{"id":20119341,"date":"2017-05-18T17:19:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T00:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.blvdscms.com\/activate-metroactive-com\/?p=119341"},"modified":"2017-05-18T17:19:54","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T00:19:54","slug":"the-banality-of-evil-the-inoffensiveness-of-u2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metrosiliconvalley.com\/the-banality-of-evil-the-inoffensiveness-of-u2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Banality of Evil & The Inoffensiveness of U2"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the way home from Levi\u2019s Stadium last night, my mind was swimming as I mulled over exactly what I made of everything I\u2019d just witnessed<\/a>.
\nIrish alternative pioneers U2 had performed to a totally stoked crowd at Levi\u2019s Stadium, running through a litany of arena-rattling anthems like \u201cWhere the Streets Have No Name\u201d and \u201cI Still Haven\u2019t Found What I\u2019m Looking For\u201d off of their 1987 hit record The Joshua Tree<\/em>.
\nSan Jose\u2019s paper of record, I knew, would have a review for the following day\u2019s edition. I couldn\u2019t see how, in the time allotted between the end of the show and the early morning deadline, that such a review would ever serve as anything more than a surface-level recap of a performance so bombastic and run through with political implications\u2014both overt and far more subtle.
\nI was right<\/a>.
\nThe performance itself served, in my mind at least, to verify the sentiment of U2\u2019s millions of fans across the globe\u2014they do, in fact, rock\u2014and to quash the vitriol and dismissal of Bono- and Edge-haters. At 57 and 55, respectably, the lead singer and guitarist have still got it.
\n

\"THE<\/a>
THE JOSHUA TREE: Fans were into it at U2 at Levi’s Stadium. Photo by Greg Ramar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBono belted out all the hits on pitch and with emotive inflection. And I was reminded that in 1987, The Edge\u2019s shimmering, effects-heavy sound was indeed a new and innovative approach to the guitar. Using the available technology, The Edge carved out a novel sound that would go on to influence a generation of players.
\nAnd speaking of technology, when you\u2019re the \u201cbiggest band in the world,\u201d it makes sense, perhaps, that you would splurge on what had to have been one of the world\u2019s biggest screens. The massive display was deployed to great, and often moving, effect\u2014as on \u201cWhere The Streets Have No Name,\u201d which featured a steady rolling shot of some a lonesome desert highway populated only by telephone poles, scrubby brush, wind-whipped sand and the occasional lonesome drifter.
\nThat was the good part. But there was plenty for the bad column.
\nSome of it was logistical. People complained of sluggish lines and poor traffic flow inside and outside of the stadium. I personally have to wonder whether any concert that large would be able to dodge complaints like these:<\/p>\n
\n

@LevisStadium<\/a> Did you lose the memo that you were hosting #U2TheJoshuaTree2017<\/a>? Unprepared for crowds for food drink swag & exiting #fail<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Tara R Wood (@taraRwood) May 18, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was also the flubbed intro to \u201cWith or Without You.\u201d I\u2019d say the blame for that should be aimed at the sound team, as the introductory backing track that leads off that song was played at a drastically lower volume than the band\u2019s instruments and it was clear that The Edge and bassist Adam Clayton were having a bit of trouble picking up the drum machine beat in their monitors.
\nBut I have to believe that some of the most cringeworthy moments from Wednesday night\u2019s show had less to do with technical difficulties.
\nAfter finally wading through the slow-motion queue, and walking the long way around to my seat on the opposite end of the stadium\u2014observing the punishing concession and merch lines the whole way\u2014I arrived in my section to find a series of poems scrolling down the massive screen looming over the stage.
\nTwo of these verses stick out in particular: \u201cPuerto Rican Obituary\u201d<\/a> by Puerto Rican poet and playwright Pedro Pietri, and \u201cWingfoot Lake\u201d<\/a> by African-American poet and essayist Rita Dove. Both poems deal with what it means live as a poor and disenfranchised person of color in America.
\nNow, as a white cis male, privileged enough to have been helped through college by his parents\u2014and to have used my education to land a job that grants me free access to such in-demand entertainment spectacles as this U2 concert\u2014I try not to act like I know what it means to be a poor, disenfranchised person of color in this country. I try not to act like I know anything about that experience because, frankly, I just don\u2019t. But also, I do my best to keep my trap shut when it comes to topics like those addressed in \u201cPuerto Rican Obituary\u201d and \u201cWingfoot Lake,\u201d because in the struggle for civil rights, context matters\u2014and the speaker matters.
\n

