The members of U2 won't be climbing any giant fruit when they play San Jose's hockey tank Thursday and next Friday.

You won't see their images across a television screen the length of a 747; they won't be calling the White House; and singer Bono won't be dressed as the devil and hopping from cars suspended above the stage.

The show will be a stripped-down, two-hour set in contrast to the Irish band's two most recent Oakland Coliseum outdoor extravaganzas -- 1997's ``Pop Mart'' and 1993's ``Zoo TV.''

``We're happy, for the moment, to really let the music be the centerpiece of our concerts,'' says the quirky guitarist known as the Edge, who was born Dave Evans in east London 39 years ago.

``Last time out was a full audio-visual show,'' he continues. ``This time, the visuals are secondary. I won't say that we'll never go back to a live spectacular, but right now it feels more fresh to keep it more stripped-down and simple.''

He's on the phone from Denver, in the first week of a world tour that stretches through August. And even though U2's two San Jose shows sold out long ago, he talks for nearly an hour about his band, and music in general. Which is funny, because one of the running jokes during February's Grammy Awards show was built on the reticence of this beanie-wearing sideman.

He speaks easily, however, and fields any question thrown at him with a quick wit. When queried, ``What haven't you been asked by a journalist?'' he shoots back, ``How come somebody so tall, handsome and intelligent ended up in a rock band?'' He speaks with a slight accent that recalls an early Beatles' press conference. It could be heard when he thanked Gillette for making the Mach 3 razor during his Grammy acceptance speech.

That's a huge contrast to U2 singer Bono, born Paul Hewson, who, despite an earnest desire to use his pop stardom as a bully pulpit for political change, sometimes falls victim to Foot in Mouth disease. The main symptom: Every statement one makes takes on the importance of Moses delivering the Ten Commandments.

Bono caused a stir in San Francisco in 1987, when he spray-painted the words ``Rock and Roll. Stop the Traffic'' on a fountain during a free concert. Then-mayor Diane Feinstein wanted him prosecuted under anti-graffiti ordinances, but prosecutor Arlo Smith declined.

This year, Bono stoked the flame of controversy by telling audiences his quartet was applying for the job of ``best rock 'n' roll band in the world.'' If the Edge had said it, it would have been shrugged off. Because it came from Bono, more than a few fans bristled. But as the singer knew, it also made a peg for journalists around the world to hang stories on.

Songs stand up

``You know it's not for us to say,'' says the Edge of the ``greatest band'' title. ``It's not even possible to say, you know. It's only in looking back you can get a perspective on things. But . . . what's nice is I do think we have got quite a few songs that really do stand up against the great songs. I don't know how many, but we've got certainly a few. And it's great that now we're in a position, that with a bit of distance from when they first came out, that some of them are standing up as classics.''

The Irish group formed in 1976, after drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posted an ad for musicians. Bassist Adam Clayton was the fourth member of the quartet, which first played U.S. clubs in 1980 and has never looked back.

U2's 1983 album, ``War,'' a post-punk return to political rock, reached No. 7 on the U.S. charts and propelled the quartet to arenas.

The group hit artistic zeniths on 1984's ``Unforgettable Fire,'' 1987's ``Joshua Tree'' and 1991's ``Achtung Baby,'' rock albums influenced heavily by producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno.

Unafraid to experiment, the band spent the '90s in less successful excursions through dance and ambient music before returning in 2000 with the straight-ahead rocker ``All That You Can't Leave Behind.'' That album is an inquisitive look into what is and what can never be; music from it will be complemented on the current ``Elevation'' tour by many of the band's earlier hits.

Under the broad brush strokes of a smiley-face, addictive, catchy tune such as ``Beautiful Day,'' the Grammy-winning single from that disc, lurks the dark undercurrent of death and of what is worth remembering from this life.

``I'm still happy to play it,'' the Edge says of ``Beautiful Day,'' which won Grammys for song of the year, record of the year and rock performance by a duo or group with vocal. ``A lot of things are very catchy, but they wear off. Its strength is a balance -- that something is most definitely wrong, but there is a sense of overcoming whatever has come your way.''

At first, the Edge took some heat from other members of the band, who insisted the anthem's exuberant repeated chords sounded too much like old U2 classics. But in the end, the guitarist held on.

Repetition is OK

``I am the Edge,'' he recalls telling them. ``I invented this'' stuff ``and don't be so'' -- he uses an emphatic swear word here -- ``paranoid about repeating yourself that you have to be someone you're not and pretend you're a different band.''

You can get away with saying things like that when you are a sideman, as any Keith Richards fan knows.

``I think every guitar player is, to some extent, the sideman, unless he's also on lead vocal,'' says the Edge, whose nickname was given to him by a Dublin transvestite troupe, called the Virgin Prunes, that hung out with the band in the early years. The Edge's name came from a Dublin hardware store, which adjoined the hearing-aid emporium that gave Hewson his nickname, Bono Vox.

Supporting the song

``It all comes, really, down to the fact that it's about supporting the song, supporting the singer,'' continues the Edge. ``If you do that well, you come off sounding great, too. I've always been a musician who wants to play the song, rather than the instrument.''

So how does he handle sharing the stage with Bono, the singer's lightning-rod ego and some of the jolts it attracts?

``I haven't heard any of it,'' the Edge deadpans. ``Maybe I don't read enough. . . . I'll tell you what is true of Bono: He's never been scared to stick his neck out. I think that's the sort of character he is. There's no reverse gear in that character. He's all going forward, and it's amazing how much he achieves.''

Yes Bono treads on toes, the Edge admits, but his campaigning to get wealthy nations to suspend the debts of poor ones has impressed his band mate of 26 years.

``Just the debt-cancellation work he has done has, in itself, silenced any small doubts I may have had about him getting involved in politics. He's not a public official; he's not elected; he doesn't have a mandate, but he actually made a huge difference in that whole thing.''

The band has been criticized for tickets as high as $130 for reserved seats at arena shows, but the Edge defends those prices. The whole floor is general-admission, he points out, for only $45 a head; so those closest to the band are the ones with the love and energy to stand up through the show.

The guitarist predicts U2 fans will be more in control than the Danish fans of Pearl Jam who rushed a stage last summer, with eight deaths resulting.

``We're pretty confident about it,'' says the Edge. ``We've gone into so much detail and planned so carefully. We've got the best security team on the road. I wouldn't be surprised if we come out without any incidents.''