by Keir DuBois

yeah, I saw the show a long time ago, but I recently got ahold of a CD bootleg of it, and four and a half years of memory was dulled. At the show, our party of six had a great time (I personally really went for Last Night on Earth, Gone, and Please- the last two are my favorites on that album)- and the heavenward-shooting spotlights on Bullet were a great touch.

What we didn't notice (or at least I don't remember) at the time was how embarassingly unrehearsed our heroes were in terms of basic musicianship (I play bass, and not very well, but for my ears, U2 were way off on many cues). Also, the one thing that bugged me at the time and still does is the carrot-and-stick setlist- nothing like the relatively risky Zoo TV or Elevation shows where they play anything- here it seemed like they played a new/unfamiliar tune, immediately followed by an oldie/hit, for the whole show. I'm glad they worked out the kinks later and made Popmart an excellent show, but at the second date in San Diego it was definitely still a work in progress.

Oh, I've actually written more about this here:

http://www.geocities.com/jean_keir/popmart.html

Return to previous page | Post a Review of this show!