Journalist/music enthusiast Alan J. Wallace writes this commentary after attending the recent U2 concert in Pittsburgh:

The show certainly was mighty impressive ... great musicianship, stage setup/production values/lights/etc. But a couple of things struck me as a little strange.

First of all, with the exception of the time I saw Dizzy Gillespie and his big band play in a church in Beckley, W.Va., this had to be the most "disgustingly" clean-cut concert crowd I've ever been in. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it did mean a lack of any kind of bad-boy "danger" edge (no pun intended) in the scene.

Second, and more importantly, I'm about the music first, other stuff second. While one expects preaching from Bono, I did find it a little jarring that U2 several times killed its own musical momentum in favor of speechmaking ... most notably, they basically dropped what was a killer "Sunday Bloody Sunday" so Bono could grab two little kids out of the crowd for a "children's sermon" on stage.

And therein lies the key to why U2 just doesn't quite do it for me. Seeing this show, I realized that (and I know this a loaded term, though I basically have no problem with the band's issue stances) what they do really is propaganda ... everything that goes on goes in service of the message, rather than the music being first and the message second.

Nothing wrong with that, per se ... I guess my priorities for rock concerts are just a little different than theirs.