Kennedy ponders this like Einstein looking for a unified field theory

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and then she shakes her head and says, "I just can't believe Australians think Tiny Tim is cool."

"Well," I say. "They can't believe we think Michael Hutchence is cool."

Kennedy considers this for a while and then asks, "Do you think Tiny Tim would be happy if I offered him a handjob?"

I tell her he'd be happy to be offered a handkerchief and turn my attention back to the stage. I'll tell you one guy who's profiting from the absence of Adam Clayton: Larry Mullen, Jr., At every point in the show where the video screens would normally cut to Adam they are showing Larry instead. He's getting all his own close-ups and Adam's too. The cameras are avoiding Stuart like a prostitute at a church picnic. Finally, during "Pride" there is a long shot of Stuart up on the screens. The concert's nearly over, he looks as relaxed as Gomer Pyle at the Mayberry filling station. At the end of the song Bono brings Stuart to the front of the stage and raises his hand in the air to the cheers of the crowd.

In his hotel room, a semiconscious Adam Clayton lies in bed and comes to a hard realization. Right now U2 is playing and he's not there. There have been plenty of times over the course of this tour when Adam has wanted to tell them all to fuck themselves and walk out, but he never imagined it feeling like this. Adam is caught in the dilemma that broke up the Beatles and a thousand lesser bands. It is almost impossibly hard for a successful, famous, wealthy man to have to be subjected to criti­cism about every aspect of himself—from the music he likes to the shoes he wears—from three childhood friends. It is almost insurmount­ably strange to reach a position of power and celebrity where everyone you come in contact with in the outside world kisses your ass, where you can make decisions to build a mansion or fly to Paris for dinner or have a tree moved because it's blocking your view, where you get whatever you want—except when it comes to the central thing you do. And there, in your own job and your own music, the very thing responsible for all this success and power, you have to compromise on everything with three other people. For Adam the petty humiliations have begun to overpower the familiar joy.

But tonight it's different. Somewhere right now U2 is playing and Adam is not with them. If he left U2, he would have to feel like this every night. It makes Adam admit something he has been denying: ' I don't want to lose the band."

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At the stadium the crowds are making their way through the parking lot, the liggers are filling the backstage hospitality rooms, Stuart is being toasted by the crew, and U2 are finishing their showers and getting to work. At I a.m. the top TV people, along with McGuinness, Ned and Maurice, Robbie Adams, and a few other insiders, are assembling to review the videotape of tonight's concert and plan, shot-by-shot, tomor­row's broadcast. They must also prepare an edit of tonight's concert to have ready to air if a rainstorm or other act of God should shut down tomorrow's show.

Edge is behind the TV monitor in the dressing room, reconnecting wires to repair some glitch. Bono, a towel wrapped around his neck, has a yellow legal pad in his lap and a pen in his hand. They roll the tape. There's a great opening crane shot of the crowd, the enormity of the stage. It's an exciting start. The prerecorded opening fanfare swells under the buzzing of the audience. . . . "Stop the tape!" Bono has an objection.

"There's too many look how big this thing is establishing shots," Bono says. "We're hitting the viewer over the head with it. He'll say, 'All right all right, it's big!' Also, the fanfare is mixed too low against the crowd noise."

They start the tape again. The first song, "Zoo Station," begins. Everyone watches, Bono is writing furiously. "Stop the tape!" The color was a little off on this shot, Bono explains, the angle on Edge was bad on that shot, the mix was wrong on this line. . . .

So it goes, shot by shot and line by line through a 140-minute concert. And no one raises an eyebrow, no one thinks it's unusual. The people in this room will work all night and not hesitate to argue over a camera angle or guitar mix until the sun returns to the Sydney sky. Eventually I slip out and find a roadie who's heading in the direction of the hotel. As he gives me a lift home he comments on U2's work ethic.

'They really bite the bullet and do the work," he says in a broad Australian accent. "Most bands wouldn't. They wouldn't sit up all night going over every inch of that. They sure wouldn't go on without their bassist on fifteen minutes' notice."

He's right. Bono—perhaps because he still thinks of himself as a kid getting away with having fun for a living—resents it whenever I mention how hard U2 works. He claims it's all inspiration and jumping in with their eyes closed. But when pushed far enough even he will admit that it

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requires a lot of labor to keep the machinery moving, even if the music itself comes freely. I'm reminded of something Lyie Lovett told me as his career moved up through both the music and movie industries. "The thing you find out as you go," Lovett said, "is that the people at the very top seem to be the ones who just work harder than anybody else." It's true. It's a big secret too. 'Cause nobody wants to believe it.

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