by Joost

To be honest, I was a bit worried before going to this concert, that it would not live up to the high expectations I always have when seeing U2 live. I had seen 10 shows this far (Joshua tree tour, Lovetown, zooTV, Zooropa, and Popmart) and every time U2 managed to amaze and surpise me, with creative, new ideas and with exciting and better songs. They always manage to create an unique atmosphere and you get a very warm feeling from the concerts. But this time I wasn't so sure. In my opinion, 'All that you can't leave behind' is certainly NOT their best album and the announcement that the tour would be 'back to basics' had me thinking that it was gonna be a 'greatest hits'-tour, which lacked the creativity.
In some aspects, it turned out to be just like that... But do not misunderstand me: it was a great concert, U2 gave their best and we all enjoyed ourselves. It has been said before: there is no such thing as a bad U2-concert!

But.... a few things turned out to be just a bit too familiar: Bullet the blue Sky as a first encore (complete with handheld Rattle and Hum stagelight), the dancing silhouette in Mysterious ways, the acoustic 'bit in the middle', etc. For instance, did anyone notice that the background-projection used during 'with or without you' was the same one as they used during 'love is blindness' from the zooropa-tour? I guess they had that one still laying on a shelf somewhere...

What I am trying to say is that although it was great, (especially crowd-participation during Elevation and Walk On !), this tour could easily pass as a sort of 'Farewell/Greatest Hits' tour. And that is what makes it slightly less exciting and less creative compared to the 'dramatic scenery' U2 gave us in previous tours.

U2 compensated that with an awesome (!) new version of 'the Fly' ('In your face' and very, very loud!, really great), which left Bono splashed against the video wall, like a fly, and with visible great joy in playing.
The Gelredome (attendance 34,000) is too big for an indoor/arena concert. (Dear Bono, everytime you are in Holland, you mention the early days in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Why not play there again next time?)
'Where the streets have no name' must be their greatest live song ever, it had the crowd jumping like madmen again.

In the end, I was just gratefull I was able to experience this again and was looking forward to the 3rd concert next Friday in Arnhem again and the one next Sunday in Antwerp (a much smaller venue, hoorah!).

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