Airline pillows go flying through the cabin. The stewardess retreats to the galley and the plane heads down the runway and into the wild blue yonder.

In the air David Guyer, Larry's security man and motorcycle partner, gets up, takes the flight attendant's microphone, and announces that he is going to present a trophy to Larry Mullen for covering 10,000 miles on his motorcycle during the course of this tour. Larry rode in every kind of weather, in every kind of terrain, David says. "He's got balls."

A cry comes from the roadies: "Show us your balls, Larry!"

Night falls while we're flying over the rugged terrain of New Zea­land's north island. When we land in Christchurch, down toward the bottom of the south island, down toward the bottom of the world, it's dark and cold. A few reporters are waiting on the airport tarmac to interview U2. Edge and Bono step up and speak to them.

"We heard there's a few tickets free," Bono says. "We're very upset. Madonna's not coming. Michael Jackson's not coming. They only like you. We love you."

A reporter asks, "Can New Zealanders expect something different for their concerts?"

"The greatest show on Earth," Bono says evenly. He thanks them for coming and climbs into a waiting car.

Even though it's supposed to be the first day of summer, it's still mighty chilly this close to Antarctica, and tickets for U2's outdoor concert have not sold well. When the band was last here, in 1989, there was tremendous local interest in U2. A young Maori fan named Greg Carroll had been hired by the band in 1984 and taken on the road with them. When the tour ended Greg stayed on, relocating in Dublin and working for Bono. One day in 1986 Greg was out on Bono's motorcycle when he ran into Guggi on his. They decided to switch bikes for a laugh. Greg might not have been prepared for Guggi's more powerful machine. He took off down the road, straight toward a drunk driver who turned without signaling. He crashed the bike and was killed.

Bono and Larry accompanied Greg's body back to New Zealand and attended his Maori funeral. Bono wrote a song about the experience called "One Tree Hill" and dedicated the album on which it appeared, The Joshua Tree, to Greg. That song, and the story behind it, got great attention in New Zealand, and when U2 came through the next time they were treated like the pope. There was even what local papers called

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a riot outside their 1989 Christchurch concert, when a couple of thou­sand fans who could not get in clashed with police.

This time, though, U2 is just another foreign act with expensive tickets. When we get into town I see a gang of boys mocking the U2 posters stuck up on the walls and shouting, "Ah'm not buggin' ya, am I?" quoting Bono in Rattle and Hum. They laugh and stumble on down the road.

Bono's in a crappy mood as he checks into the Park Royal Hotel and heads toward his room. He turns on CNN and L. J. Ferentz, the tour's masseuse, comes in to rewrap his twisted ankle. Bono is pretty much oblivious to her ministrations. He is usually uncomfortable around masseuses. In California a Japanese back-rubber started screaming at him, threw him off the board, and pummeled him while screaming "Relax! Relax!" There are also New Age tendencies among many in the profession that are at odds with Bono's Christianity.

"They're often into reading auras and all and I have no time for it," he once told me. "Also, for some reason they always see a bright red aura around me and start freaking out. One woman started bowing to me and calling me Your Highness or something."

L. J. is a lot less pushy. But sensing how tense Bono is as she works on his ankle, she tries to sell him on a massage. He says no. "Okay then," she says, "I'll just do your polarities." Bono rolls his eyes. L. J. starts rattling her fingers rapidly across Bono's brow while he makes a show of concentrating on the television, which he knows offends mas­seuses.

Suddenly Bono experiences a great cosmic whoosh and is shocked to find himself floating out of his body, out of the hotel, and flying through the sky above the city. He does a couple of loop-de-loops and then executes a reentry, disembarking from his ectoplasmic spin back into his body in front of the TV. Bono is quite fascinated and a little shaken, but he refuses to admit to L. J. that he felt anything at all. After she leaves, though, he hooks up with Edge and Morleigh and tries to explain what happened.

"All of a sudden I'm out of my body and floating over Christchurch with L. J. hanging on to my ankle!" Bono sputters. "I didn't tell her—-I don't want her coming up with any other ideas!"

"Admit it," Edge says. "You got a stiffy."

"No, no!" Bono protests.

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"Was she typing on your forehead?" Edge asks. Bono looks at him confused. Edge drums his fingers across Bono's

brow. "Like that. Was L. J. taking dictation on your forehead?" "Yes!" Bono says, "She called it doing my polarities" "She did that to me," Edge says, "and I had the same experience you

did."

"She did it to me," Morleigh says, "and I started crying." "Really?" Bono says. "That's quite amazing." He considers this new

method of space travel for a minute and then announces, "But I'm still

not admitting it to her!"

One of the reasons that tension and exhaustion have been amplified on this last leg of the tour is that the dates have been booked too far apart, not just by location but by time. U2 have stretches of up to five days between shows, which gives them too much time to get homesick, too much time for petty problems to swell to great proportion, too much time to get bored and too much time to get into trouble in attempting not to get bored. The band and most of the people around them are taking on the aspect of horses who have been ridden too long and wouldn't mind finding a low branch with which to dismount their riders so they can get back to the old salt lick.

In an effort to fill up one empty day in Christchurch, it has been arranged for U2 to drive out to the country to have lunch at a winery. Right after breakfast Bono and I climb into one car with Willie Wil­liams, the production designer. Willie looks as if he's just seen a ghost. He is blue, somewhat spacey, given to staring off into the distance as we pull out of the hotel.

