Visiting U2’s The Joshua Tree In Trump’s Country
Writer’s line: I am going to let you in on a secret. I wasn’t even a cell in my mother’s womb when the Joshua Tree was released in 1987, the first track I heard of U2 was ‘Vertigo’ and the first album I purchased with the meagre pocket money I had was a greatest hits album in U218 Singles. By most standards, I am too young, too inexperienced and severely lack the makings to be a typical die-hard fan of U2.
But what I lack in age, I made up for by dialling back the years and starting on the treasure trove in a chronological fashion. As a 14 year old who lived off compilation albums, the experience of going through an LP was maniacal but months later I found that it opened the doors of fulfilment.
Coincidentally, the first time I listened to the opening of War was during a period of Social Studies in Secondary School as an elaboration of the disconcerting history between the Northern Irish and the British army. I remembered the last breath Bono unfurls in ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ then spending two hours home listening to the album and wistfully planting myself into 1983. But the album as a whole presented itself as familiar yet mildly inaccessible from the U2 that I previously experienced, it felt like a song from my childhood that I just couldn’t decipher the lyrics to.
Listening to The Joshua Tree was quite the opposite of that. To my ears, it felt like the years between albums had given Bono a swig of confidence as though he held all the keys to the many unseen mysteries, his voice breathed assurance and his words held their weight. To add to that, layers on layers of ambient guitar work by Edge and the pulsating combination of rhythm by Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. knocked the ball out of the park.
When dissected to its core, the album uncovered even more – pitting itself against a political anxiety founded during the reign of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher – each track had a moral to tell, a story to elaborate, a trust to expose – transposed over a concept of an immigrant’s tale in which they discover the ugly truth within an undiscovered America.
So when U2 announced their 2017 tour to perform their 30th anniversary of the Joshua Tree starting with a 30-date North American tour, I chuckled at the timeliness of it all, then started applauding in my head.
To further elaborate without naming names on the alabaster throne, in an interview with Rolling Stone, the Edge believed that The Joshua Tree album had “come full circle” especially with the voices of many unheard and “fundamental human rights at risk”. The many embedded interpretations within the lyrics would take on new life yet again, more so when taken apart in front of the Latino-peppered community of Miami, Florida.
On the way into the 80, 000 seater juggernaut in the Hard Rock Stadium, armed state troopers and their sniffer dogs marched outside in zigzag patterns on the lookout for suspicious entities, while fans in their strips of red, white and blue of the American flag stood around a portable barbeque set up by the trunk of their cars proudly wearing their stripes and warming up with a frankfurter in hand.
As I took my seat in the upper echelons of the ring just after One Republic had kissed the crowd goodbye, screens of heavy-worded poems (Elizabeth Alexander’s ‘Praise Song for the Day’ recited at the presidential inauguration of Ex-president Barack Obama and Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass among others) ran in quick succession, shedding prophetic light and allowing the audience to make their own meaning and constantly re-evaluate what they believe in.
Down below, fans crowded around the B-stage that imitated the silhouette of the renowned tree on the album cover. From where I was sitting, they weren’t the slightest bit engrossed in the limerick and line as the snaking queues to the alcohol stands kept their shape. It wasn’t all lost on the Americans, as I overheard a girl (not older than 10, I must add) quizzing her dad on what the rolling lines meant. He stuttered a little but was interrupted (or saved) by the jiggling waves of Edge’s guitar.
Following an opening number of explosive rhythm and mesmerising guitar arpeggios with ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, ‘New Year’s Day’ and ‘Pride’, the band addressed the Joshua Tree in sequence. To the casual U2 listener, side A of the record is the most impressionable; a trio of stadium bangers in the opening titles of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for’ and ‘With or Without You’ all flirt with the idea of breaking down the boundaries between man. Musically, the catchy tunes delineate the rise of black gospel, folk and blues music of America, Bono howls at the top of his register with ground-shaking emotions and held the ultimate seal of conviction.
What makes U2’s 2017 tour such a feat in terms of numbers is the selection of rarities that have been dug out from under the carpet. It is in the lesser-known tracks where the band moves into unpredictable, unchartered and territory. ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ channels Bono’s raging anger towards then-President Ronald Reagan for intervening in the war in El Salvador. Swashed with biblical imagery and an uneasy boldness in the quaking feedback-guitar parts of the Edge, Bono articulates his unhappiness best with strong ecclesiastical lyrics, “howlin’ wind… stingin’ rain… drivin’ nails…on the tree of pain”.
The political ideas grow stronger as the track listing winds down, In ‘Red Hill Mining Town’, the band levels against Margaret Thatcher who characteristically shut down unprofitable coalmines in the UK, debilitating working class communities for a healthy balance sheet. Instead of channeling that through a head-on aggression, Bono “follows the miner home” and recites the unseen destruction behind closed doors from his perspective. ‘In God’s Country’ offers some encouragement from the dreary outlook. Tracking back to Elizabeth Alexander’s ‘Praise Song for the Day, Bono extends a renewed hope for a better future, “we need new dreams tonight… dreamed I saw a desert rose”.
Just before ‘Exit’, a clip from an old Western ‘Trackdown’ makes a bold statement when a character warns the town of an impending danger and to build a wall as security, which the hero rebutes with ”Trump, you're a liar". The snide remark was substantiated further when Bono explains, “Democracy should fear its citizens not the other way around”.
The band then returned to familiar pastures with more uplifting hits, ‘One’, ‘Beautiful Day’, ‘Elevation’ before entertaining the Miami crowd with one of their lesser-played tunes in ‘Vertigo’, leaving the crowd to reel on a high as Bono yelped the infamous “unos, dos, tres, catorce!” in their native tongue.
To the U2 fan born in the current millennium, it is a tough line to tread especially with their surprising and unconvincing inclusion of 2014’s Songs of Innocence onto our iPhones. It felt like that fifth uncle at family gatherings who would go on and about on how great he was at Pokémon Go.
But with the current Joshua Tree tour to celebrate their 30th anniversary, it was a lesson in history and at the same time, the rehashing of the 1987 album was a crowd-pleaser for the fan obsessed with the qualitative aspects of U2’s music. That same shoddy uncle has somehow taken everyone at the gathering to the edge of their seats, divulging about the wild teenage soirees he had 30 years ago. It is hard to sum it up quickly but you know when a band has won you over, it almost feels like a reconnection to something you have never had.
*Photos courtesy of Steve Jennings and Danny North
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