All of these things educated what was to become U2’s biggest selling album of their careers, an album that would propel them past mere superstardom, and into the realms of icons. They also delved deeper into what America meant for them, from its blues and folk music to its people, its landscapes and its leaders. In 1985, they played Live Aid, reached a worldwide audience, and became Rolling Stone’s “ Band of the ’80s.” They became more politically and socially conscious, reaching out on behalf of Amnesty International, and visiting such disparate places as Ethiopia, Nicaragua and El Salvador. After the huge success of U2‘s 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire, and its huge hit, “Pride (In the Name of Love),” the band transcended the concept of a four-man rock band from Ireland.
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There was no roof.There must be some kind of saying out there (and if there isn’t, I’m taking credit) that the only way to come close to perfection is to admit imperfection. Bono urged the crowd to take the roof off, but this was U2’s longtime habitat, a stadium. The band couldn’t let that energy go Bono impulsively called for an oldie, “I Will Follow,” U2’s first single. The music started out as a moody piano ballad, but before the end the momentum had multiplied, with a doubletime beat and even faster rhythm guitar. Its new song, “The Little Things That Give You Away,” has lyrics about anxieties and a creative crisis: “So far away from believing/That any song will reappear,” Bono sang. Still, U2 refused to rest entirely on its past. In “Miss Sarajevo” by Passengers, a U2 side project, images of wartime devastation, refugees and a 15-year-old Syrian girl dreaming of immigrating to the United States were shown as Bono sang, “Is there a time for keeping your distance/A time to turn your eyes away,” and later recited the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus,” from the Statue of Liberty. “One” was dedicated to the battle against H.I.V./AIDS and to Bono’s antipoverty organization, ONE. Graphics turned “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)” into a celebration of present and historical - make that herstorical - female achievers. Songs from U2’s post-1980s catalog were linked to causes. For “Mothers of the Disappeared,” an elegy for political prisoners, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang a verse, and U2 was also joined by Ben Harper and the concert’s openers, Mumford & Sons. “Running to Stand Still” is a portrait of an addict, while “Red Hill Mining Town” contemplates vanishing mining jobs.
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Some of its songs hold eerie resonances with present American problems. One reason to revive “The Joshua Tree” is that its concerns - personal, societal, mystical - haven’t disappeared. It doesn’t write scolding protests it strives for empathy, hope and, ultimately, exaltation. A backlash would dismiss similar efforts as naïve or pretentious, but U2 has persisted. “The Joshua Tree” was a high-water mark of an era when leading rockers were eager to be role models and do-gooders, giving benefit concerts like Live Aid and Amnesty International’s Conspiracy of Hope tour, which both included U2. on drums, Adam Clayton on bass and the Edge on guitar tore into the urgent rhythmic flux of “Where the Streets Have No Name.” Against the craggy postpunk groove of “Bullet the Blue Sky,” both Bono’s falsetto and the Edge’s guitar leads were keening sirens.
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The band was dwarfed, but the music wasn’t. “The Joshua Tree” was performed against that video backdrop, often with starkly beautiful desert scenes by Anton Corbijn, the photographer for the “Joshua Tree” album cover and many other U2 graphics.