TRUE longevity as a live act comes to artists who can master the dark art of turning the most massive engagement into an intimate, shared experience.
Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and, yes, U2 all occupy this hallowed ground as performing entities, attracting hoardes of hardcore followers prepared to shell out not inconsiderable sums to feast on such rock and roll voodoo across multiple dates every time their heroes hit the road.
Sometimes, such superfans even become part of the show – like Fife woman Jacqueline Dickson, who hit the headlines in Scotland last week after being plucked from the crowd by Bono to dance on stage with the veteran Irish rockers at Glasgow's SSE Hydro, one of the recent stops on their Innocence + Experience tour.
"I have seen your face," the U2 frontman informed a clearly elated 'Jacq', who confirmed that she had already been to "a few" of their previous dates.
"So many shows I've seen you," he continued, "and The Edge always says dance with you."
Sure enough, the 32-year-old from Dunfermline got to strut her stuff during Mysterious Ways and remain on the 'e' (as in 'Experience') section of the band's catwalk-style stage to film the next number, Elevation, with a hand-held camera that was streaming live to the arena's video screen and fans tuning in from afar via the web.
Having got goosebumps myself while touring that very stage in a near empty Hydro prior to show-time, the mind boggled at what it must have been like for lucky Jacq to get a taste of U2's live energy feeding back from 10,000 fellow fans.
Her megawatt smile certainly suggested the experience would not soon be forgotten.
If that sounds like a dream come true to you, be advised that such fan interaction is a regular feature of the current U2 show, which arrives at the SSE Arena in Belfast next week and is sure to attract faithful followers from all over the world – all eager to get a taste of their heroes on Irish soil.
U2 have always been good at fostering a sense of community around their music and live engagements, even while becoming one of the biggest bands in the world and playing some of the largest venues in existence.
However, bigger isn't always better: just ask Bono (and that's not a dig at his height).
Right now, he and the rest of U2 – Larry Mullen Jr (drums) Adam Clayton (bass) and The Edge (guitar) – are on an 'innocence' kick, a quest to revisit their early years as a fledgling post-punk act with the added benefit of all that they can't leave behind in terms of experience gleaned from four decades of touring the globe.
The aptly titled Innocence + Experience tour marks a momentous decision to down-size their live show from stadiums to indoor arena-sized venues for the first time in 10 years.
This return to intimacy in a literal sense ties in with the tour's parent LP, last year's controversial free iTunes giveaway Songs of Experience, a record that Bono describes as "the most personal album we've written".
It's all there in the lyrics, with key moments like Cedarwood Road, Song for Someone and Iris (Hold Me Close) delving into the 55-year-old singer's formative years and family tragedy.
There's a tangible sense of nostalgia at hand, as Bono looks back upon the young, hopeful and still relatively innocent Paul Hewson with the bittersweet benefit of hindsight.
For the live show, a specially designed sound rig suspends speakers at intervals around every venue to ensure all audience members hear the same sounds, while a giant oblong video 'cage' that the band members can walk through (and thus be incorporated into the visuals) is suspended from the roof above the central runway of the three part stage set-up.
The latter, an aesthetic device that very visibly divides each venue down the middle, is as playful an accoutrement as the Spinal Tap-esque Lemon U2 deployed during their last proper Belfast gig on the PopMart tour at Botanic Gardens in August 1997.
"We're a very divisive band I'm told," revealed Bono when quizzed about the set-up by Rolling Stone magazine.
"We do have a unifying thing within our audience, but it can be tough being a U2 fan because we've been around a long time. We elicit very strong feelings from people. People either love us or loathe us.
"On the last album there's a line that says, 'Pick your enemies carefully because they'll define you. As you get older, you start to discover that the greatest enemy you will encounter in your life is often yourself. You are the biggest obstacle in your own way.
"The core idea behind the Innocence + Experience tour is this movement from 'them and us' to 'there is no them, only us'."
With a live setlist structured to reflect the band's evolution from wide-eyed post-punk contenders to professional entertainers (complete with a mid-point intermission based around The Fly), fans have been enjoying a broad selection of tunes plucked from right across U2's extensive back catalogue during the tour.
The opener is always newie The Miracle (of Joey Ramone), a call and response-friendly pop rock number inspired by the late Ramones leader's confidence-building influence on the young Bono.
In Glasgow, we were then treated to a blast through early favourite The Electric Co. (complete with a giant swinging lightbulb prop), followed by a one-two punch of 2004's back-to-basics rocker Vertigo and their first ever top 20 hit, I Will Follow.
Other U2 'radio hits' getting regular airings include Pride (In The Name of Love), Even Better Than The Real Thing, Where The Streets Have No Name, With Or Without You, Beautiful Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday, the latter dovetailed with a powerful new number inspired by the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Raised By Wolves.
The band are also teasing crowds with snippets of tunes by some of their inspirations at the moment – listen close and you'll hear riffs and/or lyrics from the likes of The Beatles, The Who, Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Joy Division and Talking Heads spliced into the set at opportune moments.
One original tune yet to be given a live outing is new non-album track The Morning After Innocence, in which Bono sings "I'm your older self, the song of experience. I've come to ask for help from your song of innocence.
"Lead me in the way I should go. I'm running out of chances to blow."
He needn't be too worried: on the basis of their Glasgow show, U2's current cocktail of innocence and experience is a potent live brew that blows the roof off in style.
U2, Wednesday November 18 and Thursday November 19, SSE Arena, Belfast. A limited number of tickets are still available from the SSE Arena on 028 9073 9074 or via Ticketmaster.ie.
