I'm a lucky girl. I have a voracious appetite for all things U2, and what happens? A U2 tribute band forms and starts playing gigs every Sunday night in my town. Every Sunday night. Imagine.
The band is Elevation, and the regular Sunday night gig is at Patrick's in Westport (they play often in Chicago too--check their website for details). Last night a hot rod show was at Westport as well--that, coupled perhaps with the fine weather and the holiday weekend, meant there was a good size crowd at 8 pm and a capacity crowd by midnight, which always helps. Seeing Elevation perform when there is 7 people in the room is entertaining in its own way, but not ideal. The entertainment is that U2 songs just don't work unless you've got a responsive crowd. When the lead singer is wandering the room, getting in people's faces, calling for a singalong, and everyone is stony-faced, it starts to resemble that old Ben Stiller skit where he plays Bono overemoting at a bar mitzvah. As I said, it's entertaining, but not perhaps the way the band intended.
Unfortunately it's tough to get a St. Louis audience worked up even if there are a lot of people in the room. I don't know if Danno (Elevation's resident Bono) managed to wear down their resistance with his antics or whether the liquor did the trick, but the place finally did get hopping. Around midnight.
Antics, you say? What sort of antics? The band performs with the bar's windows behind them; just outside is a patio and a fountain. When they were doing "Beautiful Day" early in the set, two little girls (9 or 10 years old) were dancing around the fountain. Not just dancing--doing some kind of choreography--a cheerleader routine, perhaps. They kept it up as Elevation launched into "Until the End of the World," which was when Danno finally noticed them. Next thing we knew he had strolled out to the patio toting his cordless mike. We on the inside could only catch occasional glimpses of him boogieing around the fountain. When he came back in he lamented, "They stopped dancing! They were dancing just fine until I went out there!" (Oh, yeah, Danno. You're a nine-year-old girl and a strange man is charging up to you in black leather and sunglasses--you're going to dance?)
The crowd interaction and Danno's tendency to climb things is all very much in keeping with the U2 spirit, but what surprised me about last night's show was how it wasn't in a constant compare-and-contrast with the "real U2" in my head. There are times I've seen Elevation--the St. Patrick's Day show comes to mind--when I would have to blink and try to shake out the notion that it was really Bono up there. Danno does have a strong, uncanny even, resemblance to Bono, but more than that--at St. Patrick's Day he was presenting the illusion this was U2, and the crowd was feeding their belief in the illusion back at the band. All of those people putting their faith in an impossibility made the impossible take hold. That is, until I'd shake my head again to clear it. That's not Bono!
But last night it was an Elevation show, not a fake U2 show. It may have been because Danno's voice was shot from several straight days of performing. When he's just on the verge of losing his voice, it adds a touch of verisimilitude--the "real" Bono sounds hoarse all the time. But Danno's voice was even further gone than that. It made illusion difficult to maintain. One hopes Danno will invest in a good vocal coach if he's going to continue doing concerts as often, and as long, as these are. (Elevation performs several times a week. This show had three sets over five hours.)
It's not such a bad thing to be forced to appreciate Elevation on its own merits, however. In fact, they have a few things over their "parent" band. One is that they play my hometown every weekend and admission is free. Another is that they play way more songs than U2 does at one of their concerts, many of them songs U2 have neglected for years. (I'd never dreamed I'd get to hear "Gloria" and "Electric Co." in concert, much less "Spanish Eyes"!) And they play them well. A lot of credit has to be given to drummer "Larry Lynn Jr," who is most enthusiastic and accomplished at his craft, putting punch and drive on the hard rocking numbers. He also has this advantage over Larry Mullen Jr.: he is every bit as good-looking but he smiles a lot more. "The Gredge," who recently replaced Dave Smith as the resident guitar hero, impresses both at straight evocation of Edge's sound and stretching out using the same sonic palette--in other words, when he doesn't make it sound just like a U2 bootleg, he makes it sound like the concert you didn't get to see. I was particularly taken with a new ending he and Larry Lynn gave "Gone." It had crunchy heavy metal drumming and then the eerie guitar slide U2 used samples of in concert instead of performing live. The Gredge never sounds like he's turned up loud enough, though. Some of the best things he does are obscured in the mix. "Badam" is a very good bass player. He shone on his solo in "Gloria" and in the funky countermelody of the Popmart-styled "Bullet the Blue Sky." I'd like to hear more of those elaborate lines from him. There is, for example, a way more melodic bass line in Popmart's "Where the Streets Have No Name," and since U2 didn't take advantage of it in their last tour, someone should.
The only times Elevation suffered Sunday night were when Danno just couldn't hit the notes. The real U2 can perform a stunning show when Bono's voice is gone, but their crowd is prepared to cut them more slack than the crowd at a bar is going to give a tribute band. Still, Danno proved willing (as he put it at one point) to give his "heart, soul and larynx" to perform full-throttle. All the songs were rendered faithfully, and some have turned into stunners in Elevation's repertoire. "In God's Country," for example. Perhaps this was always a magnificent song, overlooked just because it's had to go up against "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and "With or Without You" on the same disc. Elevation performs it like the smash hit it deserves to be. And in the band's third set, once the dancefloor was finally packed, many in the crowd started baying for a song that had been performed--well, put it this way. Danno mock-grumbled as he honored the request, "You better dance to this one, because this is not the first time we've played it tonight, it's not the second time, but the THIRD TIME." And each rendition of "Mysterious Ways" was magnificent, even as Danno sang the bulk of the last draped across the top of a speaker taller than he was (don't ask me how he got up there).
Here is the setlist, roughly in order of album, since I can't remember order songs were actually played. May I mention at this point, too, in case the band read this--hearing "One Tree Hill" live would make my life complete.
I Will Follow (2X)
Electric Co
Out of Control
Party Girl
11 O'Clock Tick Tock
Gloria
Sunday Bloody Sunday (2X)
Pride
Bad
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
In God's Country
Spanish Eyes
Desire
Angel of Harlem
Zoo Station
One
Until the End of the World
Mysterious Ways (3X)
Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World
Stay
Discotheque (2X)
Gone
Beautiful Day (2X)
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
Elevation (2X)
Walk On
In A Little While