Introspect: ‘City of Blinding Lights’*

By Devlin Smith, Contributing Editor
2006.08

My friend joked that I must have been the person who put together the soundtrack for "The Devil Wears Prada," seeing that it featured two Madonna songs and one from U2. No, it was just a coincidence but a happy one, nonetheless, as I got to listen to songs from my favorite artists provide background to a fun story with fabulous clothing.

"City of Blinding Lights" ushers the characters of Andy Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway) and Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) into Paris and its infamous Fashion Week, striking the right note as the Eiffel Tower sizzles and pops with electric lights.

I was more excited than I probably should have been when the first notes of the song echoed through the movie theater. Actually, giddy is closer to the point. I threw my arms up above my head, nearly forgetting that I was in a movie theater where there were people seated behind me and not at the Staples Center where everyone around me was doing the same exact thing.

I’ve taken so many fantastic memories from the Vertigo Tour, the first U2 tour I attended as a hardcore fan. I saw six shows in three states at five venues and over two legs. And at all those shows I jumped and screamed and threw my hands up for "City of Blinding Lights."

From my first listen of "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" I felt certain that "City of Blinding Lights" would be an ideal concert opener. While most fans and critics spent time discussing what the actual city was (some guessed New York before and after 9/11 while others saw it as London through the eyes of a naïve young Bono or, maybe, it could be that mythical city on the hill, the one referred to later on in "Yahweh"), I saw it instead as a concert, that tight community that exists when band, music and fans exist as one for a short period of time.

It instantly made sense to me, the lights, the beauty, the idea of taking flight—those are all the things I see and feel and experience at a live show. The lights transform a somewhat soulless sports arena into whatever the artist wants it to be, from a volcano to a speakeasy to another planet. Each performer and audience member, cast in that light, becomes almost ethereal, the joy and excitement of the moment making everything more beautiful than words can describe.

Mostly, though, it’s the taking flight, the "getting ready to leave the ground" idea that sums up the concert experience for me. The tension and excitement builds from the second I pull up to the arena, growing more and more intense with every step. By the time the lights dim and the run-up gets going, I’m ready to explode. For the next few hours, I will be someone else. I will be free of all of my concerns. The world outside no longer exists. For the time being, it’s just me, the music and the few thousand people around me.

Of course I was excited when the band chose "City of Blinding Lights" as one of its openers throughout the tour. It set the tone of the evening for me, sort of announcing that all of us, together, were about the journey to this fantastic place. Six nights U2 took me to that place and I loved every minute of it.

This time when I heard the song, though, I wasn’t leaving the ground; I wasn’t being transported to some fantastic place. I was in the front row of a crowded movie theater watching a movie that provided a decent enough diversion but just didn’t have the same punch of a rock concert. I did have that moment, though, when I threw my arms up and I was tempted to thrust my hand forward to "Oh you look so beautiful tonight" like all of us did along with Bono every single night of the tour.

I refrained, instead slinking down a little more in my seat, both to avoid embarrassment and to keep from craning my neck up at the screen. While I could control my arms, I could do nothing about the pounding in my heart and twitching in my limbs, none of which could understand why we’d hear that song without just going nuts.

Like the feeling I get from The Arcade Fire’s "Wake Up," hearing "City of Blinding Lights" again was a nice little transporter not just back to Vertigo but to all the shows I’ve seen and will see, just that feeling of being lost in the crowd and the music and, for those few hours, not having a care in the world.