by Richard Robbins

This was my third U2 show, first saw them in SLC on Elevation, and then Vegas this same leg of Vertigo.
Quite an incredible night, the energy was insane. Utah has a lot of crazy U2 fans, and they first started lining up at the Delta Center at around 11 o'clock the previous night, so you can image how excited everyone was. My friend and I were on the rail, left hand side of the ellipse. Wasn't fortunate enough to be inside though. The sound was pretty good considering the poor acoustics, but was too loud and my left ear rang for a week.

Kanye West was the opener, and I must say I don't care for him. The worst part of his set was the fact that everything was prerecorded except for some violinists (which were quite original I must admit). If he would have had a real band to back him up it would have been totally different. I don't tolerate canned live music, and I don't like rap in general. I don't understand why in theee heck U2 is having him open for them. I guess they ran out of all the cool opener bands like The Killers and such. About halfway through Kanye's set he came out on the ellipse, and a fellow fan held up a sign that read "Kanye doesn't care about white people." Well, Kanye stopped and read it and flipped the guy off. Quite a display of maturity. I thought the guy might get kicked out, but the security officer in front of us just laughed and said Kanye deserved it.

U2 proved once again to be the best band in the world. Bono didn't have to work hard to have the 21,000 screaming fans at his feet, but he did anyway, bringing 3 individuals up on stage. The first was a woman in a santa two piece outfit, but she didn't dance or anything so Bono put her back into the crowd. Then, Bono brought up a little boy in a santa hat. It was so cute seeing Bono up there talking with this little boy trying to figure out what his name was. He asked the boy and the boy said "Talon" into the mic, and Bono paused for a moment and said is that spelled with a "D" or a "T"? and the boy made the sign of a "T". Bono then said, "its okay, I'm just a slow rock star." Everyone laughed. Bono also made two jokes about how he was going to watch his language during the set, being in Utah and all.

My hightlight of the night was when the boys played Stuck in a Moment, probably my favorite. I love the acoustic version where Adam and Larry come in at the end. I play in a band myself and I love hearing different arrangements of songs that aren't like the typical radio single.

Overall, one of the greatest nights of my life, just wish I'd gotten there earlier than 8AM, and that I had stuck around the rear entrance when Bono came by to say hi to the fans. How cool is that, someone of Bono's status still taking the time to stop and say hi to some gawking fans?

If you'd like pictures of this show in full resolution, email me at: drumu2@gmail.com.

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