Also, sorry for the “report” style.  I’ve been doing too much of this at work and my brain doesn’t work otherwise right now.

Opening Act:

Muse –  After I bought the tickets (back in March) and I knew who would open for them, I downloaded a bunch of their songs so I’d be at least a little familiar.  It worked out because there wasn’t a song they played that I hadn’t heard.  They were very good live and seriously rocked the stadium.  Only problem they had was either the mixing of the singer’s mike or his poor use of it, because the lyrics were terribly garbled or drowned out for most of the songs.  But they were good all the same.

U2:

Bowie’s “Space Oddity” was played to announce that they were about to come out….and everybody in the stadium got the message.  Here was their set and some impressions:

1. Breathe

This was an awesome kicking song to open with (especially with Larry Mullen walking up onto the stage first and drumming away before the rest jumped in) and one of the strongest songs off the new album.

2. Get On Your Boots

This is not my favorite song on the album but it was much fun live.

3. Mysterious Ways

The first of four songs they’d play from the 1991 “Achtung Baby” album, which was the most represented album for the night besides new album.  I love this song and by this time the band has the whole stadium audience hooked.

4. Beautiful Day

First song from the 2001 album that almost made up for the crap of the 90’s (”POP” and “Zooropa” specifically). Definitely a good song to play at the top of the set.

5. No Line On The Horizon

For most of this song they had a moving image of the album cover on the big screen…which means a gray/white/black image of the horizon over the ocean.  Why?  I have no idea but was really annoyed to suddenly have nothing to look at (more on the screen and set later).

6. Magnificent

7. Elevation

Gets a little scary when you’re that high up and the whole stadium is vibrating from all the bouncing.

8. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Stand By Me

This was a great song for the crowd and a good time for Bono to give his lungs a break, as the audience did most of the work. All right….some of the work.

9. Unknown Caller

Kind of amusing that they threw the lyrics up on the screen in an attempt to turn something wholly unintelligible into a sing-a-long, but it got a bit tedious with Bono’s constant references to New York/New Jersey.  (I mean WE all know where we are, but maybe Bono had to keep reminding himself?)

10. Until The End Of The World

11. Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

Just Bono and the Edge on acoustic guitar, it was awesome and made such an impression on me that I couldn’t get the song out of my head for two weeks afterwards.(and yes, despite the fact that Bono forgot the words in the beginning and had to keep telling the Edge “back to the top”.)

12. The Unforgettable Fire

One of my favorite songs and a total surprise to hear in concert.  (And the trick that they did with the screen was also a surprise and just made the song more beautiful.)

13. City Of Blinding Lights

Instead of the old days when he pulls a girl up on stage to dance with her, he pulls a little 10 year old (?) kid up and runs around the outer ring of the stage with him, sings to him, puts his shades on him.  Made an already beautiful song that much more touching.

14. Vertigo

15. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight

I liked seeing Larry walking around the stage beating on bongos, but it took me nearly half the song to figure out which damn song they were singing.  Interesting remix, but I don’t think it worked.

16. Sunday Bloody Sunday

This is where the human rights stuff starts– they dedicated this song to dissidents fighting against injustice in Iran.

17. MLK

18. Walk On

These two songs were dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi (the duly elected leader of Burma who became a political prisoner right after she won the election) with a group of Amnesty International volunteers ringing the stage holding masks of her face in front of theirs.  meh…nice sentiment but didn’t work at all as a “powerful message”.  I guess you have to be really into the Amnesty thing to know enough to care that much.  To me, it was just distracting from the song.

Encore 1:

19. One / Amazing Grace

A video for the ONE campaign introduced this song, narrated by …Bishop Tutu…yeah…he’s got a funny voice with a goofball-style of speech that it didn’t work much as a “powerful message” either.  But the last word spoken was “One!”, so I guess it was good enough for a lead in to the song.

20. Where The Streets Have No Name

This brought down the house and again I had to fear that the stadium would vibrate too much and crumble under our feet.  Wow.

Encore 2:

21. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)

Another awesome song off of “Achtung Baby” and made for a fun show with Bono hanging from an illuminated wheel as a microphone and swinging out over the crowd– in his laser-light suit.  (I wish I had enough memory on my camera to have gotten a bit of that as well.)

22. With Or Without You

23. Moment of Surrender

One of my other favorite songs off the new album, but an unusually quiet song to close the set with.  I guess you could say that it is in the vein of closing with “40″… just lacking the chorus that could be chanted by the audience as it flows out of the stadium.

The Set:

I purposely bought seats that would be “behind” the stage for a price less (I think?) than those “in front” knowing that with this new set-up, we would be closer to the action than most facing the stage from the other side.

The crazy “octopus”/”space-ship” stage ended up being the coolest and smartest (especially financially) thing ever made for a stadium show.  The four legs that bend upwards to the circular screen at the top housed most of the lighting that they needed (including 3 men manning spot-lights on each of the 4 legs standing on TINY platforms dangling dozens of feet above the ground!) including cameras at the base of each leg.  Massive speakers hung from the top of the structure provided perfect “surround sound” (and base notes so strong that your chest would vibrate!)

The screen was the most amazing thing though.  It was made of many small hexagonal (?) screens that formed a tight circle above the stage and provided perfect high-def images of the show below.  But the engineering of this screen allowed it to extend all the way down to just above the stage (see my clip of City of Blinding Lights) and became more than just a way to see U2 up close but instead another part of the show all together.

The whole design was genius and definitely made you feel much closer to the action no matter how far away your seats were.  It allowed the band to fill many more seats than ever before at a stadium concert and if the concert producers are smart….NO band should ever perform in a stadium without a set like this.

The Stadium:

Always make sure to eat before you go.  The only thing they allowed in was one OPEN bottle of water per person (really they checked your bags and made you open the bottle and toss the cap?!).  But nothing in the place costs less than $4….really….a bag of chips was $4?!  Criminals.