by Daniel "Woody" Downing

Before I start. If anything in this post is wrong, it is due to my fried brain. When I got home at 3AM, my brain was guacamole. So I am trying my best to remember everything, 24 hours later. Also, my spelling sucks. Please forgive me.

It was amazing. WILATW was quite the surprise. So was Desire, full band, and Angle of Harlem, just Bono and Edge at the tip of the heart.

First off, I would like to say that the people at Kemper, did everything right to guarantee that the first 300 people in line for the heart could get into the heart. No one cut, no other doors were opened until the first 300 people in the GA line were where they wanted to be. Excellent job Kemper Arena.

I thought I was going to loose my toes. I couldn't feel them. My legs were cramping up. My head was pounding. I was afraid that if I was going to have to run to get into the heart, I wouldn't be able to. That is because it was 30 degrees outside with a 12 degree wind chill. At 4:30 everybody had to haul off all their stuff and stand in a single file line for the next 1 hour and 45 minutes. The longest wait of my life. I am happy to say that I currently feel fine, still have all my toes, and did warm up before U2 got to the stage.

I was 214 in line. I arrived at 2pm. Only 4 hours in the freezing cold. No problem. When I did secure my spot near the tip of the heart, I found out that everyone else there had been in line since 7AM. I felt sorry for those people, because most of them were shorter than me, and there were 8 guys all taller than I standing between us and the stage. I was able to see most of the stage but the rest of them didn't get to see much of the stage at all. Now Bono and The Edge did spend a lot of time near the tip of the heart. More about that later.

Garbage was good. The lead singer. I do not know her name, said that she was honored to be there with U2. See said it was like taking a masters class in Rock and Roll performance. Amen to that sister!

Bono hit the stage screaming into the mic "Kansas City! Kansas City!" I could tell that he was pumped.

Elevation was just like the Elevation I remember from Dallas back in April.

Bono did change the words to Beautiful Day to include Kansas City. I cannot remember which part of the song though.

Bono and The Edge did there always exciting good vs. evil duel at the tip of the heart during UTEOTW.

I don't remember much from New Years Day.

I Will Follow was great. Bono started talking about how 20 years ago when they were in Kansas City and we could get a beer at the Crown Uptown Hotel. It went something like this. " I am sorry son but you cannot have a beer. But sir I am the show tonight. I am the band. How old are you son? I'm 18. Well I am sorry but we cannot serve beer to an 18 year old. Great, old enough to vote and old enough to
join the Army, but I cannot buy a beer." It was great to see him open up to the crowd.

This is one of my fuzzy moments. The Edge broke a string on his guitar close to the end of either New Years Day or I Will Follow. I cannot remember. I do remember that Dallas came on stage with another guitar but The Edge didn't have time to swap so he finished the song one string short. You could tell that it didn't sound quite right but it didn't sound bad. The Edge did a great job.

Sunday Bloody Sunday was awesome as usual.

Stuck was good.

Then they wanted to play Desire. You could tell that they were not all on the same page before starting the song. At first I thought that it might be a Bono and The Edge only version because Bono and The Edge were trying to get their rhythms synced but Bono after getting started with The Edge, he turned to Larry and got him and Larry going. Then at the end Bono thought he had the harmonica backwards, so he turned it around only to figure out that now it was backwards so on the third try he got it right. After the song he started that they were quite rusty. I personally, would rather see them having fun and screw up a little then see them stiff as a board and hit every note and queue.

And now the moment I had been waiting for all month. Kite. This song was number 1 on my list of songs to hear from ATYCLB. They didn't play it in Dallas. I swore that I would see them again after they added it, which they did. Bono started talking about his Father. About how he thought that he had written this song about his own kids but know feels like he wrote the song about himself. It was beautiful. Full of emotion. The first goosebump moment for me. Loved it. Better live.

Then Bono and The Edge went to the tip of the heart and Played Angle of Harlem. Sweet!

Then Bono noticed the woman at the very tip of the heart had a sign saying that today was her birthday. So Bono finish out Angle with singing happy birthday to her. Bono wanted to talk to her so he tried to get as close as possible but couldn't. So the woman jumped up onto the heart and talked to him for about 15 seconds them Bono told the crowd that today was her 31st birthday and that see had her
heart broken and that she has never been happier since. He kissed her on the cheek and she kissed him on the cheek.

Then Bono and the Edge did Please. This is also one of my favorites. I had never heard it acoustically. It was superb.

Next up is Bad/When I look At The World. Another one of my top 10 U2 songs. Details follow.

Please forgive me for this next statement, but it is the truth. I cannot remember what part of the song he sang. I know where he was on stage, and what he was doing, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which verse or verses of the song he sang. I do know that he sang the chorus. My mind keeps wanting so say he sang 2 verses but I have read that he only sang one. I am 80% sure he sang the first verse.

So there I am at the tip of the heart, listening to the most energetic, and emotion filled performance of Bad that I have ever heard. Goosebumps the size of grapefruit. Then Bono standing on Edge's side to the heart about 1/3 of the way out to the tip, turns to Edge and signals to him to keep playing. I am pretty sure both
Larry and Adam have stopped playing at this point. Then Bono, standing there looking down, about 10 feet in front of him, starts singing WILATW. Edge is playing the simple intro/exit riff for Bad very softly, Letting it fade in and out while Bono sings. When Bono finished, I first thought that, because Edge started playing the Bad riff stronger, that were going back into Bad but instead they went into Streets. It was to cool.

Street was great, but Streets as part of Elevation will never match Streets as part of POPMART, in my own opinion.

ISHFWILF was good.

Pride was also moving.

I personally liked the Charlton Heston intro for Bullet the Blue Sky. I see both sides of the issue. Guns are dangerous. Many innocent good people/children die at the hands of good people/children misusing guns. I also agree that if you outlaw guns then the only people who will have guns will be those who don't obey the law. Laws only stop law abiding people from doing things. I will get off of my soap box now. Bullet without the Heston intro lost much of it's punch.

I think most of the crowd was lost during What's Going On. It was basically Bono singing from the tip of the heart.

New York was entertaining, and artistic.

One and Peace on Earth was my third goosebump moment of the night. Seeing all those names on the screen was chilling. I wished there would have been some way to include the names of the people in the twin towers and the pentagon. Their lives are just as important as the people on the planes, the NYPD and the FDNY. As a matter of fact, the names on the screen represent only 1/5 of the total lives
lost on that day. I am not saying that didn't like it. I am just saying that even though the list moved me to the base of my humanity, the complete list is at least 5 times longer than that. It would have taken over half of the show to show all that names.
Think about it.

Walk On was great. A fitting ending to a great night.

Peace,

Woody

P.S. Since the time that I originally wrote this review, I have had some people explain to me that the name's of the people who worked and died in the WTC, and the pentagon were shown on the crowd.

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