Wilson's sentiment - to wit, "Mr. President, you lie!"?

Meyers is executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition.

David Robinson induction speech

Grace Inside A Sound: Exploring U2’s New Horizon

Having already conquered Europe, U2 is about to take on North America with their “360 Tour.” With a new set of songs to deliver, and a massive space-inspired stage (known affectionately as “The Claw”) to perform them on, it seems a good time to check in on the Irish supergroup’s latest musical direction, No Line on the Horizon, and see how it might resonate with those listening with ears of faith.

Let’s start with the first single “Get On Your Boots” (GOYB), released a month before the album No Line On The Horizon (NLOTH). While panned by some critics, GOYB served the role that U2 seems to look for in a first single—revealing the band’s new musical and thematic direction (and getting folks excited that “U2 is back!”). GOYB offers a different sound from previous albums, but the lyrics also deserve some attention. Bono singing of “love and community” how “the future needs a big kiss”, and not wanting “to talk about wars between nations” makes one thing clear—on this album U2 won’t be dealing with the familiar issue of social injustice (in concert is another story though). GOYB’s repeating phrase “let me in the sound” is also intriguing. Is it frivolous or does it have some meaning? We’ll return to that point shortly. What is clear is that something new is afoot for U2 on this album.

No Line on the Horizon, the album, begins in an unusual spot for U2. While the band’s past few albums start in a broken world but lead the listener to spiritual safety (see album-closing songs like “Grace” and “Yahweh”), NLOTH turns this approach upside down. The title track bursts open the album with a mix of heavy guitar, drums and Dr. Who-like sonic effects that conjure a sense of racing over a body of water—fitting, given the album’s cover art of merging sea and sky. Bono’s wavering vocals express how “infinity is a great place to start” and “time is irrelevant, not linear.” Bono has described “No Line on the Horizon” as that place where the earth meets the sky, and possibilities seem infinite. U2 drew near to this space in songs like “Gloria” (from the album October) and “Where the Streets Have No Name” (from The Joshua Tree), but here they’ve gone deeper, crossed a line (no pun intended) and reached an altogether different place.

Hints of that somewhere different can be found in Bono’s recent comparison of NLOTH to The Beatles’ White Album. With closer inspection, the comparison is fitting. While The Beatles went to India on pilgrimage to meet the Maharishi and write music for the White Album, U2 went to Fez, Morocco, to attend the World Festival of Sacred Music and work on NLOTH. While there, members of U2 seem to have taken inspiration from the faith expression of Sufism, a sect of Islam found in North Africa, whose members seek ecstatic communion with God through physical, emotional, and vocal expression—a form of faith that three members of U2 are familiar with from their early days as members of a charismatic Christian group named “Shalom.” While The Beatles’ White Album was a double album, and “No Line on the Horizon” a single CD, U2 have recently mentioned a “companion disc.” Scheduled for release in late 2009 or early 2010, the new disc is to be named “Songs of Ascent” and is described by Bono as a “ghost album of hymns and Sufi singing . . . a kind of heartbreaker, a meditative, reflexive piece of work”.

One need not wait for the next album to ascend though. The heavenly direction of NLOTH continues with “Magnificent,” a song carried by a powerful drum rhythm that will no doubt shake stadium audiences and rally them to singing. Lyrics about making “a joyful noise,” being “justified until we die,” and “you and I will magnify, oh, the magnificent,” take the album deeper into the unusual territory of unbridled expression of faith and hope, unhindered by the earthly challenges previously encountered in U2’s music. What U2 has been reaching for throughout their career seems finally within reach here. Bono told Rolling Stone magazine that “The Magnificent” was inspired by “The Magnificat,” the gospel passage where Mary expresses joy at being chosen to be the mother of Jesus. By choosing the term “The Magnificent,” one of Islam’s 99 names of God, and shooting a creatively spiritual music video for the song in Fez, Morocco, U2 also extend an olive branch and find common ground with Muslims.

