by Liz Z

This was my sixth show on the 360 tour, third on this leg, and third GA experience. My husband and I arrived to the New Meadowlands stadium parking lot around 2pm. Although we had GA tickets, we opted to tailgate with a group of friends (it’s been a tradition for four tours now for my husband his friend). I don’t think I could have lasted waiting in line in the 93-degree, humid weather to get a good spot, so I give credit to those who stuck it out in the heat. I checked out the line when we arrived just to see how many people were lined up – around 500-600 people by 2:30.

While my husband continued to tailgate with more friends arriving after work, I entered the stadium around 6:30. I was able to secure a spot about 10 rows back, in between The Edge and the center of the outside rail. After about 20 minutes, I ran into a friend and her date, and ended up standing with them for Interpol and U2. I love the fact that I probably knew about 20+ people at the concert, as NY is my hometown.

Miraculously, my husband found us during Interpol (I couldn’t get any cell service on AT&T’s iPhone inside the venue; I also experienced this in 2009 so we devised a system where I would wave my purple phone during the Fan Cam so he could find me). The new stadium was beautiful and clean with ground-level restrooms, which was a real plus, but it is much higher than the old stadium and there was no cross-ventilation on the floor. It was really hot, with little breeze and a couple of women ended up needing to leave in the middle of U2’s set due to exhaustion. Later, my friends in Section 300 said that it was difficult to hear due to the acoustics in the venue, which is really too bad.

As for the show -- incredible! I saw some tweets about a set list spoiler but didn't open their attachments, so I could be pleasantly surprised about the songs.

The band was on fire and excited to be playing NY/NJ. Bono also interjected tons of "New Jersey!"s into the songs which really got the crowd pumped. His voice was great and he sounded pretty young for most of the show. Bono talked a lot more than usual in between songs, and took out the setlist from an early gig in Asbury Park NJ and read off the setlist and joked about how the encore was three songs that they also played during the main set. Bono also made a point that this was there 24th show in NJ.

The band seemed very rested and relaxed for the first few songs. Later, Bono got so hot that he had to leave the stage twice during the show and the rest of the band did multiple outfit changes due the sweltering heat. Bono asked Edge to introduce “Stay,” and it was cool to hear him speak during the show, but I think he started playing “Stuck in A Moment” on accident and then stopped and started “Stay.” Bono also sort of stopped singing at the end, maybe he forgot the words around the “3’oclock in the morning…..” party. The other time Bono left Edge onstage to “vamp” was for “Miss Sarajevo” which ended up having an extended piano intro.

The crowd seemed much more into the new songs (“Magnificent,” “Crazy Tonight”) than the other cities I saw shows in (Philly, Montreal), which was cool. Bono didn't bring anyone up during the show, but seemed to maybe be looking to during “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

Similar to Philly, Bono ripped up a bouquet of white flowers during “Until the End of the World”
and threw them into the audience. I am now wondering if that is planned or a fan in the GA section throws them up?

“Where the Streets Have No Name” was great and at one point, I think someone ran across the outer ramp from the center going towards Edge’s side. I wasn’t able to really see what happened, whether it was a rogue fan or security. I had been hoping they would put up Joshua Tree images on the screen like they did in Montreal, but they didn’t.

Bono asked for a sign from the inner circle before “Moment of Surrender” that simply said "For Clarence" and put it front of Larry’s drum kit and dedicated the song to him which was touching. You could tell the band just did not want to stop playing at the end and when they consulted with Larry to do one more, we were overjoyed. By this point people had left so I was more like 8th row. It was back to fist pumping jumping up and down. What a way to end the show. This was my last show of the tour, so it was great to have that extra bonus and go out with a bang.

Later, I read that it might have been the longest U2 concert of the tour (or ever?). The NJ fans definitely deserved it, as the conditions were pretty miserable, but everyone I spoke to had an amazing time.

This being my third show on this leg of the tour, and second being close, I started to notice more details and really enjoyed getting to focus on watching Larry and Edge. I could have seen ten more shows and still noticed new things on this tour - there are just so many moving parts.

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