HOUSTON — When a band's past becomes as entrenched as U2's, the new album behind each tour can matter not. For this Irish foursome, though, tunes off their latest CD, "All That You Can't Leave Behind," made all the difference at a concert that otherwise proved rigidly nostalgic.

Talk about all that you can't leave behind. U2 has been playing the same set of back-catalog songs with zero exceptions since 1987. "Bad," "With or Without You," "Bullet the Blue Sky," "New Year's Day," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Will Follow" — as sure as Bono's wraparound sunglasses, these tracks were played at Houston's Compaq Center on Monday, the fourth show on the band's current U.S. tour.

The lads apparently don't have the heart, or maybe it's the humility, to be more playful with their set lists. Even with '90s fare from "Achtung Baby," like "Mysterious Ways," "Until the End of the World" and "The Fly," the material felt overused (just one of these songs, plus "One," would have been enough). Meanwhile, there's a discography of great, old U2 songs that has been touched less than Michael Jackson in recent years. Even the Stones or R.E.M. drop in rare oldies at their shows. Bono apparently can't handle the thought that not everyone in the crowd is going to know how to sing along.

He didn't have that problem with the new songs. Playing their Grammy-winning hit "Beautiful Day" for the show's second tune and "Walk On" as the finale were audacious ways of parading the latest album. Thanks to the fact that the houselights were left on (purposefully, and quite effectively) for most of the show-opening "Elevation," the crowd's enthusiasm for the new stuff was visible from the get-go.

From a staging standpoint, the concert offered a fascinating minimalist approach — particularly for a band that had a looming golden arch and giant, lemon-shaped discoball on its last tour, 1997's ill-fated "PopMart" outing, regurgitated here with an inexplicable performance of "Discotech." Many times Monday night, the band members were lit only with plain lights from underneath the stage, or they performed under single shades of color. A heart-shaped runway that stretched halfway through the arena (small by U2 standards, at 20,000 capacity) became fodder for Bono's rock-star gestures and struts, but the rest of the band mostly stuck to the snug, bare-bones main stage as though they were playing a club.

Much of the new music, devoid of any electronica gimmicks, harked back to the days when U2 did play clubs. Bono hit on that nostalgic note when he told the crowd, "Thanks for hanging around all these years. We've got a lot of friends in Texas."

Yeah, but friends do get tired of hearing the same stories — or songs — over and over. It was lucky for U2 that they had such sturdy new material. In fact, the tribute to INXS singer Michael Hutchence, "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," was the show's highlight. But even if they were touring with a clunker of a disc, there are better ways of approaching their past without sounding like they're rehashing it.

British rock queen P.J. Harvey followed in the footsteps of the Pixies, Public Enemy and the Sugarcubes by playing the sometimes unforgiving U2 opening slot. The Irish band likes to pick way-hip underground stars and dare them to come off as big as they sound on record. Harvey fared better than most.

Cranking out heavy standards like "Man-Size" and "Down by the Water," she filled the half-empty arena with her seductive noise. Mixing in the wee-bit poppier and flashier songs off her new album "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea," many of which glittered like her silvery-sequined dress, she added a touch of sophistication to her rough noise that suited the setting perfectly. Look for her to handle more big crowds soon enough.

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