By Derek Haynes
Sports guy turned U2 fan
ATLANTA
April 6, 2001

U2's concert Friday night at Philips Arena was simple, elegant, and clean—and no one complained. Gone was the glitz and glamour of the band's earlier concert tours; in was the straight ahead rock that U2 arguably does better than any band in the world.

U2, which had a dizzying array of special effects and props in their 1997 Popmart and their 1992 ZooTV US tour, broke the special effects out for "With or Without You," but relied heavily on lead singer Bono's crowd-pleasing charisma for the majority of this fifth stop on the Elevation Tour. They set the stage for their simple style from the start by entering with house lights on, giving the sold-out crowd of over 18,000 a clear view of the most prolific rock band of the 80s.

The lights stayed up on "Elevation," one of six songs U2 played on their latest album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. Bono's magnetism was evident three songs into the concert when he walked across the heart-shaped stage and kneeled down to kiss a young woman. Bono would pace the heart-shaped stage throughout the concert, tempting the crowd with his out-stretched hand.

The most energetic moment of the night came during "Where The Streets Have No Name" as Bono circled the stage several times at full speed, the crowd cheering him as if he was Atlanta Olympic hero Michael Johnson. Bono would then lie down on top of a vertically moving jumbo video screen behind the stage, which then rose 8 feet into the air at the start of "Mysterious Ways."

One of the strangest points of the concert came during the introduction of "Where the Streets Have No Name" as Bono began rapping into the microphone. Bono never acknowledged what he was saying, and even the U2 web site had no idea what came out of Bono's mouth. It isn't the first time Bono has done this; he has done it on almost all of the earlier stops in the US Elevation tour.

In addition to the heart shape and the moving video screen, the stage also had four large black and white video screens focusing on each member of the band. The black and white screen created an artistic and clean look of U2.

Bono was at his best again during "Mysterious Ways" as he accepted a rose from a bouquet of flowers presented to him from another female fan and then kissed her in gratitude. He also paid special tribute to Atlanta during his performance of "Losing My Religion." "I want to sing a song for a hero of mine. In my teens my hero was Martin Luther King, in my twenties my hero was Coretta Scott King ...." said Bono as he began the song.

U2, which has a strong relationship with Athen's REM, used parts of that group's hit songs "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts" during their performance of "One". REM flew in from Europe on Friday to see U2's performance at Philips Arena.