by The Chad

4/14 Glendale, AZ

My trip to the desert..
It was April of 2001 when last I was in Arizona. The Elevation tour was a great experience for any U2 fan and I was glad to come back for Vertigo. My cousin and I left Salt Lake City and arrived in Glendale on Wednesday to check out the Arena. Glendale Arena is new and beautiful.. and in the middle of no where. (FYI. The new football stadium going up next door is going to be great when finished)
By 5:00 Wednesday night we had met up with fans looking to queue. (Shout out to the Dirt Crew!!) By nightfall the two lines of fans merged and moved and I was glad that someone else was taking on the task of keeping it all organized. (Well done Melissa) We ran into fans we had met on previous tours, i.e. The Sisters, Dan the Tatoo Man, and others.. And soon remembered why being a hard core GA fan is so fun.. U2 draws a great crowd! New friends like Karen, Kim and Jimmy made the experience all that much more fun. That night I dreamed beneath the desert sky and dreamed new dreams of anticipation for my first show on the Vertigo Tour. The overnight was rough and the morning confusion caused a lot of tension between fans.. But I was there for the music and that is what I will review. We were amongst the first few people let in and the infamous computers were there to scan the tickets. We were both let down to see we could not get into the bomb shelter. We did however get to the center of the outside of the ellipse and I was happy with that.
The band came out and set up on the ellipse to open with Love and Peace right in front of us. It was great to have them right there so close to start off! Then Vertigo and Elevation were flawless followed by a jump back in time two decades as Cry/Electric Co, An Cat Dubh/Into the Heart reminded the crowd that this band has been strong and relevant for over 25 years! The set list continued as outlined elsewhere with incredible sound from this new Arena. Bullet the Blue brought tears to my eyes. I've never felt that way about this song but the guitar was so clean and pure I almost blocked out the rest of the song and was swept away by The Edge's brilliance. Running was awesome, I loved Bono's pause on the last line, "...still".. The live version is always best with that one. Dan the tatoo man got up and walked with Bono. Cool, but again I was there for the band.. It is a little more exciting to see new fans get the experience. I can see why they instituted the random numbers for in and out of the ellipse.. Larry did say he was tired of seeing the same fans in the front row for 40 shows.. Makes sense. By the time One was played I would say most of the tension and pushing by those few fans that don't "get it" was gone. U2 doesn't draw many selfish, pushy fans.. and those that are.. are reminded through song that life is too short for senseless aggression. Zoo Station ROCKED and The Fly and Mysterious Ways made me reminisce my high school days. Bono has a real strong theme of Equality this tour. Jesus(Christian), Jew, Muslim, too.. His headband was a statement that we are all the same. CO-EXIST! Larry seemed to miss his cue on one song where he was to play the keyboard out on the ellipse.. Bono changed up the lyric to say he was looking for a drummer as Larry jogged out to his spot laughing. Fun ol' boys. Streets as always was perfect, nuff said. All because of You played SO well followed by Yahweh and "40".. It was a very spiritually uplifting ending. I loved seeing the band exit one at a time at the close of "40" and see Larry finish alone with a short drum solo. Brilliant. The only way this show could have been better is to do it again tomorrow night.. So I will. :-)
-The Chad
One of the Utah Boyz from SLC

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