VERITAS: FUMBLE - U2 ERECTS NEW BERLIN WALL

That headline is probably unfair. But we don’t really know, because Bono and the boys aren’t commenting. What we do know is that U2, the Irish rockers who have never hesitated to champion human rights, became the focal point of controversy this week amid the celebrations in Berlin of the 20th anniversary of the crumbling of the Berlin wall. The band – one of the hottest on earth these days – played an open-air concert in front of the iconic Brandenburg Gate, one of the central sites along the former route of the old Iron Curtain. Trouble is, someone – whether at the band’s behest, or that of promoter MTV, or whether it was local officials – decided to erect a barrier around the performance area to keep out the bodies and otherwise prying eyes of unticketed spectators. In any other circumstance, that would be an acceptable exercise of the rules of rock & roll engagement – but in this particular city, on the occasion of the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin wall? That’s some kind of Fumble.