by Davie Kelly

The clouds over Scotland's capital cleared as our group moved from pub to pub along Rose Street, preparing ourselves for the evening to come. When we got to the stadium, it was around 8:15 giving us half an hour or so to get that T-shirt and get as close as possible to the main stage.

Got to a nice wee spot about 40 yards from the front just as the expected bars of 'Pop Music' came blasting out of the superb sound system. The boys came on and went hell for leather into 'Mofo'. This, like most of the other stuff from the new album was played with a passion and drive that for me took the band to a new concert high. They did the right thing in trying to mix the old and the new stuff - it seemed to us that there were quite a few punters who were not too familiar with 'Pop'. This was made all the more apparent when the Joshua Tree classics came out.

When they did 'Where The Streets Have No Name', the noise of 'oldie' fans joining in the singing was absolutely amazing - I've never heard such audience volume before in my life. It seemed that the band were a bit taken back as well - Bono's big grin came up on that fabulous video screen as he realised he had hit the right note.

The karaoke version of Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' went down well with the Scottish audience but I felt a bit embarassed singing along.

After the little break and the subsequent over the top 'space landing', the versions of 'Miami' and 'If You Weare That Velvet Dress' were wonderful. It was to Miami that old Bono got his kicks by getting a stunning blonde up on the stage. Some cool dude, eh?

Overall, I found the concert far better than my last one (Wembley, 1993). The sound was better, the video screens, lemon and the golden arch were appropriate to the fact that this band will always be playing to 50,000 screaming fans. Best of all for me was the 8 songs they did off the new album. It's a shame that I seem to be the only punter who likes the new stuff!

Roll on the next tour and album.

Regards to you all,

Davie

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