by Jimbo in CT

Okay, my third show of the tour...
Musically, the band sounded better than the 6/5 Boston show I went to. In fact, I thought the sound was outstanding, from PJ Harvey straight through the night. (Generally, I don't like the volume level of her set, as I am usually unable to hear anything she's saying.) A big thumbs up goes to the First Union Center for having what I think are GREAT acoustics.
The crowd was good, but not amazing and definitely not on the same level as in Boston.
I don't recall hearing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band introduce the actual band at either of the first two shows I went to...
Elevation was the same, i.e. wonderful. Beautiful Day was not the same, i.e. Night And Day was attached on the end of it. I only wish I'd figured that out sooner than I did...a really nice touch.
I think Until The End Of The World slows things down a little bit, as most of the verses are actually pretty soft, but it's still a great song, and the Bono-Edge bullfight thing is outstanding.
Mysterious Ways, very underrated live song if you ask me. In My Life led into Stuck In A Moment once more...Bono may have forgotten some of In My Life's lyrics, or at least there were some longer-than-normal pauses between lines, but he got through it so who cares.
Kite and Gone were beautiful. For the first time, I noticed the lighting at the end of Gone...each band member lit up with a different color light. Although the colors didn't match exactly, it looked a lot like the Pop album cover.
I really don't think New York is a bad live song, but maybe compared to the incredible songs around it, it does seem to lose some momentum in the middle of the set.
Fortunately, I Will Follow always succeeds in getting it right back. And Sunday Bloody Sunday keeps it going. It's more of a sing-along version than the super-emotional anthem it was around 1983-87, but always a welcome inclusion in the setlist.
In A Little While did not go over as well here as it did in Boston, until Bono brought the girl with the Ramones shirt up to sing the last few lines with him. [So I guess your name is Melissa?] Anyway, she was all alone on the mike for the last "slow down your beating heart," and her voice was absolutely AMAZING! What a great moment.
Desire, again with the band out at the tip of the heart, and again with pieces of Van's Gloria. Bono was a little off during Stay, as he screwed up the second verse by repeating the first one for a few lines. Still great to hear the song anyway. "London, Belfast...Philadelphia" wasn't quite as funny as the "London, Belfast...Connecticut" or "London, Belfast...Massachusetts" I'd heard before, but of course the crowd loved it.
Bad into "40" into Streets into Pride, and this is probably the peak of the show on most nights. Nothing more to say.
Heston into Bullet The Blue Sky, with the same intensity as usual. I missed the "Watch that man!" exclamations from Bono this time; instead, we heard spoken lyrics towards the end that were closer to the original. A lot of "Americas." And the reference to Timmy McVeigh, which I didn't fully realize until checking out u2tours.com sometime later. With Or Without You followed, and sedated the crowd a little bit.
Forget what I said about The Fly in Hartford. The re-done version is really outstanding. When I complained about it in Hartford, I didn't mean the fantastic new opening ection. I was talking about the murky sound of the verses and chorus. But as I said before, the sound here in Philly was really top-notch, and so The Fly sounded better than ever.
One and Walk On...the usual exquisite end to a wonderful night.
By the way, not five minutes after the show ended, there were all these chants of "LET'S GO SIXERS!!!" Ummm...okay. I mean, I want to see the Lakers lose as much as the next guy, but you have to wonder if some of the audience wasn't a little distracted tonight.
But my only real gripe is that I've been to three shows now, and all the songs have been EXACTLY the same. That's bound to change though...I hope! Till next time...sing a new song.

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