Irish rockers touch all bases of 20-year career in tour stop at Nationwide Arena in Columbus reports Carol Simmons of the Dayton Daily News

Irish rock group U2 marched into a sold-out Nationwide Arena on Monday night carrying a new flag.

After a decade of foundering in an ironic, self-conscious pop sea, Bono et al. have swum back to the shore of their beginnings < where music had the power to change the world < and planted their feet firmly on solid ground.

Sincerity is the mantle of the group's current Elevation tour, which is ostensibly to support the quartet's latest album release, All That You Can't Leave Behind, but culls from the band's 20-plus-year repertory.

It's a potent collection, revealed all the more affective for its ability to move a multi-aged crowd, many of whom weren't born when the earliest songs were a ubiquitous force on the radio.

Despite high ticket prices < $130, $85 and $45 < and a massive arena space, the band managed to give the show an egalitarian, we're-all-in-this-together feel.

The house lights stayed up as the band entered the stage in a call-and-response heavy rendition of their latest single, Elevation, which segued without pause into a darkened hall and this year's Grammy-award winning song, Beautiful Day.

Complete review at www.activedayton.com