Spring 2015
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA — It was definitive arena rock, loud and clear, filling Pacific Coliseum here with surging sound. The Edge blared a distorted two-chord guitar riff, Larry Mullen Jr.’s tom-toms and cymbals landed hard on the backbeat, Adam Clayton’s bass throbbed down below, and Bono was unleashing “woo-oohs” in exultant falsetto. U2 has taken over the coliseum for a month of full-scale rehearsal to assemble its “Innocence and Experience” tour, which starts at Rogers Arena here on May 14, and the band was charging through “Elevation.” The stage was an austere geometry of fluorescent tubes; the song was triumphant. “Wow, that’s four years since we played that?” Bono said as the last chord faded. “Not bad!”