The night opened gently, with the sounds of an MRI attendant giving instructions to a patient to breath – a nod to Bono’s serious accident a few years ago, perhaps – and then the singer appearing on a catwalk midway across the arena floor to sing “Love Is All We Have Left” by himself.
The band played five nights at the same venue in May 2015 behind its then-new record, “Songs Of Innocence.” Its 14th studio album, “Songs Of Experience,” arrived at the end of 2017, and as it was originally conceived as a companion piece to the previous collection, the current tour feels almost like the second half of a very long run, one that took a break for all of 2017 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the band’s iconic 1987 album “The Joshua Tree” by playing it in full in stadiums around the world, including the Rose Bowl twice in May a year ago.Īt the Forum on Tuesday, though, U2 got back to the business of introducing fans to live versions of the newest songs, though the two-hour-and-20-minute show also offered up songs from throughout the band’s four decades together, with 11 of 14 records represented by at least one song in the set, and one of the missing albums conspicuous by its absence – more about that in a moment.
have stopped by Southern California in the merry month of May.
If this is getting to be a habit, it’s a nice one to have: U2, the legendary Irish rock quartet, opened a two-night stand at the Forum on Tuesday with a typically strong show, making this the third spring in the last four years that Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.