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U2, Zoo TV Tour, Sydney, November 27, 1993
In 1993, the Irish rock band U2 played two songs back to back in Sydney. Both are about escape. One doesn’t work. One reaches for something that might.
In “Running to Stand Still,” lead singer Bono rolls up his sleeve and mimes the needle. The hit lands, and the “Halle, halle, hallelujah” refrain curdles into a counterfeit rapture. It was written about heroin addiction in 1980s Dublin, the band’s hometown, and here the staging makes it literal. It doesn’t glamorize anything. It tells the truth.
There’s no applause break. Guitarist The Edge’s playing fades, the synths swell, and the band moves straight into “Where the Streets Have No Name,” a song that wants to leave the walls behind and go somewhere with no shame and no name for the street.
Played back to back, the two songs seem to share one hunger. The first chases relief and stays in place. The second reaches for a place beyond ordinary pain.
I can’t say what the band intended that night. But this is what I hear.
Real life is ugly, and I already believe Christ meets us there. Music doesn’t give me that belief. It gives me the feeling of it.
That’s why I love U2. At their best, they don’t just sing about people in pain; they put me inside it.