Wembley Stadium, Friday 14th August 2009 concert review by John Cheek

U2 at the old Wembley was the scene of the best gig I ever saw - the Popmart Tour of '97. 12 years on, and they've got a lot to live up to, for me - four years on from the world-conquering band of 'Vertigo', Make Poverty History and Live8 and perhaps the general wait will place the weight of expectation just a little too heavily on their collective shoulders: even for the "biggest band in the world", as Guy Garvey of Elbow puts it.

The erstwhile supporting lead-singer, like yer man Bono, has buckets of stage-presence; and the latter is less likely to pass the bucket around to help a good cause, this time - in fact Dublin's finest, in keeping with their latest album, reveal their least 'political' show for some time. That's not to say that there isn't any cutting social realism evident: far from it. But where the sonic placarding has been reigned-in, more than ever the transcendent, other-worldliness of the music is allowed to grow wings and fly.

The 360 Degree Tour arrives in the capital on the back of the mega-selling album 'No Line On The Horizon', and the former Paul Hewson is setting his stall out early, telling us a handful of songs in how he feels that "something might happen tonight", how this evening could be a "special evening", but he's not quite sure why. Further indication comes along shortly after, when they launch into an emotional "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", remarkable not just because the whole stadium appears to know all the words, but because they're singing them as if their lives depended on it. This is no big-crowd sentimentality, though; this is no deft manipulation of an audience - it's genuinely surprising but eminently gratifying to hear tens of thousands singing the key verses: "I believe in the Kingdom Come/When all the colours will bleed into one. . .", "You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains/Carried the cross/of my shame, oh my shame/You know I believe it. . ."

You wonder how many people were making these verses "their own" and were just as surprised to find themselves doing so. The rest of the set flows effortlessly, with "Mysterious Ways" making a welcome, timely appearance, with it's lyrics now seeming not just funky and cool, but prophetic: "One day you'll look back/Back and you'll see where you were held/Ah, by this love/You can move on this moment and follow this feeling. . ."

Perhaps it was therefore inevitable that "You'll Never Walk Alone" is one of several songs which Bono includes at certain junctures, "Two Tribes" and "Rock The Casbah", among them. It comes at the end of a poignant "Walk On". I've often thought that Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime" was the best U2 song they never wrote, but that David Byrne's effort was slightly unrealised. It wasn't quite finished. "Walk On", for me, is the track it should segue into. Here, it's used to highlight the plight of the person who inspired it, Aung Sang Suu Kyi. The sometimes muffled sound is crystal-clear here, as pro-Burmese democracy volunteers walk on round the length of the stage parading masks of the house-arrested democratic candidate. ". . .Never Walk Alone" at the end is for them, for her; but we secretly suspect that it's true for us too, if we dare to believe.

The massive Claw stage set-up goes someway to almost giving the effect of focusing on the altar at the centre of a Catholic cathedral, as we look across at people looking at us. The handling of the closing "Moment Of Surrender" isn't just a fitting finale, but an altar call. If U2's plans to tour Europe again next year come to pass, joining them in worship is a luxury you have to afford.