U2 "Miss Sarajevo" at the Rose Bowl - May 20, 2017

Video by Gregg Chadwick



U2 "Miss Sarajevo" at the Rose Bowl - May 20, 2017 with powerful visuals commenting on the civil war in Syria. Moving snippet added by Bono at the end with the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty. There were many beautiful musical moments at the Rose Bowl, from Edge's chiming guitar, to Adam Clayton's deep, fat bass, to Larry Mullin's powerful drumming, to an engaged Bono. For much of the evening, U2 performed in front of a giant video screen filled with Corbijn's evocative new imagery, and later filmed tributes to women's rights and the plight of Syrian refugees. As Bono says to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone,

"Let's meet one such immigrant who he wants to turn away from the shore. I commissioned french artist J.R. He didn't have much time to do it. Where are we going to find this girl? He finds her in Zaatari in a camp in Jordan, which I visited with my daughter and [my wife] Ali a year ago. He finds this incredible spirit, Omaima. She talks about America as a dreamland. She closes her eyes and J.R. asks her in another segment of the film we don't broadcast, 'What do you see when you think of America?' She goes, 'Oh, it is a civilized country and they are a good people.' It was just heartbreaking."

 A giant banner bearing a photo of Omaima, the young Syrian refugee featured on the large screen, was carried through the crowd during Miss Sarajevo. 



"Miss Sarajevo"

U2



Is there a time for keeping your distance

A time to turn your eyes away

Is there a time for keeping your head down

For getting on with your day

Is there a time for kohl and lipstick

A time for curling hair

Is there a time for high street shopping

To find the right dress to wear

Here she comes, oh oh

Heads turn around

Here she comes

To take her crown

Is there a time to run for cover

A time for kiss and tell

Is there a time for different colors

Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion

A time for East Seventeen

Is there a time to turn to Mecca

Is there time to be a beauty queen

Here she come, oh oh

Beauty plays the clown

Here she comes

Surreal in her crown

Dici che il fiume

Trova la via al mare

E come il fiume

Giungerai a me

Oltre i confini

E le terre assetate

Dici che come fiume

Come fiume

L'amore giungerà

L'amore

E non so più pregare

E nell'amore non so più sperare

E quell'amore non so più aspettare

Is there a time for tying ribbons

A time for Christmas trees

Is there a time for laying tables

And the night is set to freeze





The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus



Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Full Concert Video by Chrisedge below:

Easter Light

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick
Joshua Tree
24"x24" oil on linen 2014

My recent paintings are taking me to times and places that have deep resonance. This newest body of work is marked by time and memory and  explores our present reality in the context of the sometimes hauntingly real shadows that come and go in our daily existence. 

At times spiritual echoes find their way into my art. Sometimes this sense of something bigger or deeper than ourselves is found in the images and locations created within the paintings. At other times this numinous quality is carried by the light within the work.

Recently in the studio, I have been thinking about the works of Caspar David Friedrich in  the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Many of Friedrich's paintings depict what I see as an Easter light - a light of promise and redemption. 

Caspar David Friedrich
Village Landscape In Morning Light
21 5/8"x28" oil on canvas 1822
Nationalgalerie, Berlin
photo by Gregg Chadwick
 

This morning I have been playing a video of Bruce Springsteen playing his moving ballad, Jesus Was an Only Son. Almost ten years ago I wrote - Bruce Springsteen is not afraid to create music with deep spiritual roots. “I was brought up Catholic -"Jesus is my home boy", Springsteen exclaimed to the audience at the Pantages - then gently moved into Jesus Was an Only Son.

The great religious historian, Huston Smith said something similar to me when he professed his deep admiration for the wisdom traditions of the East yet described his spiritual practice as rooted in his childhood upbringing as the son of a Protestant missionary family in pre WWII China. Springsteen seems to echo Huston Smith's thought that spirituality can quickly become mush if time has not been given to one's own history. Only by knowing who we are and where we come from can we understand that the beauty of religion, and life, is found in inclusion not exclusion. 

Bruce Springsteen - Jesus Was An Only Son - live on Storytellers