The Wizards of Pop

Somebody is screwing up, coming in on the wrong beat every time somewhere near the start of the third verse. And it's throwing the whole song, not to mention the rest of the band and the mood of fragile optimism in the room, out of whack.

For the past hour at the Factory, a rehearsal facility tucked up against a canal in the industrial docklands section of eastern Dublin, Ireland, the four members of U2 have been stoically grinding through take after take of what they think could be a hot — shit segue in their new PopMart stage show: a sly glide from a bold, hip – hop — style recasting of the '80s war horse "Bullet the Blue Sky" into the gurgling trip — hop of "Miami." Except that two – thirds of the way through "Miami" — where the single note grind of the Edge's guitar cuts out and Bono goes into a sleep – talk mantra over a black hole of dublike rhythm — the music keeps falling apart.

When the song breaks down for the third time, Bono grins, lets out a long, loud sigh — part comic gesture, part mounting frustration — and asks the Edge if the problem might be the way the guitarist is going into the instrumental bridge. The Edge, a paragon of poker — face cool, pleads innocent. All eyes then turn to drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who is playing a cool, offbeat — funk pattern; alas, it seems to be one beat behind everything else that's happening in the tune. "Oh, no, that's not possible," Mullen argues with a steely laugh. "You must have me confused with some other drummer."

"If you played that rhythm every night, it would be great," Bono cracks.

"If we asked you to play that every night," the Edge adds impishly, "you wouldn't."

Bono, Mullen, the Edge and bassist Adam Clayton take another stab at the song. It collapses again in the same place. After an exchange of quips and some earnest discussion between the band and Des Broadbery, the keyboard and computer jockey who is programming the loops and samples used in much of U2's new material, the truth comes out: Bono is the one fucking up, singing behind the beat in that last verse. He eats his humble pie like a man. "At the moment, I respond well to orders," he says with a suitably affected flourish of wounded pride in his voice. "Just tell me when to come in."

The band has one more go at "Miami." This time, everyone is in fluid, funky sync. Bono, prepping for vocal liftoff, dances in place at the mike, executing a tiptoe shuffle in his jaguar — spot suede shoes. And when he gets to the song's rather ditsy main refrain — "Miami! My mammy!" — Bono belts the line with an expertly controlled exhilaration, more forceful than frenzied, more muscular than melodramatic. Then, as "Miami" starts to fade away, the band instinctively swings back into "Bullet the Blue Sky," the Edge going into a skittish, R&B — like riffing that jolts Bono into some New Jack Swinging of his own scatting the chorus from Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)."

This is not the show that folks will see four weeks from now, when U2's Pop Mart – a kitsch – corn – and – gewgaw binge that has been more than a year in the planning &8212; opens for business at Sam Boyd Stadium, in Las Vegas. The 2 million people who have already bought tickets for shows on the initial eight — month stretch of the band's '97 – 98 tour will no doubt have their retinas turned to toast by Pop Mart's daily specials: a 100 – foot – tall golden arch; a 35 – foot – high mirror ball that doubles as a giant lemon and opens like P – Funk's Mothership; a huge, illuminated stuffed olive spiked by a 100 – foot – long toothpick; a Gargantuan video screen (50 feet tall, 150 feet wide) that looks like Godzilla's idea of sports – bar TV.

But it's been at least 10, maybe 15, years since paying customers have seen anything like what's going on at the Factory — in close quarters and intimate, high tension form, playing their songs with a naked — quartet integrity and personable, life — size enthusiasm. Bono, a man who has never been afraid of an exaggerated flourish or a bit of costume drama, seems particularly humanized by the zero — bullshit setting and basic agenda. He not only has to get the live, real — time hang of the Pop material but he has to sink into the songs, inhabit them and give them durable, emotional resonance before they become Angst Writ Large on the PopMart stage.