Seeing U2, the Indian Way

Filmmaker Jaideep Varma writes about his not so memorable experience at the U2 concert in Mumbai.

The U2 concert in Mumbai.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

The U2 show in Mumbai on Sunday actually provided a microcosm of what India is as a country today, and who we are as a people.

Not just the prominent signs of "If you are smelling alcohol you will not be allowed inside the stadium" (sic) demonstrating our sense of occasion. Or the lack of precise signage, that led to more than a little chaos after the show, such an easy problem to avoid and yet. Or the queues one had to stand in to first get the RFID card topped or activated, and then use to even just get water.

No cash exchanges were allowed, so everything was reliant on tech which worked selectively, so only 2 out of 7 counters open, with people at the other five free to look benignly at the disgruntled queuing crowds. You couldn’t take bottled water inside for security reasons, but it didn’t stop a man with a “BookMyShow” tag inside selling bottles in black at ten times the rate.

While topping the RFID card, 500 was the minimum, with "balance on card non-refundable", so, faced with the huge inconvenience of standing in multiple queues, people were resigned to being ripped off; do the math with 50,000 people inside. Everything reeked of shameless greed and opportunism, and distrust of other people's commercial intentions - the Internet was deliberately jammed just to prevent live streaming; as a result, phone signals didn't work either, so the scale of discomfort in that confusion can be imagined. There are quite a few people I know who went to the show together, got separated in the melee and had to go home separately.

Amongst the audience at the U2 concert.(Photo Courtesy: Jaideep Varma)

And the crowd itself - the reason one has stopped going to film theatres seeming a mere trifle. For a good part of the show, 30-40% of my vision was covered up by aggressively-raised mobile phones - not outstretched shorter people using phones as a periscope, that I would have understood, but by those consuming reality for social media immortality. More than a few turned around to face you, grinned or pouted and took a selfie with a cavorting U2 mere background action. Several people were more interested in screaming and shouting than actually listening to the songs. A man slung his 8-10-year-old son on his shoulders (illegally, because children below 13 were not allowed to the show), father encouraging son to strike heavy metal poses, becoming a 7-and-a-half feet monster, not giving a damn for people behind (upto 5-6 rows behind were affected by this), who simply could not move. A woman switched off the show at one point and her phone on for 20 minutes (while sending critically important messages on Whatsapp and posting life-changing comments on Instagram), its light directly in people's eyeline as well. A man squeezed himself as far ahead as he could till he was asked what on earth he was doing; then immediately backed off with a smile - he clearly just wanted to see how far he could go without being questioned.

No, people in other countries do not behave like this on this scale. Forget the first world countries but even in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from whatever I have seen personally - there was a national character in full view here.

The U2 concert in Mumbai.(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Large-scale commercial public gatherings in India have always been shockingly organised; I have written previously about the irony of Indians bemoaning the death of Test cricket but saying nothing about the thoughtless obstacle courses Test venues are. It's like every disgracefully-managed large event is a justifying precedent for the next one, unless a tragic accident occurs.

Otherwise, it is hard to argue with the grandeur of the show - structured mostly as the band playing in the backdrop of a giant screen showing moving images. It showcased a tremendous body of work with elegance and impressive scale. U2 still seems to play with fire in their veins and the songs still hit home. But...The band is also palpably tired. They have lost the x-factor edge (no pun intended), they quite simply have nothing new to say, and that nothingness is very loud.

The tokenism with AR Rahman ("Ahimsa") and Bono's cliched, outdated platitudes about India reeked of exactly that, as did the final rendition of "One" with Rahman and his daughters. Noel Gallaghar strutted in but did nothing extra to "Desire".

Bono and The Edge. (Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

It is not a coincidence that only one song from the last 10 years was on this show and that too is very recognisable old-school U2 (a sparse version of “Every Breaking Wave”, done very well). When any band starts retreading their hits from over a decade ago, without doing new things to them musically, they’re done (The Rolling Stones are a rare exception, for rather different reasons).

Dollops of nostalgia-riding craft notwithstanding, U2 is now a has-been band; they have been for a decade. They have transformed to precisely what R.E.M. feared they were becoming if they continued stayed together (and instead chose to bow out in 2011 with a fantastic album). It has been apparent for a while now; the scintillating and sparkling Bono who had genuinely cutting edge things to say even 15 years ago is gone (or at least needs a long break). Given what is going on in India today, for the ‘Her Story’ section to fit in Smriti Irani suggests that the band that consciously took pride in challenging the status quo in their younger days is today the smug establishment, playing the politically correct game, scared to rock the boat. Not a space rock and roll was ever meant to be in. What we see in spirit is a U2 covers band, with four outstanding elder statesmen craftsmen making it seem as good as the real thing.

What actually surprised me even more was how mediocre the sound quality was - tinny at times, cracking even sometimes. Surely they carried the sound equipment themselves, or was local personnel and equipment allowed to have a say, as the rest of the sordid operation?

In the end, though, U2's body of best work (which is what this show primarily showcased) had the most say, as it should be. It is impossible to not be affected by many of these truly great songs, and as these things go, situate one's own history within them. Most people who go to such shows are perhaps content with a band playing their hits in an absolutely recognisable way, while a spectacle is made around them; the show no doubt delivered big-time on that score. Other concerns do sound like excessive protestations from a minority group; we all know how that turns out these days.

(Jaideep Varma is a filmmaker and writer, who has written about music since 1998. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for them.)