from E! Online News
by Emily Farache

By all accounts, it was a beautiful day in Miami Saturday night when U2 kicked off its world "Elevation" tour to a crowd of almost 20,000 ecstatic fans.

With house lights still on, the Irish rockers casually sauntered onstage and began to sing two songs from its current album All That You Can't Leave Behind: "Elevation" and "Beautiful Day," which recently won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year.

With all eyes on the group's return to the states for the much-anticipated 50-date North American tour, critics were kind to this latest incarnation, as U2 fans (all three decades worth) were treated to a gimmick-free, two-hour-plus set that marked a return to the band's earlier roots--before the kinetic hype of the "PopMart," "Zooropa" and "Zoo TV" stadium shows.

"There is nothing not to get about the latest version of U2," gushed a review in the Los Angeles Times. "It's pure, simple, it's-a-beautiful-day rock 'n' roll. And there's nothing mediocre about it: All That You Can't Leave Behind is the band's best album in at least 13 years and the concert proved it."

The band played old classics like "I Will Follow," "New Year's Day" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (into which Bono inserted a brief Bob Marley medley), alongside newer tracks like "Walk On," "Stuck in a Moment" and "In a Little While" (which the leather-jacketed Bono dedicated to his wife as an apology for missing her birthday last week).

While one may think U2's hugely successful back-to-basics approach has inadvertently labeled their 1990s work a failure, U2 defied the logic and performed songs like "Discothèque" and added extra visual effects to newer songs. And despite generating controversy and safety concerns over its decision to allow general-admission crowds on the stadium floor, "U2 made good use of the intimacy," Rolling Stone writes, "unveiling a close-knit stage...that allowed Bono and his mates to wander into the center of the arena."

The New York Times heaped some of its own praise on the band: "In returning to what it left behind (not a bar-rock band, which U2 was never really meant to be, but an earnest arena-rock band that believes in the power of a right-headed song that tens of thousands of people can sing along with), U2 succeeded in making opening night of its Elevation tour...one of the best big rock shows of the past year."