
DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706170130

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: MUSIC REVIEW

SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  105 lines

U2, JUNE 8 AT FRANKLIN FIELD, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIATHE SEASON'S BIGGEST ACT TREATS ITS STADIUM TOUR AS TONGUE-IN-CHEEK SPECTACLE

SOMETIMES, BEING the biggest really is better. Sometimes, not always. U2, the biggest band in the world, made that case when PopMart, the biggest tour of the year, played Philadelphia.

The b-i-g-g-e-s-t.

Figuratively and literally, the superlative applies.

Name another band that can pull in 32,000 fans a night, U2's average gate since the stadium tour was launched April 25 in Las Vegas. Ten days ago, upwards of 50,000 filed into the University of Pennsylvania's picturesque Franklin Field.

PopMart's production numbers don't lie, either.

The stage is equipped with a 100-foot golden arch, a mirrorball lemon measuring 35 feet from blossom to stem and a cocktail olive 12 feet wide perched on a 10-story toothpick. The high-tech video screen, the largest ever, measures 150 feet by 50 feet and tops 60,000 pounds. It runs on 22 miles of cable. Six TV cameras, one suspended from a boom, broadcast the show; 20 searchlights, 100 strobe lights, 1,000 other light fixtures and some 5,000 feet of disco rope lighting illuminate it. The PA system weighs 30 tons.

A fleet of 52 trucks hauls it all. The crew of 200-plus travels on 15 buses.

If only size was everything.

Dwarfed by the set design, U2 came across as somewhat remote in the City of Brotherly Love. Only those fans bunched around the runway extending into the audience could claim a close encounter of any kind.

The uneven sound mix was another problem. Usually so emotive and evocative, Bono wrestled with the rattle and hum all night. Never the most multi-dimensional guitarist, The Edge was often swallowed up altogether. The trade-off was that bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, maybe the most underappreciated rhythm section in all of rock, carried the evening.

Anybody looking for intimacy and clear acoustics was in the wrong place, anyway - they simply aren't part of the stadium-show experience. Jerry Garcia once said the music the Grateful Dead produced for their stadium tours was a cartoon version of what they played in an arena or theater.

U2, themselves veterans of the circuit, wasn't cartoonish. But if the Irishmen sometimes became the pop monsters they were so obviously lampooning, it's because they recognize a stadium show for what it is - a spectacle. Give them credit for having the savvy to run with the ball.

Run they did, too. Bono, shadowboxing down the runway, took the stage in a hooded satin robe. The Edge opted for black cowboy attire. In his orange jumpsuit, safety helmet and surgical mask, Clayton looked like a member of a Japanese disaster rescue team. Mullen's sticks made his statement; he was dressed for business in a sleeveless T-shirt and trousers.

The two-hour concert (except for a date last month in Washington, D.C., the closest to Hampton Roads on this leg of the tour) began on a beat-heavy note with ``Mofo,'' off the current, platinum-selling ``Pop.''

For all of its rump-wiggling, jungle rhythms, a line from the song - ``Lookin' for to fill that God-shaped hole'' - says everything about where U2's heart is these days: the same place it's been since ``Boy,'' their debut album, was released 17 years ago.

If the band still didn't believe in something pure and transcendent, would the set list have included ``One,'' ``Where the Streets Have No Name'' or ``I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For,'' which ended with a few lines from the Ben E. King classic, ``Stand By Me''?

OK, probably. But while those early hits, plus ``Pride (In the Name of Love),'' ``With or Without You,'' ``Mysterious Ways'' and ``Even Better Than the Real Thing'' got the night's biggest responses, they paired perfectly with the sentiment of ``Pop's'' less familiar ``Please,'' ``If God Will Send His Angels'' and ``Staring at the Sun.''

The latter was one of the highlights, with Bono and The Edge strumming acoustic guitars at the end of the runway. The next song - a mass singalong of the Monkees' ``Daydream Believer'' led by The Edge - wasn't such an odd choice. Rather, it fit U2's M.O., which, apparently, is to deflate its own myth.

Early in the set, Bono turned to the stage and said, ``What do you think of this s--t? Is this where we live? Is this where we pray? Eat the monster before the monster eats us. That's PopMart.''

The presentation of ``Discotheque,'' Spinal Tap-ish in its scope, drove home that point.

While the PA boomed out chunks of electronica and images of a disco diva flashed on the video screen, the band slipped off stage. Now, picture this:

Bouncing shafts of light around the stadium, the lemon mirrorball rolled onto the extension as a ladder rose to meet it. When it opened, dry-ice smoke billowing into the audience, U2 was posed inside - in new costumes. The Edge had swapped his bad-guy cowboy threads for good-guy white.

It was almost incidental that the scaled-down arrangement of the hit single was just as forceful as the version that saturated the airwaves.

Who can say if U2 had Marshall McLuhan in mind when they created PopMart? But this much is certain: The cultural theorist's great cocktail cliche rang true in Philly.

``The medium is the message.''

Final question: Did everyone get it? ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

ABOVE: Bassist Adam Clayton performs in front of an enormous video

screen. RIGHT: The crowd at Philadelphia's Franklin Field awaits the

show.

Singer Bono, right, shares a microphone with guitarist The Edge.

``Eat the monster before it eats us,'' said Bono. ``That's

PopMart.''

Marc Segal and his sister, Nicole, both of Springfield, Pa., wait

for Bono (right photo) and U2 to come on stage at Franklin Field

June 8.