U2 can be cool...just ask that guy...

Driving to work the other day, I hear the DJ say that at a U2 concert in Dallas, a fan was holding up a sign that said "ANGEL OF HARLEM" along with the chords and the line "In case you forgot!". As anyone who reads Steve's blog would know, the big pet peeve has been the playing of Vertigo to open and close shows, which I must agree is retarted given the vast array of great songs they could do instead of doing their i-Pod add twice (maybe Apple pays them extra for it Johns?). Well U2 hadn't played Angel of Harlem all tour, and Bono apparently stops the show, asks the kid in the audience if he knows how to play it, then proceeds to bring him up on stage, where he's handed a guitar and plays Angel of Harlem along with the band. At the end, Bono even traded sunglasses with him: Red tinted Armanis for a pair of drugstore rack cheapies...I'd take that deal.

Hearing that on the radio just staggered me...for the world's biggest band (and no sorry the Rolling Stones are NOT that anymore) to do that just amazed me. Its common enough to see them pull friends out on stage to sing with them (Eddie Vedder for instance), but in today's super-security lockdown world where paranoia runs deep, an act like that, however insignificant to some, to me shows that maybe they aren't as removed from reality as I once thought. I'll admit I own all their albums and tried desperately to get tix, but that doesn't mean that I don't have criticisms of them. However, something like this makes Bono the cocky seem more like the Bono of old who had the passion, not the ego. [and thats not to discount his work for many great causes, b/c hell the world needs things like that]

In a cynical world, something as tiny as that gives me some measure of hope.

But then again, maybe Bono's just a huge PR genius and knew that by bringing that 19yr old dude up on stage, he'd get people like me to sing his praises, so he's in fact even more devious than he was before? or maybe I'm just out thinking myself....