ALL IRELAND CHAMPIONS

It was the opening night of the Dublin Street Carnival - an occasion for the people of Dublin to feel a sense of pride and unity, so often denied them in a sprawling city of architectural devastation and rampant unemployment.

That was the buoyant feeling of good-will which characterised the gathering in the Grapevine Arts Centre. And at the centre of it were U2, sponsors of the Unforgettable Fire exhibition which was opening there, the night before the band's Croke Park megabash. On the wall, images of man's terrible capacity for destruction offered a chilling reminder of the darker forces occasions like this are made to exorcise. Bodies burnt, broken, bruised and rotting: first-hand accounts of the scenes of appalling devastation visited on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final throes of the Second World War.

Downstairs, Martin Luther King's magnificently courageous career as a Civil Rights activist was celebrated, down to the final spread from Life magazine. Malcolm X swam in a pool of red - his own blood. The message of U2's music - that we must wrestle with the demons of violence and hatred and aggression and that we must win. Peacefully.

It's a message that can hardly be lost on the people of Dublin in 1985. There is a need now for an infusion of generosity, comradeship, optimism and love. The impact of recklessness and ruthlessness on the city can be exaggerated - but it could become a tidal flood if legislators and the forces of law and order continue in their apparent policy of upping the ante. The Unforgettable Fire exhibition, U2's music, the Dublin Street Carnival, in their different ways, are about giving that necessary infusion.

Through the "Unforgettable Fire" exhibition, U2 have found a way to give something back to the city that brought them together. It was a symbol of their pride in their place of birth, it's people, and their commitment to it - graciously acknowledged by the Lord Mayor Michael O'Halloran and the City Manager Frank McFeeley on the night. Looking at the images, hearing the speeches, feeling the rising tide of genuine goodwill, you could truly believe it. Tomorrow Croke Park would explode with the righteous sound of 55,000 cheering fans and we could say for sure: The Jacks are back! ...

Well, this is only a stone's throw from the Dandelion Market, and Mount Temple up the road, and yet it's a million miles, and the people who crammed the pitch and the stands have been gathering along the way. U2 had a homecoming and this was the party. The band and the audience had things to say to each other, a ritual dialogue of welcome and congratulations, a people's benediction and salute to the conquering heroes - like they had to Barry McGuigan before - and the band in turn, back from their voyages and triumphs came to invoke the spirit, the rhythm, the occasion, the soul and the heartscapes of home and reunion.

So this was more than a gig. It was the closing of another circle. It was a renewal. Above all else it was an affirmation and a communion. I am U, you are 2, and we are all (U)2gether - in Croke Park, gawd bless the bishop's bones.

They were there at half-eight on the dot. A new precedent has been established this year by Bruce and U2 - thou shalt begin on time. Fittingly it was with "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" and "I Will Follow" blasting, no surging from the speakers. A forest of fists, participation, concentration.

The transition to the giant gig has been easy for U2. Their music has always derived its strength from inclusiveness and participation, Bono sings and calls to the group, the crowd, the plural, unlike Springsteen, whose move to the great outdoors has been more fragile because of the intimacy of his relationship with his hearers, who listen as a collective of individuals.

Moreover, they have incorporated the more atmospherically and lyrically complex "Unforgettable Fire" material into the set with ease. Their performance now is one of assurance and mastery - dare one say maturity.

Big stages are made for Bono, his exuberance and mobility finding its natural extension in catwalks and large open spaces. But again one sensed pacing - he didn't gibbon around the scaffolding -and throughout their performance the band as a whole never overkilled, they restrained themselves to whatever was right, for the moment. They never blew it.

The fourth song, "MLK" brought the first shiver up the spine. "If the Thundercloud passes rain, let it rain" and it looked for a time as though it might, "So let it be". Ah yes. Resignation, acceptance.

The second macroshiver came from "Sunday Bloody Sunday", not just for the crowd's justifiable enthusiasm for the song's sentiments, their participation in the performance and the power of their commitment. No, there was more to this one - there were ghosts about, because the original Bloody Sunday, happened there in Croke Park, when the Black and Tans gunned down fourteen people, fans and players, at a football match on November 21st 1920, in reprisal for the assassination of eleven British intelligence officers and soldiers, under the direction of a member of Fine Gael's pantheon, Michael Collins. These assassinations were a brilliant ruthless revolutionary achievement ... or a dastardly loathsome, terrorist outrage.

Take your pick. Fine Gael have, and they've cut the past, and the truth, to suit the needs of the present. In modern Ireland, of course, they're far from alone, but that's another story. One way or another, the Tans had their revenge and as ever, then as well as now, it was the innocents who were to suffer. No wonder the ghosts sang along, no wonder the stands reverberated to "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with such special, extraordinary empathy. How long must we sing this song, indeed.

But the most extraordinary moment came with "Pride (In The Name Of Love)". This was ...

Are there words for it? Beyond extraordinary. Only believeable because it happened with all those witnesses!! All those fists in parallels in the air, and every fucking voice in the cauldron singing the chorus, a sound unlike any other, audible in Howth, Finglas, Ballyfermot and Dun Laoghaire, a truly awe-inspiring communion.

Sun Ra has a theory that if every musician on earth were to play a C7 that the world would shift on its axis, that it would become a more balanced and better place. Well that is the kind of force that was unleashed. Stunning.

It was, perhaps, the moment where the gig passed into folk memory! The rest of the encores took the concert to its natural conclusion, but that was the climax. They followed it with Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown", probably not much rehearsed. and showing in an endearingly innocent series of fluffed chords how far U2 are from the classic mould of rock band, Larry Mullen excepted.

Larry (squeal!!) it was who had the fast word from the band at the end of "40", as he drummed away after the others had, one by one left the stage, a stark and perfect conclusion ... but the crowd had their comeback, as they continued the song out into the streets, around the stadium, filtering away towards the city centre and integrating with the garrulous mayhem of the carnival.

Niall Stokes and Dermot Stokes