from The Star U2, here this week for two sold-out shows, has only a few serious competitors after more than two decades in the rock business Vit Wagner / POP MUSIC CRITIC ALL HAIL U2. The veteran Irish rock group arrives for sold-out shows at the Air Canada Centre Thursday and Friday, having hungrily reasserted its claim to the title of Biggest Band In The World.

The current king of the castle - and we don't just mean Ireland's Slane Castle, where the group is to headline a festival at the end of the summer - U2 is the latest in a line of conquering rock warriors, heirs to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles and Pink Floyd. Since the release of last year's All That You Can't Leave Behind, including the hit singles "Beautiful Day" and "Walk On," front man Bono and company have made it plain that they are prepared to take on any and all challengers. "Have we got the job?" Bono asked, as the band prepared to leave the stage after the kickoff concert to the royal tour, dubbed Elevation 2001, two months ago in Florida. Everyone knew that the job he had in mind was Biggest Band In The World. And everyone also knew that the answer was yes. Bono had signalled U2's determination to return to the top of the heap during his acceptance speech at this year's Grammy Awards, which saw the band win three awards for the song "Beautiful Day." "The whole year has been humbling, going back to scratch and applying for the job," Bono said at that time. The larger question, however, is whether U2, like the Romanovs who ruled Russia prior to 1917, have inherited an empty crown. As the Biggest Band In The World, will U2 also be the last to bear that title? But first, to the legitimacy of U2's claim. While owning the right to call yourself the Biggest Band In The World might not be as clear-cut as, say, Beatrix's birthright as Queen of the Netherlands, there are basic entitlement criteria. It helps, of course, to sell a few records, although sales are by no means the decisive factor. U2 hasn't exactly slouched when it comes to moving product, but you might be surprised to learn the band's best-selling release, The Joshua Tree, ranks only 78th on the Record Industry Association of America's all-time list. After 26 weeks, All That You Can't Leave Behind stands 48th on the Billboard Chart, having sold more than two million copies in the United States. While more than respectable, the totals rank well behind recent releases by younger acts such as Nelly, Shaggy and Limp Bizkit. The Beatles, as always, are in another league altogether. In any case, being the Biggest Band In The World is more a mythical than literal honour. And intangibles such as career longevity, critical acclaim, continuing vitality and cross-generational credibility are ultimately what counts. In other words, the Rolling Stones were the Biggest Band In The World but have retired from that exalted height, while Limp Bizkit hasn't nearly stood the test of time. As for 'N Sync ... Hell, as they say, will freeze over first. U2, which first banded together at Mount Temple High School in Dublin in 1978, has seldom been out of the public eye since the 1980 release of its debut album, Boy. A product of the post-punk era, U2 emerged as part of a pack that included the likes of Echo and the Bunnymen, the Teardrop Explodes and Duran Duran before launching into the stratosphere with the 1987 release of The Joshua Tree, which yielded two chart-topping hits, "With Or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," while earning the band its first Grammy for Album Of The Year. With The Joshua Tree, produced by Hamilton native Daniel Lanois, U2 laid hand to a larger legacy than merely being one of the most important bands of the '80s, a higher status it solidified with two releases from the early '90s, Achtung Baby and Zooropa, and 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, its 10th studio album in 20 years. Of the factors that contribute to a group's staying power, stability might well be the most underrated. It goes without saying U2 wouldn't even be in a position to be the Biggest Band In The World if it had not held together all these years, but given the vagaries of the music business it certainly defies the odds, if not logic, that U2 has always had the same four members: singer Bono (Paul Hewson), guitarist the Edge (David Evans), bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. Critically, the band has more than held its own. While some reviewers, this one included, have remained largely impervious to U2's bombastic appeal, the band does not want for champions, particularly in the U.S., where leading publications such as Rolling Stone are constantly beating the drum on the group's behalf. "U2 has maintained not only its massive popularity, but also its status as one of the most adventurous and groundbreaking acts in pop music," according to the bio in The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia