Every time I’m suckered into watching a live performance by someone other U2, I fall in love with U2 all over again. I couldn’t even tell you how many supposedly “great” performances, which featured entirely pre-recorded music and vocals, I’ve sat through in the past year. It’s not just modern music, either. Artists have been lip-syncing their shows at least as far back as Madonna. Every time U2 take the stage, though, even if one of the guys is having an “off” night, I know that the performance is going to be about more than the proverbial “song and dance”. What U2 create from that stage is a relationship – if you follow my writing, I’ve written about this in the past – a connection, a current of energy, flowing from performer to audience and back again, an ebb and flow that mimics the beat of every human heart. It’s real, it’s of that very moment, and it’s the closest thing to a “hive-mind” that any of us are likely to ever experience. That sensation cannot be recreated by simply playing a recording over a loud-system, and every time I get to see U2 live I thank my lucky stars that they never just “phone it in”.