by Brian Bennett

First off I have to say that we had GA tickets and we got scanned into The Ellipse tonight. The Salt Lake City show was great. The Delta Center was so organized with their GA line procedures. We lined up at 5:45 am in the freezing cold. My sister and I were #88 and #89 in line. At 7am we were brought up to another line next to The Delta Center and given tickets with numbers on them and told that we didn't have to stay in line all day and to report back at 4pm and we would get back into line according to the numbered tickets that we got. We lined up at 4pm. Stood in line until 6pm. The GA line started to go in and we were getting closer to where we would scan our tickets. The 10 people's tickets in front of us came up "proceed to the floor." My sister was next and she scanned it. It hit and came up "Vertigo, Vertigo, Vertigo!" We ran to the other table to get The Ellipse wrist bands and went on in. The up front spots were taken already. There were people 4 deep up there. No one was at the back on The Ellipse so we staked out our spot there at the tip of The Ellipse. We could see Larry's drum covered and ready to go. The steps that Bono would take to get up to the catwalk was there. This was the perfect spot to see everything. I have to say that a U2 show is more that just the show. It is everything that goes with it. The anticipation, the nervousness of not knowing where you are going to sit for GA and if you are going to get into The Ellipse. Meeting some cool people before and during the show. There was a couple that was next to us in The Ellipse and it was their first ever U2 show. There were two sister in front of us that were dancing up a storm that we hit it off with and had fun with. I have seen U2 two other times this tour from up above and got to see the light show and how everything fit together. This time from the floor was a total new experience. It was like a small club. Some of the highlights of the show from where I sat were seeing Bono sneak around The Ellipse to the tip for the beginning of City of Blinding Lights. The confetti coming down and raining on us was so beautiful. The snippets of different songs were so fun to hear. At the end of Beautiful Day they added in some of Merry Christmas, Baby Please Come Home and Merry Christmas, War is Over from The Beatles. Bono came out on stage with just his guitar and played Norwegian Wood acoustic for the first time on tour. It was very cool. He did a great job playing his guitar. Lots of snippets from different songs including: She Love You at the end of Vertigo, The Christmas songs mentioned above, Rock The Casbah at the end of Sunday Bloody Sunday. I would have to say that after Where The Streets Have No Names, the crowd was very loud. And I know Bono was just playing to us, but he kept saying Wow! And mentioned how loud we were. I do remember Bono saying that Utah was very high. Their kind of Elevation. So high it gave him Vertigo. He talked a lot about Utah. He gave thanks to Orrin Hatch for his support on Drop the Debit The Encore was the best part of the show for me. I loved the main set, but it was pretty predictable. The Encore was great. Until The End of The World was fun to hear and see. To see Bono and The Edge chase each other around The Ellipse and not miss a beat was amazing. The Girl that danced at the end of Mysterious Way and for With or Without You was the same girl as in the Chicago DVD. She has been up on stage 5 times now. How does that happen? They did a great rendition of Stuck In A Moment right in front of us at the tip. Acoustic into the whole band was nice. Then the closer of Yahweh and "40" was what the show like this needed. "40" is the coolest and most memorable with each band member saying good-bye one by one, leaving Larry on the drums to hit his last drum solo. Then walk to the center of the stage and wave to the sounds of "How Long to sing their song.....and cheers. To my sister Brittany, thanks for a fun concert, and getting me into The Ellipse. This has been my lucky U2 year.

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