“Moment of Surrender” is a slow gospel tune that stands out with its moving vocals and evocative imagery. The line about “love believing in me” may ring a bit over the top for some, particularly Christians familiar with such language, but the lines, “I did not notice the passers-by, and they did not notice me,” and “a vision over visibility,” describe a scene of spiritual conversion or renewal at its most tender and intimate.

Opening with an exquisite “sunshine” harmony, “Unknown Caller” picks up the pace while carrying on the theme of renewal found in “Moment of Surrender.” U2 guitarist The Edge described the song’s narrator as being “in an altered state, and his phone starts talking to him.” The lyrics “cease to speak, that I may speak” echo Psalm 46:10—“Be still and know that I am God.” While the language of entering passwords and rebooting yourself initially sound awkward, the power of `this song grows and will no doubt stir stadiums to sing along. Observant fans will note how “Unknown Caller” uses a reference to 3:33 on a clock, which U2 also used as an airport gate (J33-3) on the cover art of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. During press for that album, Bono told Rolling Stone that it refers to Jeremiah 33:3 (“Call to me and I will answer you”) and described it as “God’s phone number.

Bono speeds up his phrasing and applies his falsetto skills in “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight.” While the lyrics in “Crazy” seem random at times, lines such as, “Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear” and “a change of heart comes slowly,” are intriguing, if not familiar. When added to others such as “it’s not a hill it’s a mountain” and “we’re going to make it, all the way to the light,” one can hear echoes of Martin Luther King’s famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. It is tempting to wonder if Obama’s historic election inspired Bono to write this song, one of the album’s stronger tracks.

While the US reference may be subtle, there are Canadian connections to NLOTH worth mentioning. First, there is Daniel Lanois, the musician and producer who, along with English artist and producer Brian Eno, worked on this and many other U2 albums. Then there is Lori Anna Reid, a talented Canadian singer who receives a mention in the CD liner notes. Daniel Lanois explained to the National Post (March 11^th 2009) how U2 were looking for hymns to draw inspiration from while they attempted to create “future spirituals.” One of the ones Lori Anna suggested was “O Come, O Come Emanuel,” which U2 ended up working with when writing “White As Snow”. Finally, there is a connection to Canadian folk singer Bruce Cockburn. The line “shouting to the darkness, squeeze out sparks of light” from “I’ll Go Crazy” is a paraphrase of Cockburn’s lyrics on “Lovers in A Dangerous Time.” U2 referenced those lyrics more directly twenty years ago in the song “God Part II” from the album Rattle & Hum (“I heard a singer on the radio…say he’s gonna kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight”). “Cedars of Lebanon” also has a very Cockburn-style travel monologue that his fans will recognize and appreciate.

Let’s return now to that phrase “let me in the sound”. Bono sings it repeatedly in “Get On Your Boots”, and it echoes quietly at the start of “Fez Being Born”. It appears a third time on “Breathe” near the end of the album. Anything repeated on a U2 album is a concept with real currency. So what is this about? The answer may again lie in U2’s “pilgrimage” to Morocco. This repeating concept of entering the sound echoes the Sufi approach to finding union with God through music and dance. To this end we hear Bono calling out “meet me in the sound” in “Get On Your Boots”. Later in the song “Breathe,” Bono sings of being “people born of sound” and finding “grace inside a sound”. Who is being met here? U2 often leave much open to interpretation in their music, but the source of grace in this context rings most true when understood as God.

If the trajectory of recent U2 albums was an arc of challenge and adversity ending in hope, that journey is reversed on “No Line”. In fact Bono has said that you could call this album, “The Pilgrim and His Lack of Progress.” It bears true, for while U2 start out elevated, magnifying “The Magnificent,” they descend into the earth’s atmosphere from that place in the heavens. Along the way they teach over-sensitive Christians a thing or two on “Stand Up Comedy” (“Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady”) while rallying them to live their faith in a “dizzy world.” Midway through the album songs deal with rebirth, and by the end, it lands in the middle of life’s challenges with “Cedars of Lebanon”, where a war journalist struggles with a “shitty world” that “sometimes produces a rose.”

