by Laura Hutchinson

After a long and adventuresome day otuside the Summit, it's 6:30 and we're about to be *inside*. We're getting loud too. Open the damned doors!
The doors open and we dash in, up the stairs, down the stairs to the heart. After an hour or so of standing, waiting, listening to PJ Harvey (who BTW rocked!), it's 9:00 and roadies are scurrying about. Edge's guitar tech is playing a little U2 medley. He plays a few bars of Streets and it is awesome. I have no idea what I'm in for.
The roadies leave and soon... THEY EMERGE! OMG, they EXIST! Upon seeing them, right there, nothing is lost. They are even greater in person. And there is nothing between me and them. Nothing but a few feet of sweaty air.

This band is awesome! Bono is so full of energy. At one point during the show he runs all the way around the heart and then limps around for awhile. Silly. The crowd is going crazy. I'm right up front in the heart (about 6 feet away from the Edge) and everyone is singing along.
Somewhere they kick into I Will Follow. It rocks. It really rocks. Then from there they go into Sunday Bloody Sunday and it is BADASS!!! Yes! They've brought the song back to life! (Edge's popmart version just didn't do the song justice) now it's the whole band... it's a lot like R&H minus the speech.
NO MORE! say NO MORE! NO MORE!
Next they do this song and I'm baffled because I don't know what it is!!! It's the live version of Sweetest Thing!!!
The next thing they do is In a Little While. This song makes me want to cry! From there it's Bad. Towards the end of Bad Bono pulls a girl up on stage... lucky! We actually talked to her before the show too! My friend Albert said "Yeah what if bono pulled you up on stage..." hehe.
The next thing is Streets. I've been waiting to hear Streets live. I get such a rush just from listening to it. Well think of that rush you get when you're watching Streets in R&H. now multiply it by 10 or 100. think of that blissed out high, that happiness you experience at a concert, that joy... now take that a couple of degrees higher. Through the whole song I cried so hard. I think God lives in Edge's guitar. It was just so beautiful.
Mysterious Ways was amusing. Bono was lying on one of the screens, wearing a rather ugly hat. Then I heard 'Love, we shine like a burning star, we're falling from the sky...' only it was quiet and sweet and I was getting apprehensive as to what has happened to THE FLY. But, not to worry, in a few lines the band kicked in WHARARARARAMMM!!!!! When they finish the Fly they leave the stage and we do the 40 routine until... gospel music comes through the speakers. I am baffled. Yhen the screens light up with images of an chuck heston... i heard about this. Heston's voice get's more and more distorted and deteriorated before the band finally comes out. They launch into Bullet the Blue Sky. The pounding, heavy rhythm. Bono prances around doing his thing. He picks up a little spotlight and has a lot of fun with it, shining it all over the place. All over the audience, Adam, Larry, Edge - from out on the ramp. After that they go into With or Without You. the white curtains come down and starmaps are projected all over the arena... it's
magical. Bono's walking around the ramp when he spots some people up in the skybox holding up an Irish flag. He motions for them to throw it down and they don't get it. When the song is over he gets them to
throw it down, but it takes a bit of coaxing. "come on, it's ok... just throw it down... 700 years of oppression, this is not a problem." they finally drop the flag... it floats to the people below them and it eventually gets passed to the stage. Bono picks it up and while Edge starts playing One, Bono does his own spiel.
"I used to be ashamed of this flag... but after the work of some great leaders of the past few years, thanks to them, I'm proud of this flag..."
One is beautiful. The show is almost over. I'm exhausted and I'm thinking the show's almost over... because this is the encore. Then they start playing Walk On and I think to myself, 'It's not over yet'
Walk On is the last song and when it's over me and a bunch of other people are just sobbing while Bono's 'Halleluja's are still ringing through my head. That was the greatest show I've ever seen in my life...

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