by Mick Moy

Thanks to Dublin. Thanks to Greg from New Zealand, Elaine and Gillian from Newcastle in England and Julie, Gwen and Kim from Colorado.

Thanks to the boys.

This was indeed a very special show.

My girlfriend, Lee, and I are from Brisbane in Australia and I had seen Love Town in Oct '89, ZooTV in Nov '93 and PopMart in Feb '98. Lee was a U2 concert virgin.

Having always wanted to see the boys play in Dublin, I decided one morning while watching my Slane 2001 DVD that it was going to be this year. At Croke - where else? Sometimes spending a lot of money (what some people can think is an extraordinary amount of money to see a concert) is the greatest investment one can make.

We lined up from 8.30am and immediately some wonderful people from all around the world - especially Greg from New Zealand and Elaine and Gillian from Newcastle in England. Meeting you goes was worth 7 and a half hours sitting on our bums! Then once we got inside, Julie, Gwen and Kim from Colorado.

This show would not have meant half as much as it does now had we not met you guys!

The half-hour leading up to the show was amazing - the atmosphere inside Croker was enough to blow a roof off had there been one. But in the pit, although we were squashed in, everyone was very considerate of each other. It felt like I imagine a hippy event would have in a lot of ways - to the folks in the pit with us - thanks for that.

But the show....

I had faithfully stayed away from this website the entire tour so that i did not know what songs were on the set list and I am so glad that I did so. The set was astonishing.

Out of Control was, well, as the song says. Electric Co blew my mind. How do those songs sound so incredibly current? Edge was playing out of his skin tonight!

Elevation was brutally restrained and a revelation. New Years Day, a song I have heard so many times and seen every show, seemed to grip me tonight more than ever before. An amazing performance of a wonderful song.

All I Want Is You had Bono take a girl from the crowd who was literally standing at my left hand side. While he sang the rest of the song holding this lucky girl Bono appeared to Lee and I to be singing the song directly to us. His stare did not move, but all the while you could feel the crowd approaching hysteria.

Love and Peace was a highlight of the show for me, as it is on the album. Great to see Bono throwing the sticks at the drums and what a photo Gwennie!

Streets, of course, was worth travelling from Australia to see at Croke. It was this song on the Slane DVD that made me decide to make the pilgrimage. And it didn't let me down. As it never does.

The Zoo TV encore was something that i did not expect at all and confirmed for me that this band is stronger than it was 12 years ago. That section of the show was everything that was great about Zoo TV. Mysterious Ways saw Edge shimmying down the runway next to us in his converse while watching adam on the other runway - it was great to see the interaction between the 2 across the pit.

Matt from Canada, you are a lucky man. It was great to see the boys decide to break from the set list they had planned and do an impromptu, even with a couple of false starts. From where we were standing you could see Bono debating it with the others and they were laughing at the idea i think at first and then happily decided to go along with letting Matt hook up and join in. And Matt, you didn't let anyone down - flawless playing and great to see the band were so happy to have you there. And it was great to hear Party Girl live, a song I thought was long gone from any U2 set list. Just made it feel like a homecoming party.

Yahweh is a song that I didn't really appreciate until seeing it live - such a moving version. It is now one of my favourite on the album. And the Vertigo finish - when our legs could pogo no more in the pit, they made us do it all again!

This concert had everything. Rocking, emotion, humour and soaring songs. This was, easily, the best concert I have seen. I don't think I will ever experience anything like it again in my life and that is something that is a little difficult to come to terms with. But better to have seen and experienced it than to always have wondered what U2 in Dublin would be like. U2 in Dublin is as good as live music can be. Full stop.

Dublin really turned it on for U2 weekend and made us, along with the thousands of other OS tourists welcome. Dublin did not less us down. It was an extraordinary experience that this review cannot come close to fully describing.

Greg, Elaine and Gillian, if you read this, please email me. It would be great to stay in contact.

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