by Jonathan

San Diego #2 the last of the opening night swing through San Diego. What a show....boys play rock and roll!!!! I had seats behind the stage just 7 rows from it. "you have to see at least one show from that vantage point"

They were on last night and with a perfectly revamped set list that just nailed it. The boys seemed much more relaxed tonight than opening night, with Bono even saying the opening night show was really a rehersal for them and let them get accustomed and reaquanted with playing together again. Of course the crowd loved that!

It's somthing to say when by the 7th or 8th song you are already exhausted from being a part of it. With machine gun fevor the boys rolled off one rock and roll tune after the other. It was with precision that only U2 can pull off!

The early song changes made all the difference in the world. I for one went into this tour not really minding if they threw out With or With Out You. Though it's a personal favorite I wanted to see some new tunes in it's place. I guess I was wrong because when they piped into it tonight it was great to hear!!

But the switch to "Gloria" and "With or Without You" in place of "An Cat Dubh" and "Into the Heart" made a huge noticable difference and really left no chance for the momentum to be broken!

The boys utilized the catwalk much more last night as compared to opening night. I can see that opening up even more as the tour keeps rolling.

Bono was definetly back to his old comfortable self. Pulling up a front row fan to have him translate some English into Spanish. BTW the crowd in San Diego was full of latin fans. I met people that flew in from Mexico City, Brazil, and all points South of San Diego. So the Spanish translation before Vertigo was well received and a funny light hearted moment!

It's seems funny that the one song I usually "90% of the time" skip over on the album is one of my favorite moments of the show "Love and Peace or Else" takes on a whole different dimension live! Throw in Bono beating the drums like a mad man on the catwalk and it's a highlight for sure.

Other highlights, the lead in to Elevation, Miracle Drug, "10 times better tonight than opening night", and Vertigo!

Only blip that I picked up on besides maybe the occasional hickup that is hard to figure if it was meant to be there or not, was towards the end of the night Adam's bass sound seemed off or mufled a little.

Plus the major screw up "no other way to say it" at the begining of "40". To me it seemed the Edge "playing bass" was in a key a least 1 step lower than he should have been. Maybe playing in E when he should of been in D or maybe f# when he should have been in E. "not sure what key the song is in" at first it looked like Bono was having an ear monitor malfuntion, he was confused at what he was hearing through them. I guess all along it was the Edge in the wrong key! LOL But I thought the whole incident was pretty cool, being right behind the stage you could see directly how they were working it out and chuckles were had from all!! With the Edge finally emphasizing he was back in key with a loud thump of the Bass string! LOL

Great great great show. Tuesday I gave opening night an 8.5 out of 10 "U2 standards" trully after last night I think opening night was really an 8 not an 8.5. Giving last night a 8.5 to 9 out of 10. "heck the tour is just starting, gotta leave some room for the inevitable improvment"

U2 fans new and old should be impressed and have a rockin good time! I had another U2 concert virgin with me last night and she was blown away!!! Well off to Anaheim and my first stage front vantage point. I can't wait!!!

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