Eyes, ears feast on U2 // Show's missteps forgivable

LAS VEGAS "Looks like it's gonna be one of those years," U2frontman Bono told a crowd of 40,000 as the band kicked off its worldtour. "This is the only place where no one is going to notice a40-foot lemon."

Ah, but the fact is, everyone at Las Vegas' Sam Boyd Stadium onFriday noticed the freaky lemon mirror ball. It was impossible tomiss, much like the 100-foot yellow arch that supported an orangebasket-shaped sound system, the 150-by-50-foot LED video screenflashing pop art and images of the band, and the humongous olivespeared on a 100-foot toothpick.

And that was the point.The fabulous visuals of U2's tour, which brings them to SoldierField for sold-out concerts on June 27 and 28, are there tocompensate for the fact that the band members will look less likehuman beings than tiny action figures to most of the fans flocking totheir stadium shows. Not that the Irish musicians didn't try tomake the show as intimate as possible in the cavernous venue. AsM's "Pop Muzik" blared on the speakers, they made their entrance fromthe middle of the stadium, walking between aisles of fans. Later,they played several cuts on a small second stage set up about 25 rowsinto the crowd.Simply put, U2 is the greatest group making rock 'n' rollrecords today. But the show wasn't the smooth ride the band or itsfans had hoped for. No group has put together a concert with somuch spectacular eye candy, but the sensory overload couldn't maskthe fact that the 2-hour-plus show needs some tweaking before itlives up to all the hype.There were some standouts, such as guitarist The Edge'sdelightful vocal turn on a cover of the Monkees' "Daydream Believer"and the band's buoyant performance of "I Will Follow," its singleconcession to its 1980 debut album "Boy."But some songs didn't work at all. After a few bars of thebeguiling "Staring at the Sun," Bono stopped singing, much to drummerLarry Mullen's displeasure."We're just having a short family row," Bono said to theaudience, before conferring with the band. When they re-did thesong, it was more aggressive, though not necessarily better.The 22-song set list included 10 cuts from U2's currentalbum "Pop," but the biggest crowd-pleasers were the older songs,anthemlike and soulful. The grinding beat of "Mofo," the evening'sopener, couldn't match Bono's impassioned delivery on "Pride (in theName of Love)" or The Edge's delirious, chiming guitar intro to"Where the Streets Have No Name."U2 started off its six-song encore with a mighty lemon drop -literally. Riding in the giant mirror ball, the musicians left morethan a few fans wondering whether they might have a "Spinal Tap"moment and get stuck in the contraption. (They didn't.) Rather than"Lemon" - the obvious choice - they played a slowed-down version of"Discotheque" that stripped the song of its oomph. Much better werethe haunting ballads "With or Without You" and "One," which closedthe show.