U2: Band on The Run

U2 soars with a top album, a hot tour and songs of spirit and conscience

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Clayton, who alone has not announced formally for Christianity, says simply that for journalists "religion was an easy angle, a hook to hang a story on. We all believe in much the same things but don't express ourselves in the same way." This, along with Clayton's inborn rebellious instincts and up-tempo temperament, caused some intramural tension that has only lately been resolved. "I was in the wilderness for a few years, so there was a natural antagonism within the band that people picked up on. Now the spirituality contained within the band is equal to all the members." Clayton, tan and muscular, with an army recruit's haircut and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that makes him look like an insurrectionist with a bass instead of a bomb, remains U2's most sulfurous presence, lending a slight but leveling tension to the stage show. Still, the band's fervor comes from deep springs, not simply from sheer showmanship. "Great songs and all that great heart," says Lou Reed, a formidable musician whose influence can be heard on Running to Stand Still. "U2's not a pop group. They are in this for real."

For high stakes too. The band's commitment, to its audience and its music, sanctions and encourages the kind of social concern that in the Reagan '80s became unfashionable, even antique. The album that The Joshua Tree displaced from the top of the chart is a revisionist rap record by the Beastie Boys, three well-born white teens copping street attitude but assuming social postures that teeter between preening smugness and snide irresponsibility. After arriving in Arizona, U2 discovered that Governor Evan Mecham had canceled the state's observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. U2 considered canceling the concerts but did something better: made a contribution to the Mecham Watchdog Committee and played Pride (In the Name of Love) -- a tribute to King -- with a joyful vengeance. But it is not just that U2 is on the side of the angels. It has given a new charter and a fresh voice to conscience. "A sense of humor is something I value," Bono says, "but we don't play rock 'n' roll with a wink." Without sermonizing, they have become a rallying point for a new and youthful idealism. After Live Aid and Farm Aid and after the Amnesty tour, after heated and heartfelt music from Jackson Browne and Little Steven, it is no longer corny or uncool to be concerned, to get involved. And especially after the breakaway success of U2, it seems that audiences are ready to take heart and to reach out. There are, as Bono sings in the opening of In God's Country, "new dreams tonight."

"Nobody knows how it works," Adam Clayton says. "You turn the music up as loud as you can and hope people like it." Mullen admits, "I do believe our music is special. But you have to separate the music from the people. The music is special, but I don't think we are. We are ordinary people." They are earnestly going about trying to "demythologize" themselves, as T Bone Burnett puts it, cutting themselves down to manageable size, the better to handle their superstar stature. It is a posture that is both defensive and pragmatic, disarming and perhaps just a shade desperate. "People respond to our naivete," Clayton insists. "I think they see four guys from Ireland who don't want to let go of their dreams."

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