It is fair to say that U2 have been seeking “grace inside a sound” their entire career. Bruce Springsteen may have described U2 best when inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, calling them “a band that wanted to lay claim to not only this world, but had their eyes on the next one as well.” U2 prove Springsteen true on No Line on the Horizon. Grabbing hold of the sky right from the start, U2 refuse to let go, pulling the power of heaven down into the heart of earth’s challenges. Bridging divisions and erasing boundaries, whether between the stage and audience, between east and west, or between heaven and earth, is what U2 has been all about for some 30 years now. With this new tour, concertgoers have the chance to join them in that journey, and find grace inside a sound. Many will lose themselves for the evening in U2’s fantastic light and sound show. Some will be found in the sound as well.

Henry is also author of Faith, hope and U2: the language of love in the music of U2 a booklet in the Institute of Evangelism’s Dare series.

U2 Lands in the Windy City

Chicago

Spectacle is a necessary part of a show by a rock band as big as U2, but for its tour of the U.S. and Canada, which opened Saturday night at Soldier Field here, the Irish quartet may have refined the term. Its circular stage, in the center of the football field, was beneath something like a massive alien spaceship that had sprouted legs. It takes four days to construct it at each venue. A 90-foot-high steel structure hosts lights, the sound system and a 54-ton, expandable video screen. Silver bridges allow the band members to leave the main stage and step near the audience. "We built this spacecraft to get closer to you," Bono told the capacity crowd.

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U2’s Bono and the Edge

At some point, though, it comes down to whether the band will seize the opportunity to create moments of musical transcendence. Secure in its place as the best arena rock band today, U2 did, early and often, leaning heavily on its new material.

On this gorgeous late-summer evening, the first four tunes came from "No Line on the Horizon," released in February, and by the time the quartet finished a thrilling "Magnificent," a motif had been established: Though by no means abandoning his characteristic chiming arpeggios, the Edge would build on the techniques he explored on the album, issuing roaring power chords that freed bassist Adam Clayton to exploit the midrange. In "Get on Your Boots," the Edge and Mr. Clayton played a riff in unison, the bassist flicking four fingers of his right hand on the strings, à la the Who's John Entwistle. Meanwhile, Larry Mullen Jr., a master of space in his percussion, alternated patterns on the toms and high hat, his kick drum locked in with Mr. Clayton. When the Edge completed a slide solo in "Magnificent," the guitarist returned to heavy chording and Mr. Clayton again filled the midrange. "The magnificent Adam Clayton," Bono said as the song ended, paying tribute to the most tastefully inventive bassist in rock.

U2 has become louder and more forceful in recent years. Coupled with the band's confidence, perhaps its most appealing trait, the aggression brought new authority to the back catalog. Mr. Clayton locked down the bottom of "City of Blinding Lights" so thoroughly that the Edge was freed to solo as if he had an orchestra supporting him. Similarly, "Elevation" was a blast of energy.

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Soldier Field

The band reinvented a few tunes. After powering "Vertigo," Mr. Mullen stepped from behind the kit to play a djembe for a terrific reading of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight," giving the tune a different texture. Bono and the Edge offered an affecting acoustic version of "Stuck in a Moment." The Edge played plucky single notes that altered the underpinning to "Beautiful Day."

It wasn't a perfect show. Bono seemed to lose his steam late in the set and, on occasion, he'd add a verse or two from another song onto the end of the U2 tune he'd just sung: a bit of the Beatles to one, the Stones to another, a dab of Elvis Costello to a third. Sometimes it fit with the music—the crowd sang along to Bono's take on "Stand by Me" tagged to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"—but more often than not such insertions seemed pointless. A ragged ending to a very fine "Unknown Caller" carried over to the next tune, "The Unforgettable Fire." "One" failed to coalesce as the first encore.

But the time-tested material, especially "Sunday Bloody Sunday," profited from the boldness. When a band of this caliber rips into its songs with renewed energy and a flexible approach, the possibilities are endless. Depending on how far Bono and the others want to push the concept, this tour—with or without alien landing craft—could be very ­interesting.

—Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter @wsjrock.