A Concert as Worship Experience

By Deborah L. Matthews

My husband surprised me for our September birthdays with tickets to U2 at Soldier Field in Chicago, our new hometown and the first stop in the 2009 360 tour. On Sunday, September 13, we trekked into the stadium with thousands of other fans, expecting quite a show. I’ve heard others talk about their U2 concert experiences as “fun” or even “transcending the moment.” I’ve heard the reviews – but I didn’t know until I was there.  It was a moving experience to hear the music and lyrics performed. The connection between musicians and audience was stronger than I expected. Something new is born as people listen, connect with the music and performers, and sing and dance along.  

With the stage in the shape of a huge claw or spaceship that took up half of the field, we wondered with the rest of those gathered if this would be the over-the-top stage show like the “Zoo TV” stadium tour or more like the more intimate arena tours of recent years. But, even those in the nosebleed seats knew that we were part of the experience when the music started and we were enveloped in the music and drama of the show with the big screens and well-mixed and appropriately loud sound, no matter where you sat.

The most powerful moments for me occurred in the song “Magnificent” off U2’s newest album, partly because of how candidly it was performed, and how it reached to the farthest corners of the stadium to bring everyone into its joy. These lyrics especially enveloped me in an affirmation of life and how we experience salvation:

I was born to sing for you

I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up

And sing whatever song you wanted me to

I give you back my voice

From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise …

Only love, only love can leave such a mark

But only love, only love can heal such a scar.

Classic U2 songs evoked more spiritual reflection for me as well. In the middle of singing “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” with everyone, I felt a profound sense of journey or even pilgrimage, as though seeing signs of where I’d been in my spiritual journey over the last 20+ years of that song’s life, and also where the band had been in their journey too. “Where the Streets Have No Name,” sung in today’s political context, awakened a renewed hope for healing on this earth (and beyond), perhaps enough hope to encourage us to work harder and more collectively for this healing now.

I appreciate how authentic U2 is at what they do. U2 loves music, their songs, playing together, and connecting with the audience. I witnessed how they are musicians first and performers second. I respect that they can sing and play their instruments without relying on mixing boards and tuners to sound good (and even then only on vinyl). I appreciate that they take the power of their fame seriously and share the concerns they have about situations and people throughout the world with their audience. I respect how this band uses their power to educate and rally people toward justice. (For example: when Desmond Tutu, on the ginormous screens of the claw/spaceship set, addressed the crowd about being a force for change, r when the stage lighting turned green during “Sunday Bloody Sunday” to encourage the crowd to send prayers and hope for protesters in Iran.) It may be the musicians’ authenticity, or the sense of community being mobilized to bring about hope and change, or it could be just the music itself, but I found this U2 concert experiences to feel like worship.

Isn’t that a Gen X thing to say? (OK, I already know I’m a quintessential Gen-Xer.) After all, many Gen Xers have described compelling worship as experiences of community. In these moments, the community becomes embodied. It becomes aware of the world and what we do in it. For me, the 360 concert was all of these things – not just because I heard Bono sing or all the techno tricks which we Gen-X types particularly enjoy.

The anticipation of the concert as much as the stadium experience of thousands gathered to celebrate, sing and dance together all create a sense of community. Obviously, the audience liked the band before, yet during the concert we temporarily became one community with the band present, and went home with the shared experience fresh in body and mind. There was a physical expression of all sorts of emotions as the crowd sang with the band, feeling the breath move in and out, words sometimes heavy on lips, tongue and shoulders, and sometimes light, easy and full of blessing. We danced, feeling in limbs and from the center of our bodies, the beat of thousands of hearts, aware of how intricately our bodies are made and to use them in celebration and in prayer. We cheered, applauded and yelled. We even cried in a heartfelt expression of knowing that each tear of joy, sorrow or recognition is a moment in the presence of God, who tenderly holds each beloved person.

We Gen Xers tend to like these multivalent moments, as though we have accepted that living in gray areas while still searching for the one key that will unlock the door to certainty. Sometimes this gets turned into snarky or sarcastic comments, though they too push through what is seen to the many layers underneath. U2 does this especially well with layers of meaning in the lyrics and in their sets and performance. In the 360 tour, the stage was designed as a large spaceship where messages from other times and places periodically appeared, encouraging global awareness. In the midst of this excess and oddity (a spaceship? really?), we united in one time and place to pray for the very real Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi.

The concert was a form of prayer, and prayerful – in its exuberance, its hilarity, its seriousness, its poignancy, its provocativeness. The music was healing, piercing through the feelings of shock after a move and living inside so many changes, and opening up places where spirit could commune with spirit. I’m thankful for U2 for creating great music, hosting great concerts, and being faithful to generating awareness particularly with its Gen X fans. The tour ended up in British Columbia on October 28 but you can look forward to the 2010 tour.

The Reverend Deborah L. Matthews is the pastor of St. Luke Presbyterian Church, Downers Grove, IL (PCUSA) and a proud alum of San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union. She lives with her spouse of nearly 13 years, and the three cats who adopted them. She also took the photographs for this article. (Well, her husband took the one of Deborah.)

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