U2

On Saturday night H and I went to Telstra Stadium to see U2. I'd always wanted to see them but have never before had the opportunity to do so so when their rescheduled Vertigo world tour tickets went on sale I was very keen to snap a couple up. Mikey is testament to this fact. He was here with me when I made the purchase. They were due to play here last April. The gigs got postponed, we arrived in May and the re-sell tickets went on sale in July. They played their UK leg of the tour in June 2005 but H and I were over here validating our visas.

I was obviously very excited in the lead up to the gig. I've been to see Oasis at Knebworth back in the day but this was my first stadium gig. We took our seats a little while before Kanye West took to the stage. When the tickets went on sale all the only two seats I could get next to each other were up with the Gods in the side of the stadium. There were no standing tickets available at all. I looked down with envy at a couple of our mates (who weren't even U2 fans before the gig started) who had managed to get to the front of the standing area, but I had to remind myself just how lucky I was to be there, so I sat back determined to enjoy the spectacle.

Kanye took to the stage just after 7pm.















This guy was more interested in reading his book.















Kanye was only on for the best part of 40 minutes. I do like quite few of his tracks but the crowd weren't really up for it, except for those who were at the front (grrrrr!). The stadium was pretty empty when he started anyway.

Mikey had been texting me in the build up to the gig, reminding me not to expect too much because they were all old men now. Afterall they have been together for 30 years. But as soon as Bono started singing I knew we were going to be in for a treat.

U2 took to the stage just after 8.30 (shortly after a Mexican wave went round the whole stadium) and they played for about two and quarter hours. Their first track was the 'City of Blinding Lights'. I’d heard that this was going to be their first track, and with their huge back catalogue, I was a little surprised that they'd chosen it. However, it's a beauty and the crowd went nuts. I captured it all on camera. Unfortunately I overshot the limit allowed for You Tube videos by 2 megabytes. There's plenty of videos of the moment on You Tube though.

The concert got off to a ripper of a start with 'Vertigo' and 'Elevation' following on from the opening song. 'Beautiful Day' followed shortly afterwards.





























They played a massive selection of classics, including 'Where The Streets Have No Name', 'One', 'New Year's Day', 'Zoo Station', 'Desire', 'I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For', 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and 'With Or Without You' (queue all the couples on the crowd for who this is “their song” to cling onto each other, all of them no doubt thinking Bono is singing it to them, pah!). The full set-list is here.





























For me Bono’s best performance of the night was when he sung 'Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own', the song he wrote about his late father. He didn't hold back on the performance and it was damn impressive to see.

This one brought the proverbial house (or in this case, the Olympic stadium) down.















Of course Bono did his bit for world politics. This bit was pretty cool. They put a text message onto the screen and them told everyone in the stadium to get their phone out and text it (the text message you got back asked you to sign up on this website). Seeing eighty thousand mobile phones in a stadium that big was very impressive.

The one song I had really hoped that they would play was 'The Fly' and thankfully they didn’t disappoint as this formed part of their fantastic Zooropa encore. It was their dirtiest, raw-est performance of the night. I love the guitar intro to it. The Edge is the only one in the band who doesn’t seem to have aged with time.















It was also refreshing to see that despite their elevated status as arguably the biggest band in the whole wide world, and the fact that they are all mutli-squillionaires, they seemed to play the gig like it was their last. They put everything into every song. There was no airs and graces. They just did their thing in a faultless fashion. The fact that most of the crowd had to wait 7 months to see them probably helped.

Last week we saw Bono being interviewed on the TV and he said that with every performance the band does he believes that the crowd, who are more used to seeing them all enjoying the fame and fortune that their career choice affords, just ask that “the band aren’t crap” when they watch them. Well they definitely weren’t. We both thought they were amazing and loved every minute of the show.

Even the guy who was reading was nodding his head.















Next up, it’s Pearl Jam.