Come Together supergroup collective pay homage to U2’s massive The Joshua Tree and feel inspired to the point of tears.
That is what Dianne Swann (Bads, When the Cat’s Away) is experiencing with the rest of the crew when she takes centre stage to lead Trip Through Your Wires. She phrases this in similar fashion to Stevie Nicks. I was down and you lifted me honey/ Angel or devil.
This was U2’s massive breakthrough album, a multi-million seller able to come close to Michael Jackson’s behemoth Thriller.
The Irish band came together in 1976, year Zero of the mini Big Bang of Punk. Dublin teenagers who took heart from the seminal British bands like the Pistols and the Clash. Dublin had its own superlative Punk outfit in the Boomtown Rats and their extroverted frontman Bob Geldof.
These guys had huge ambition as they raced through their early post-punk incarnation. In the hands of producers like Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and especially Steve Lillywhite, they expanded their palette. The Joshua Tree broke them into the rarefied atmosphere of peak success. A truckload of Grammies have followed.
The Come Together Experience take a five-five format tonight.
Back-room juggernauts are Jol Mulholland musical director and guitars, Brett Adams virtuoso guitar, Matthias Jordan keyboards and harmonica, Mike Hall bass, Alistair Deverick drums.
The five singers taking turns along with Swann are Jon Toogood (Shihad), Milan Borich (Pluto), Julia Deans (Fur Patrol) and Jazmine Mary.
It is Borich who leads out with the big dominating Celtic drone of Where the Streets Have No Name. He may be closest vocally to Paul Bono Hewson.
Toogood lends his own distinctive Rock with Soul passion voice, with his first appearance belting through With or Without You. You hear a James Jamerson style of locked in bass guitar rhythm underneath the meshed wave of guitars.
Jazmine with her eerie and intense Folk styled voice is arresting on Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Produces shivers for each of her lead spots, as there is the sense she could slip into Diamanda Galas howling banshee mode at any time. She doesn’t though.
Deans steps out for Red Hill Mining Town. Wearing tight black leather trousers and a hair style like an Eighties Kim Wilde, she reinforces the emotional nature that the band are experiencing tonight.
This was a favourite of hers as a thirteen-year-old, and she may start crying. It is all in her distinctive vocal delivery which gets piercing and dramatic. If the tempo was a little faster, you could see her morphing into Power Pop Joan Jett.
A large part of the emotional pull being that it addresses the incredibly fraught Miner’s strikes of 1984 in the UK, a defining moment for Thatcherism.
One Tree Hill is of course the band’s tribute to their Kiwi roadie Greg Carroll, who was a close friend of Bono and died in a motorcycle accident in Dublin in 1986.
The band excels here with ringing drone riffs, going from Tom Petty chiming to Eastern tones. The lyrics You run like a river/ Runs to the sea may be problematic in these times.
This is not the audience to get so easily triggered. They are dancing the best they can in a theatre which really cannot accommodate it.
The only time you hear classic Delta Blues guitar bending is on the intro to Running to Stand Still. Sounds clever as it borrows from Ry Cooder, and the original Blind Willie Johnson Americana classic Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.
The album is done, and before half-time we get to hear One (off Achtung Baby), sung by Toogood. Close to Reggae in sentiment. One love, one blood/ One life with each other.
Back they come and Swann kicks off with a ferocious version of I Will Follow. First album first song for the band and proves they always had Power Pop sensibilities.
Desire begins with the Bo Diddley beat and Jazmine rides this one with its dynamic rhythmic drive.
Classic Ellas Bo Diddley Bates songs play in the intermission. Hey Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love, Hush Your Mouth.
It does counterpoint the magnificent rhythm section of Deverick and Hall who are the crucial relentless power source tonight. No grid problems for them.
Jordan gets the only solo spot for the evening when he adds piercingly high vocals to Every Breaking Wave.
Deans has changed into a sheer black body-hugging dress to give inspirational heat to Unforgettable Fire.
New Years Day has a brutal bass guitar and Zoo Station’s unusual guitar drones sounding like Celtic pipes recall AC-DC. Both handled by Swann.
Effects-laden lead guitar comes to the fore in Hold Me Thrill Me.
U2 were constantly expanding and pulling in influences from Electronica, Dance, Hip-Hop, Techno, as the Nineties progressed. The second set reflects that shift.
Toogood sings All I Want Is You, and since it’s a love song he dedicates it to his wife, who is sitting in the balcony. Well, he has no choice, has he? He then goes overboard, climbs up a huge bank of speakers, and it all looks quite risky.
The Fly is powered by tribal thumping and Borich is easily matching the higher register singing of the original.
The band are hitting superlative peaks and don’t seem to want to leave. I thought maybe you can have too much of a good thing at the time. On reflection now I take that back.
It does put me in mind of an extraordinary documentary It May Get Loud which featured the analysis of a trio of seminal guitarist, Jimmy Page and Jack White along with David The Edge Evans.
At the time I thought U2’s The Edge was not up to the other two. Hearing the Come Together Experience and I must immediately change my opinion. This is a superlative homage to The Joshua Tree, and they may even surpass the originals.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
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