by Mark

PJ Harvey:

As much as I liked her the other night at the Garden, I loved her tonight. Passionate again, she put on a great show, and I was not looking forward to her leaving the stage. I still need to check out her catalog, so I don't know the titles of her songs -- I was a little disappointed she didn't do the song they performed on Letterman the night before. It's a great song, and she performed it at MSG, so I was looking forward to it. Suffice to say, she has just picked up a new fan.

The Crowd:

Well, it was a great crowd, for the most part. Not as consistently enthusiastic as the New York crowd -- the singalongs occassionally required some coercing from Bono. I did love the passion of some of the people near me. The guy next to me seemed to be having a religious experience, in between drags of his smoke.

What was quite shocking was seeing people walking out after The Fly, as if the show was over! This I did not understand. But the people who stayed (which was most of them) saw Bono ready to float away during the fade of Walk On.

I have to say, between NY and NJ, I haven't seen so much happiness in years.

Those Guys From Dublin:

Here continues the broken record: They were awesome, once again! As great as Bono's voice was the other night, at NJ it was even better!

The setlist was virtually the same as 6/17 -- they dropped I Remember You. A little disappointing, but expected for the first night, which is what they treated NJ as, not the 3rd night in the NY area as I was hoping. I'll guarantee you that 75% of the MSG crowd was here.

Some Highlights:

Before Desire, someone from the crowd asked Bono and Bono said something like (a have to listen closely to the exact words), "that's a very good idea. We haven't played it in years. We'd have to relearn that, but it's a very good idea. The question was to play Ultra Violet (Light My Way)." I was expecting them to try it, but, alas, nope. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we hear this on the 2nd or 3rd leg. He genuinely seemed interested in doing that again.

Bono screwed up the second verse of Stay -- started singing the first again. Everyone picked up on that, and Bono sheepishly smiled at the crowd for a long time, while Edge kept strumming, and when Bono finally started the second verse again correctly, everyone cheered. :-)

Now they're off to Europe. I'm hoping we hear several surprises. I have reason to believe we'll be hearing several other songs that they've been rehearsing.

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