Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • A10

10A WWW.FREEP.COM TUESDAY, SEPT.5,2017 DF-0000320141 www.michiganedclinics.com•248-752-7482 haveserioussideeffects.Ourcustomblendedmedicationworksfor98%ofmen-withoutthose Regardlessofyourageormedicalhistory Ourmedicaldoctorscanhelpmostmeneliminate erectiledysfunctionandprematureejaculationwith UnitedWaybringsdiversegroupstogethertoaccomplishwhatnosingle organizationcandoalone.Together,we’reimprovinglivesandempowering UNITEDWAYLOVESLABOR UNITEDWAYSEM.ORG GIVE.ADVOCATE.VOLUNTEER. THANKYOUFOR LIVINGUNITED! Thankyouforhelpingimpactlivesandcommunities. I was a night of emotional highs, majestic visuals and a surprise cameo from Patti Smith as U2 breathed a fresh burst of life into an old classic. Coming off a four-week break, the Irish quartet was rarely off step at a packed Ford Field on Sunday while reactivating its tour marking the 30th anniversary of Joshua in a show that seemed to flash by far quicker than its two-hour running time. Joshua was the record that transformed the careers of Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen who spent the next three decades trying on a host of musical hats and cultural poses.

Sunday brought a U2 happy to brandish its modern- day standards including a larger-than-life production spectacular while calling back up the yearning earnestness of its self. The band came into this tour hoping its 1987 landmark could have timely resonance. It was an album that saw U2 embracing a romantic, sometimes mournful vision of the U.S., enchanted by the promise of open spaces metaphorical and real and frustrated by snags in the Amer- ican dream. Three decades after the Reagan era, U2 has reaffixed Joshua to contemporary concerns, and on Sunday the band largely let the music do that messaging, getting overt just once: the darkest and most cynical number, was preceded by a clip from the TV series a con artist named Walter Trump. Toward end, Bono referenced the coming-together seen in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in Texas: discovered who America he said, adding that means everything to this and calling it the second home.

The singer also seemed tuned in to goings-on in Detroit, where recent glimmers of turnaround have followed decades of struggle: want to see you prosper in Detroit, Bono said ahead of the show-closing saying he sensed extraordinary feeling in this earlier spoken about Detroit as a of invention, city of reinvention. A city of history city of the With U2 gearing up for the new album of this anniversary outing was a gamble of sorts for an outfit that has long prided itself on forward-looking reinvention, and the band has declared it to be no mere nostalgia romp. Still, it was obvious that for much of Gen X-heavy audience, the evening was all about a spirit-stirring trip back in time. Joshua segment was preceded by a set of early U2 songs, the band gathered tightly on its satellite stage as it launched the roar of Bloody (In the Name of and a poignant that came laced with Simon There was no apparent rust from the month off, though it hurt to come out of the gate with staples U2 has performed hundreds of times through the decades. From there, it was on to Joshua Band members moved to the main stage, the 200-foot-long video screen behind them came to life in a Mojave orange-red, and their bodies became visual bit players in the spectacle as Anton desert imagery emerged onscreen.

Mostly sticking with the arrangements (with keys sometimes lowered to accommodate voice), the band worked its way through the record, songs spilling into each other in familiar order the spiritual uplift of Still Found What Looking giving way to the gorgeous sweep of or Without and the wiry punch of the Blue Hill Mining introduced 2 of the as the stage-roaming Bono put it, where the chime of Tree was met by the frenetic guitar work on the blistering The big surprise moment came with Joshua winding to an end. Former Detroiter Patti Smith, standing unobtrusively at a main-stage mic as attention fixed on Bono down below, uttered lines from her classic Have the as the band worked into of the She was eventually joined by Bono, improvising on a coda with the lyrics before the two embraced. It was the latest in a series of onstage pairings for Smith and U2 during the past decade, including a of the collaboration in Paris in July. have written Joshua without Bono said Sunday of the influence. photographed visage would make a return appearance in the bounding final stretch, a set of upbeat numbers that led to My dedicated by Bono to the women in Onscreen were images of women who and with Smith appearing among figures ranging from pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe to feminist activist Gloria Steinem.

U2 makes blossom at Ford Field BRIAN MCCOLLUM RACHEL TO THE DETROIT FREE PRESS U2 performs during their Joshua Tree Tour 2017 on Sundayat Ford Field in Detroit. METRO.