by Blue Butter

It's been a week, and the concert is still stuck in my head. (Yes, it's THAT mesmerizing) It's the best concert I had ever seen, and it's the highlight of my life. I went to the show by myself, and I ended up having a lot more fun than I thought I would.

Before the concert started, we had to wait for about 20, 30 minutes because the projector was broken and they had the tech team climb up the set to fix it. Kings of Leon were just okay, the loudest applause they received was when they thanked U2...

When the intro to City of Blinding Lights started, Bono stalked the catwalk. I was stunned when I saw him, I was close to tears. Well, almost, but not quite, it was a weird sensation (it has never happened before at any concert I've attended).

Throughout the concert, people threw things on stage. Bono got a balloon and he popped it. Someone else threw a purple undershirt/camisole and security got it off the stage before Bono did anything with it.

The set was absolutely amazing; it certainly didn't cost $1 million for nothing. The curtains, the ellipse catwalk (which Adam went out to, awesome!), the picture mosaics during a song, I can go on forever. It was too bad that I didn't sneak a camera in.

The acoustics though, were a bit rusty at times. Sometimes I could not hear the vocals and all I heard was loud white noise. I could not understand what Bono was saying at times because the echo was too much where I was sitting. I sat behind the stage, row 9 on the balcony. Nice view though. Many times, the crowd was singing as loud as Bono.

During Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Bono seemed to wipe away some tears quickly during a moment (from where I was sitting anyway). A few girls were pulled on stage. One of the girls had a sign that said, "I just ditched my wheelchair, may I dance with you?” Bono said something like, "It doesn't hurt to advertise.” For one of the girls (may have been the wheelchair girl), the jacket around her waist fell down. Bono kneeled down, picked up her jacket and tied it around her waist for her.

Wow, imagine a rock star doing that for you! I'm happy for those who got to get up there.

The crowd was quite consistent throughout the concert (except for one of the encores, people sat down during the slow songs). At one point when the lights in the arena lit up, I saw every single person in the stadium standing up and waving their arms. No one was sitting down or standing still. It's quite amazing.

Near the end of the show, Bono was talking about Paul Martin's efforts in debt relief. As he was talking (his face was also on the jumbotron at the time), some text rolled across the screen: "Call Paul Martin at 615-992-4211 or visit stoppoverty.com" (not sure about the exact website) The rolling text actually happened twice, and the second time, the area code was 613 instead of 615. Bono asked the people to shine their cell phone lights in the arena. The view was astonishing; it looked like a bunch of blue stars shaking around.

One thing some people didn't notice: During All Because Of You, the Edge's guitar chords were at least one semi-tone sharper than Bono & Adam. to the 3/4 point of the song, a lady went up the stage and whispered in Bono's ear. After that, he started singing about one semi-tone higher to match the Edge! I couldn't stop chuckling.

At the end of the song "40", the band members left one by one with Larry carrying the beats on for a while. Even after they left, the crowd was singing, "how long to sing this song" for more than a minute before the lights in the arena went on. It was like mind control...I had goose bumps throughout the show.

I hope I can still get the tour t-shirts, because I regret not buying it now. (my friends are probably sick of hearing me whine about it)

If you happen to be reading this, buy the damn t-shirt! Also, if you're not going to the show even though it's coming to your town, get it from a scalper; you will not regret seeing the Vertigo tour.

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