I stick in a homemade cassette and the car fills with Leonard Cohen singing "Hallelujah." Cohen sings, "They say I took the name in vain, but I don't even know the name," and Bono laughs. On the chorus Willie—who cannot sing—begins mournfully crooning along:

"HALLE-LUJAH! HALLE-LUJAH!" Something odd is up with him all right.

Cohen ends and "Nightswimming" by R.E.M. comes on. "He's a lovely singer, isn't he?" Bono says of Michael Stipe. Stipe sings, "You cannot see me naked," and Bono says, "What is this song about?"

In the song Stipe's looking at an old photograph," I say. "It's he and some friends ten years ago at a pond where they used to go skinny-

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dipping and make out. He's realizing that those days are gone forever. Because of AIDS, because they've all gotten older, and because he's now famous."

"He's in the wrong band," Bono says. "I'll never give up night swimming."

I see that Bono is squeezing Willie's hand, stroking his fingers. Willie must have gotten some awful news. I suppose he'll tell me when he's ready. Bono insists we stop and get ice-cream cones before we continue into the countryside. We pass a ski lift going up to a restaurant on top of Mt. Cavendish and promise we will stop there for a ride on the way home. The car has to stop once and wait for a herd of cows to clear the road, and then we wind around steep green hills rolling down to the bluest bays I've ever seen. The white settlers only arrived in New Zealand in the 1800s, and the country feels raw and unpolluted. The hills are volcanic—they shoot straight up at jagged angles, but they are covered with grass and trees, hedges and stone walls, grazing sheep and goats. There are palm trees next to fir trees. It reminds Bono of the west of Ireland, Willie of the coast of Scotland, me of western Maine. I imagine New Zealand reminds everyone of the prettiest place they know.

We arrive at the winery after another hour. Edge and Morleigh are already there. Edge is sampling different vintages and ordering some crates for U2's restaurant in Dublin ("The chardonnay has a certain je ne sais quoi"). There are wooden tables in a flowery grove out front, and the owners lay out a fantastic feast: salmon, ham, stir-fried vegetables, ripe tomatoes, and fresh bread hot from the oven. As we dig in a pair of cows are romping and gamboling in a paddock nearby.

"Oh, I hate to see cows playing tag," Edge says. "Makes you think the hamburger you're eating might have been playing kiss-and-run the day before."

Morleigh is arranging with the owner to borrow a pair of horses for a ride, and declining an offer of rifles. I am amazed by the whole bucolic setup and mention that while the British empire may have been brutal, they sure did lay some solid groundwork for future generations or tourists. The London-born Edge picks up on this: "Actually, it's never said—but if not for the British, Ireland would have no architecture."

"Well, we'll never know now, will we?" Bono snaps, suddenly a Dublin Irishman, his ears burning red in the presence of a Brit.

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"Woooo!" Edge laughs. "Did you see that? Did you see how quick he turned!"

Everyone moves their attention back to the chow, but Edge does mention after a little while that St. Patrick was actually Welsh. Bono just lets it go by. The trees are filled with music—high three-note figures. Edge is impressed and asks the owner what is causing it.

"Those are bellbirds singing," the owner says in a thick New Zealand accent that sounds to us like . . .

"Billboards?" Edge says. "You have singing billboards?" Sometimes on this tour the differences between Irish, British, American, Canadian, Scottish, Welsh, Australian, New Zealand, Carribean, and Indian ac­cents can build a Babel between English-speaking brethren. At the airport in Sydney, Edge went to buy cigarettes and was asked if he "wanted a ten." He thought he was being offered smokes in a tin. The I/E flip in this part of the world causes all sorts of confusion. If a New Zealander tells you the weather tomorrow will be better, you may hear that the weather will be bitter.

Adam arrives along with Eric, Bono's long-suffering security man, and Bret Alexander, the tour's travel coordinator, and surveys the orchard. Willie is wandering the groves, looking as if it's his last day on Earth. Eventually U2 pull themselves away from the winery, and con­tinue down the coast in a little caravan, stopping around dusk in a seaside village called Akoroa Harbor. They get coffee in a restaurant on a pier and talk about what everybody's going to do when the tour is over. Bret says he and his family are going to build a house in Seattle and he may go to work for Pearl Jam.

More than a few of the job-hunting Zoo crew are hoping Pearl Jam tours next year, but Eddie Vedder is wavering. With the release of Pearl Jam's second album his face was plastered on the cover of Time magazine (without his cooperation—he would not give Time an interview) and his fame continued to explode in spite of his refusal to do any videos for the new album, which debuted at number one. Eddie is threatening, if people don't give him some room, to quit the superstar sweepstakes altogether and sell homemade tapes out of his house.

Something has really changed in the culture that is ripping apart the people who become rock stars. The last four singers raised to the pantheon—Axl Rose, Sinead O'Connor, Kurt Cobain, and Eddie— have all been made publicly miserable by the process. Maybe it's the fact

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That there's been an explosion of celebrity media in the last ten years—-People magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, MTV, and all the talk shows—that either was not there before or ignored rock before. Or maybe it's the spread of the notion that any rock musician who gets popular must be doing something wrong, must be a sellout. That's a complete reversal of the ethic that ruled from Elvis to the Beatles to U2 —that you wanted your band to be the biggest thing in the world and reach as many people as possible.

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