A band, a brand, a spectacle, a Sphere

When I walked into Wembley Stadium in August 1993 to see U2 on the ZooTV tour, I thought I knew what I was in for. None of the MTV footage or endless magazine features had prepared me for the reality: The stage was a giant mass of metal scaffolding, supporting at least a dozen giant screens, neon signs, rows and rows of lighting, repurposed East German compact cars, TV antennas and enormous speaker stacks that were nonetheless dwarfed by everything around them. The band had already taken us through "Zoo Station" and "The Fly" and then ramped up the emotional VU meter when the Edge's Rickenbacker sounded the clarion call for "Even Better Than the Real Thing." The world's most famous lounge lizard, Bono, with slicked-back overdyed ebony hair, wearing a black patent leather suit and a pair of black bug-eyed glasses, spread his arms wide open and beseeched the tens of thousands of people in front of him: "Let me be your lover tonight." ZooTV captured the imagination of popular media, not just because the tour relied on visuals and themes and in-jokes, but also because it was a rock-and-roll extravaganza that utilized everything U2 had ever learned or believed.

Now, 30 years later, is once again the centerpiece of a U2 performance,