Rob not Bob - i hear you, and my bad on the comparison. I'm completely coming from a biased stand point of just simply not liking the music they put out there... so when Thorgnor made his today and back in the day comparisons, i jumped in there with that one. Not fair, yep. My bad.
Anyway, i'm not attacking them BECAUSE of their success - not at all. Rather because a, i just don't like their tunes (as mentioned above) and because Bono preaches like he's a worldly saint and then buys a crazy jet to go touring, blows 40 million on a stage that requires transport after transport rolling down the world's highways to set up and tax evades. Smart businessman, sure. And whatever, half of what i enjoy exists because of smart business people... but don't go preaching to the world like a concerned rockstar would and then do the exact opposite. Not overly cool.
As for stopping it and not going over the top the U2 tour way simply because it would piss of the fans not being able to get tickets, I totally disagree. U2 doesn't seem like the kind of band that would even consider stopping it. Anyone who spends $40 million on a stage (c'mon that's excessive) obviously loves the show that money creates. It's who they are, their image and what people expect of them. They created that monster themselves. David Byrne on the other hand consciously decided when filming Stop Making Sense that he dind't want any of the special effects, tricks, etc. but rather for the cameras to focus on the musicians themselves. Different strokes for different folks. But to justify spending that kind of money because they HAVE to is wrong. They don't have to, they just do... and everybody loves a crazy light show.
Santana, on the other hand, ROCKS.