by Chris Colledge

I went to the opening night of the UK tour in Manchester, got seated tickets at near enough the last minute. First time I have seen the band I have idolised for four years, and I wasn't dissapointed. By the way that show had nothing on this.

The main event for me was Dublin, me and 3 mates have had this booked since January and been planning it since last year.

We went to the Croke Park gig on the Saturday.

First thing, for someone who doesn't live in Ireland, I was overwhelmed but pleased with how fanatical they are about U2 over there. They were on every radio station every hour, they were on the front page of all the papers, tabloids and broadsheets, all the bar's were playing u2, a lot of them were ONLY playing U2 and it was just like a U2 festival, something incredible to be a part of.

Anyway so we left our campsite at 10am on Saturday morning and headed for croke park in the car arriving at 10.30am. Luckily we managed to park on a street close by, unluckily about a 2,000 fanatics had already beat us to the queue.

We did tho manage to get into the front standing section, in fact we were stood between the two B stages which was an incredible position. I have some awesome shots of the band on my camera which I'll try and post with the revier, or later if it's beyond me :)

So they started as expected with Vertigo, I have been to some gigs in my time, Rolling Stones and REM to name a few but never in my life has a crowd rocked anything like this. It was completely mental. Next they played Out of Control for the first time on the European Leg, after the song I am already officially exhausted from jumping up down like a mad rabbit while screaming the words at the top of my voice.

I manage to find the energy to sing along to electric co, and stand in awe as I watch The Edge nail the guitar solo.

My legs hurt, my voice is hoarse my friends are all the same, none of us care. The fact we waited in a queue for 11 hours to get this position at the concert is no longer a concern, we are experiencing a special moment.

From there on in we sing along with 80,000 other people to all time classics, and brand new hits. City of blinding lights sound brilliant, particularly the intro, Sunday bloody sunday, bullet the blue sky, all i want is you, I still haven't found what I am looking for, the major classics filled in with their latest hits from the last few years.

Everyone in the stadium waves their mobile phone in the air for an awesome moment as the band play one, they take a short break and then come on for the encore. Playing an Acthung Baby era short set. The video screen, which is the most awesome I have ever seen is in full working order and enhances the spectacle of the show ten fold.

After 2 hours of non stop rocking, they drag a guy from the crowd. He travelled from abroad and held a sign saying "I caught a plane to play guitar with U2 on Party Girl."

The lucky ba$tard or Matt to use his real name, is given one of The Edge's guitars and gets to jam with U2 on Party Girl. Everone in the crowd is in ecstasy for him, he can't believe it himself.

They play an acoustic version of yaweh, and rock the place out one more time and close with Vertigo.

It's pretty obvious I enjoyed this. My mates aren't the biggest u2 fans in the world but they do like them. I am an absoloute nutcase and my expectations were super high. We were all ****ed off queing for 11 hours making the job for the boys even harder. They would need to be A star to make us totally satisfied, and they didn't dissapoint in anyway.

* Hi to Ruud if you're reading this. He was a fan from Netherlands who I met outside the Clarence as we waited eagerly for Bono on Sunday night, I still don't know if he ever showed up, Ruud had a bit more endurance for it than me.

Return to previous page | Post a Review of this show!