\"HUH?<\/a>
HUH? What was up with those poems anyway? Photo by Greg Ramar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAnd even while U2 were ostensibly allowing the words of Pietri and Dove to do the talking, I had to wonder: who is really\u00a0speaking here? And, furthermore, if I don\u2019t know a damn thing about what it means to grow up poor and disenfranchised and discriminated against in America, what the hell does a group of white rock stars from Ireland know about the struggle?
\nI\u2019m not here to rip U2. That\u2019s clich\u00e9. And I\u2019m certainly not here to rip their fans\u2014I count myself among them. I\u2019m just trying to get to the bottom of why some find the band so offensive.
\nOver the course of the last 18 hours, as I\u2019ve rolled everything around in my head, I\u2019ve come again and again to this: Bono, The Edge, and everyone else up on that stage are all great musicians, and their heart is likely in the right place, but it may be their overall inoffensiveness that makes them so off-putting to many.
\nIt all seems so low-stakes for Bono to make his generalized appeals for world peace while wearing intentionally distressed designer clothing. It not only rings hollow coming from the mouth of a man of such privilege, it can even feel a bit like a commercial calculation\u2014especially when considering how Bono hedges his political proclamations.
\nSure, the band played a humorous clip from the 1950s TV show Trackdown<\/em>, which featured a snake-oil salesman named \u201cTrump\u201d promising to ward of the end times by building a wall around an entire town. But again, context matters, and the speaker matters as well.<\/p>\n

Bono wasn\u2019t directly denouncing Donald Trump. He was allowing a clip from a campy Western TV show to do the talking\u2014effectively putting at least a bit of distance between the implication of the snippet of video and the way he actually feels.
\nAnd how exactly does Bono feel about Trump? It\u2019s hard to say. When the singer did pipe up on politics, he made an appeal for \u201cthe party of Lincoln\u201d and the \u201cparty of Kennedy\u201d to come together\u2014saying that if we could just make our way to \u201chigher ground\u201d we might find \u201ccommon ground.\u201d
\nSigh.
\nSay what you will about the anti-Trump rant Father John Misty made at WXPN\u2019s XPoNential Music Fest last year. To be sure, both singers might be classified as suffering from varying degrees of White-Savior-itis, but for Josh Tillman (a.k.a., Father John), the stakes were a bit higher. He actually stopped his set, sat down and attempted to process his feelings on Trump in real time.<\/p>\n

He called our current Commander in Chief an \u201centertaining tyrant,\u201d drawing cheers as well as jeers from the audience, who had paid good money to see him and others perform. He put himself out there. And then he doubled down.
\n\u201cDo we think that our hilarious tyrant is going to be met with a hilarious revolution that is won by hilarious revolutionaries?\u201d Tillman asked the crowd.
\nBut I\u2019m not here to tout Tillman for asking a rhetorical question incredulously. It\u2019s just that it leads me to what I think may be the central question:
\nWhat do we want of our entertainers? Do we want them to be thoughtful individuals, critical of groupthink\u2014willing to challenge us to be thoughtful ourselves? Or do we want them to pacify us with pithy, meaningless aphorisms and wordless choruses, which seem scientifically designed to accommodate inoffensive stadium chant-alongs?
\n

\"BEAUTIFUL<\/a>
BEAUTIFUL DAY: Ah… we’re just salty music critics. The fans loved it! Photo by Greg Ramar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nCheck out photos from the show here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the way home from Levi\u2019s Stadium last night, my mind was swimming as I mulled over exactly what I made of everything I\u2019d just witnessed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12128,"featured_media":20119342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[1469,34],"tags":[4186,6243],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n