JOSHUA TREE U2 TV
Only a half-decade removed from their ZOO TV tour-its stage festooned with giant video screens, and Bono adopting certain character personas during their performances-U2 had completed their metamorphosis into a Big Statement band. But as the band ascended the summit toward being the biggest band in the world, the more they embraced it. Up until this point, U2 had an image as being earnest and serious, not necessarily the last group you’d expect to resort to headline-grabbing antics, but certainly not the first. That kind of sight is pretty hard to forget. But the finer details of what happened almost aren’t that important-U2 played a show on a roof in Los Angeles and filled the street with spectators. Though a sizable crowd did show up, it didn’t number in the tens of thousands, as the radio DJ voice at the beginning of the video suggests. The police did show up, but they didn’t shut down the performance as the band had hoped, making their act of rebellion feel perhaps a little bit less rebellious. They succeeded, but the way the event is portrayed in the video for “Where the Streets Have No Name” is a slight distortion of the truth. Inspired by The Beatles’ final rooftop concert in Let It Be, the group sought to create a spectacle-a publicity stunt as much as an act of disruption. Two weeks after the March 1987 release of their fifth album, The Joshua Tree, the members of U2 took over the roof of a liquor store in downtown Los Angeles, drawing a crowd of over 1,000 people and more than a few police officers.
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