KEY POINTS:
Hear that? It's the sound of 40,000 or so U2 fans still scratching their heads after the band's spectacular Zoo TV show at Western Springs.
That happily perplexed itch of the faithful probably started back with the strange new territory of the group's last two albums, Achtung Baby and Zooropa - respectively their best and near-worst records ever, by my less-than-converted reckoning. An opinion strengthened too by their tracks' execution on the night.
So while the impact of Achtung guitar-heavy openers Zoo Station and The Fly were perfectly complemented by the random imagery and sensory overload of the Zoo TV video walls, doodling Zooropa tracks like Numb and Lemon have more life on-screen than they did musically.
Minor distractions, though, in what was for the most part a stunning show even with - and probably because of - its general air of confusion.
Adding to that confusion were locals 3Ds, who kicked up a neatly belligerent though underpowered racket first up.
However, BAD II, the British dance-rock outfit lead by former Clash man Mick Jones, have probably played more exciting soundchecks than their support slot, which is much of what is sounded like. Only with more bass drum.
The ideas behind the mixed-media concept of Zoo TV could be traced to the likes of the art of Jenny Holzer, to avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson, to REM's Green Tour film as well as the more eggheaded work of U2 producer Brian Eno.
But its sheer size, execution and unpredictability - in that most predictable of settings, a stadium rock show - made for and experience that was, overall, plain awesome.
Whether it was the video cameras by Lou Reed (joining in on his own Satellite of Love played during a semi-acoustic bracket at the end of a stage catwalk) or the footage of Martin Luther King during Pride, reclaiming the song from just being another U2 stadium singalong, it was equally overwhelming.
Likewise Bullet in the Blue Sky was inveigled with an even bigger sense of threat. Both musically - with guitarist Edge at his edgiest - and visually as the images of burning crosses swung into swastikas.
And later, after singer Bono had changed into his "Macphisto" guise (nice suit, shame about the script), even the previously exultant With or Without You had a real menace.
So the end to one of the last nights before Zoo TV goes off the air for good and U2 can try to figure how to ever top it.
Are shows like this the future of stadium rock? Like, come the end of the century will we all be holding our remote controls aloft instead of lighters?
Sure hope so.
