Sing when we’re winning

You had to feel a little sorry for the support bands. The collective talents of Dara, The Walls, Nelly Furtado, Ash (who stood in for the Foo Fighters) and Moby all added greatly to the atmosphere, but the sight of a leather football crash-landing into the back of a net on the big screens did more to excite and delight the 80,000 strong crowd gathered at Slane for U2’s second homecoming gig than all of the aforementioned acts combined.

If you’ll excuse the soccer analogy, eight days after Bob Hewson’s funeral it could be said that U2 were playing with one man down, but his son was coming out fighting and seemed determined to channel whatever grief he was feeling into his performance. You’ve got to admire his professionalism. Not to mention his work ethic (wonder where he got that from?). Doubtless they would have cancelled had his father’s death occurred before a gig on foreign soil, but the Slane shows were meant as a tribute and while the first one may have been rawer and more emotional, the second was such a spirited and spiritual affair you couldn’t fail to be as uplifted (or should that be elevated?) by it.

Having said that, this still wasn’t U2 at their best. How could it have been? This was U2 at their best under the circumstances, something that everybody completely understood and, in many ways, made the gig one of the most special we’d ever witnessed. Even more than usual, all eyes were on Bono tonight. There were moments when it felt almost voyeuristic being there, like watching the aftermath of a car crash. His father’s name was invoked on more than one occasion and each time it happened there was a collective intake of breath as we wondered would the singer crack under the weight of the emotion, and then a huge and joyous cheer as we helped carry him through the lowest moments.

As with last week, a soaring ‘Kite’ was dedicated to Bob. Later he reminisced about his father’s fine tenor voice, recalling an image of Edge’s father drunkenly joining him in song as the pair of proud dads staggered down Madison Avenue. Later still, he reminded us of one of the better investments in the history of rock: “Dad, can you loan me £500? I need to go to London with my rock and roll band…” (Needless to say, he got paid back!).

But the show wasn’t all about the recently departed. Rarely have the band seemed so close-knit as a bunch of friends. When he moved up close to Edge for a blistering face-to-face rendition of ‘Staring At The Sun’, you could practically see sparks of true kinship flying between them, that strange love more commonly associated with soldiers who’ve gone through hell on the battlefield together. And when Larry and Adam joined them on the aisle stage, the solidarity was obvious. Bono’s family too were mentioned more frequently than normal. One song was dedicated to “My beautiful wife”, while Eve, his daughter, joined him dancing onstage for a brilliant ‘Mysterious Ways’. That girl’s gonna break some hearts when she’s older . . .

The set-list brought us the whole way back to ‘Out Of Control’, taking in most of their biggest hits and almost all of the new album along the way. They coasted through quite a few numbers on auto-pilot but there were still a couple of serious stand-out moments. The last time I heard him sing ‘Bad’ was in front of 200 people in a Parisian restaurant last October; tonight, in front of 80,000 it sounded even more intimate than it did then. As ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ came to a close, he read out the names of the 29 victims of the Omagh bombing, and it was as powerful a moment as his speech in the aftermath of the Enniskillen attack. Just to lighten the mood, he belted a beachball into the crowd, quipping that he felt like Jason McAteer.

They skipped the formalities for the second encore. “Everybody knows we’re gonna come back out in a minute, so shall we just stay here and get on with it?” Bono asked, not really waiting for a reply as they started into ‘One’. Whether he was so caught up in the moment that he didn’t want to leave, or just wanted to get it all over with was hard to tell. Either way, it hardly mattered and the audience appreciated the gesture. This wasn’t a time for pomp and posture. They closed with ‘Walk On’, the crowd joining in as a final reminder that, as happy/sad an occasion as it was, he’ll never walk alone. Who needs the Irish football team for a sense of national pride?

His father, watching down from the heavens with Bill Graham babbling excitedly in his ear, would’ve been proud.