Of Rock & Roll. Perhaps nothing validates U2's Biggest Band In The World status more than the international, multi-generational and cross-gender nature of its appeal. None of this is scientific, mind you, but I have colleagues whose 14-year-old daughters are queuing up for one of the band's two shows at the ACC. Seated in front of me during the Elevation 2001 launch at the National Car Rental Center in Sunrise, Fla., in March was a twentysomething couple from Italy. In the row behind sat a boisterous quartet of fortysomethings from Germany. U2, as you will discover if you check out the myriad fan sites on the Web, is not only the Biggest Band In The World, but also Die Grssste Band Der Welt. Achtung baby, indeed. Further mousing allowed me to become the 15,425th person to visit the official Web site of U2's Bulgarian fan club. The Elevation 2001 tour is designed to emphasize U2's special relationship with its fans. The stage is set up on a heart-shaped runway that actually encloses a portion of the audience. In Florida, fans with standing-room admission began lining up more than 12 hours before the show to guarantee the closest possible vantage point. Throughout the show, Bono prowled the exterior of the heart, stopping frequently to touch the outstretched arms of the masses, a laying on of hands that harkened back to medieval French monarchs using their divinely endowed powers to heal the sick. The set list, which changes nightly, also has crowd-pleaser written all over it, with tunes from All That You Can't Leave Behind blended seamlessly in with such anthemic favourites as "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day." Clearly, the band means to make amends after the cold spectacle of 1997's PopMart outing. Still, it tells you something that in U2's universe an evening of intimate communing with your followers involves playing to 20,000-plus in hockey arenas. Few other bands can match U2's mastery of the grand gesture - and sound as good doing it. R.E.M. is the only other significant, '80s-generated band to enter the current decade with its integrity and following largely intact. If anything, the band from Athens, Ga., which played to an estimated 20,000 fans during a free street concert at Dundas and Yonge on Thursday, is more critically revered. But, for all their quiet charisma, singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills do not come close to matching Bono's messianic zeal. "I respect those guys (in U2)," said the characteristically low-key Buck after Thursday's show. "They're friends of mine. I love their records. They're good at that big thing. I'm not sure we are. I don't think I have what it takes to be that kind of an iconic, public figure. U2 really know how to do that rock-star thing." Even so, R.E.M. ranked the highest in a Web-site poll asking browsers to identify U2's most formidable rival. Radiohead, the influential young English quintet, placed a respectable second, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica trailing distantly behind. Radiohead, whose two most recent albums, last year's Kid A and 1997's OK Computer, were consensus choices as the best releases of their respective years, would seem to be the logical heir. But you get the feeling that leader Thom Yorke is no more interested in wearing the crown than is his friend Stipe. Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst would probably like to try it on for size, but at this point he's a pretender in a ball cap at best. It's entirely possible U2 will be the last Biggest Band In The World. Not only is "the job," as Bono calls it, a difficult one to fill, it might also have outlived its usefulness. Kind of like the monarchy. While the music industry clings to the hope that future monster acts will emerge, most of the evidence is to the contrary. For one thing, U2 is already the lightest-selling Biggest Band In The World to date. While record companies mourn the passing of reliable behemoths, listeners have more choice than ever. And they seem to like it that way. As much as some might hold to the nostalgic notion that things were better when we all watched Bonanza and listened to the Beatles together, few of us would happily return to the days when TV offered a maximum of a dozen channels or when the programmers at CHUM were busily galvanizing our taste in music. In a world where everything is available to each person, consumers are losing their appetite for cultural dishes designed to suit all tastes. "Beautiful Day," in addition to being a supremely effective pop song, is also generic. Spectacularly generic, to be sure. But generic, nonetheless. U2 emerged at a time when size still mattered. And they've done a credible job of carrying on in that tradition, in spite of contrary trends. When the king is dead, it is customary to assert continuity by saluting the heir. When U2 leaves the stage, it might be time to turn out the stadium lights.