A Sort of Homecoming
Photo: Anurag Tagat
What it meant for 40,000+ people to watch U2 at their India debut
Sometime during U2’s India debut in Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium on December 15th, the Irish rock giants mentioned how it was their best gig in India so far, which left many bemused and few others befuddled.
Photo: Anurag Tagat
When you’re a legendary-tier rock band with over four decades in the game, a little anachronistic humour goes a long way.
Later in the course of their 140-minute set, frontman Bono took the opportunity to have a little on-stage Q&A session with his bandmates about their India experience. Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. played the role of a crowd-pleaser when he said, “It looks to me like we’re just going to have to come back.” Bono agreed. Lead guitarist The Edge remarked, “It took us of a long time to get here, but it’s such a thrill. It feels like the beginning of something special.”
Bands mentioning how long it’s taken them to come to India has been the standard stage message delivered for many years now. At the end of November, Sweden prog band Opeth’s frontman Mikael Akerfeldt said matter-of-factly that they’d visited only thrice in 30 years. The live music infrastructure is still growing in India, and U2’s mega concert – along with the likes of Global Citizen Festival in 2016 which hosted Coldplay, Jay-Z and Demi Lovato amongst others – shows us potential for more big-ticket artists to perform here.
U2 was brought to India thanks to a partnership between ticketing and event company Bookmyshow and the world’s biggest live music promoter Live Nation (who are now making inroads in India after testing the waters, recently joining a consortium which will build a new arena near Bangalore airport). From U2’s perspective, the India performance was the closing stand of a larger Asia tour, where they also performed for the first time in countries like South Korea, Philippines and Singapore.
The crowd at DY Patil Stadium ranged from young kids willing to get on another’s shoulders for a good view, to sexagenarians, who were all there to catch iconic songs like “Where The Streets Have No Name”, “With Or Without You”, and “One”. Anyone in their mid to late 20s would have perhaps been there expecting songs off albums like All That You Can’t Leave Behind, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and the youngest lot… well, they probably know U2 as that band who put their album in every iPhone and iPod when they released Songs of Innocence in 2014. Personally, U2 was that band that my brothers and I sat down and pored over in amazement, for badass songs like ‘Elevation’ and ‘Vertigo’ but also evocative, politically conscious tracks like ‘Walk On’.
Either way, it was nostalgia for some and it was a tick mark on the bucket list for others. And yet, it also felt – like The Edge said – as though there was finally a way to see bands like U2 at their best. With a 200 feet-wide screen that mesmerized everyone in attendance, The Joshua Tree India performance was also about showing just how good the scale of concerts can be in India.
Photo: Anurag Tagat
The nostalgia factor was in full effect on stage when U2 ran through songs that were older than a chunk of people in the audience. Released in 1987, The Joshua Tree received one round of celebrations with a tour in 2017 and got another throughout 2019. As witnessed at their concert, the album features sing-along, arena-rock level tracks like ‘With Or Without You’ and ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, but also searing, noisy and politically heavy songs like ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ and ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’.
Although he’s often called out for his political stances and not going one step further, Bono was holding the mic and speaking his mind in Mumbai. He said before they kicked into ‘In God’s Country’, “Many of us consider our homeland to be God’s Country. The next song is about how in the blink of an eye the most beautiful landscape can turn ugly if we do not stay awake to dream.” He gave a shoutout to Amnesty International, made a few more comments about unity and how it could be under attack, while the Achtung Baby cut ‘Ultraviolet (Light My Way)’ featured a video montage of women leaders from across eras and political leanings – from Arundhati Roy to Greta Thunberg to Smriti Irani. While there’s something to be said of trying to bring together and the Left and Right viewpoints, Bono emphasized like he always has about the importance of oneness.
Drummer Larry Mullen Jr. played the role of a crowd-pleaser when he said, “It looks to me like we’re just going to have to come back.” Lead guitarist The Edge remarked, “It took us of a long time to get here, but it’s such a thrill. It feels like the beginning of something special.”
Whether it was playfully pointing out how the colours of the Irish Republic’s flag were the same as the Indian tricolour, or calling on A.R. Rahman and his daughters Raheema and Khatija (plus singer Rianjali) for their new song ‘Ahimsa’ and ‘One’, U2 were still all about entertainment. Even Noel Gallagher from erstwhile rockers Oasis somehow appeared on stage. Bono could quote Mahatma Gandhi or mention the India-ties of Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar. It was his way of finding a connecting thread with the crowd, which is clearly what the band can nail anywhere in the world.
U2’s India gig showed us just on how many fronts the band is well-versed and experienced. We saw this is the production, a well-rounded setlist in addition to The Joshua Tree, stage talk and of course, their ability to still deliver evocative music.
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Anurag Tagat is a Bangalore-based music journalist who is a senior writer at Rolling Stone India. He also contributes to publications such as Variety, The Hindu, Firstpost, India Today and Red Bull India about India's independent music circuit. You can follow him on Twitter: @anuragtagat
