by ppuppet

Overall: Very, very energetic and loud crowd and the band fed right off of it, All 4 of the boys were as active as I have seen in a while. Edge and Bono and Adam did multiple trips around the ellipse and Larry had lots of energy, too, Maybe the 2 days off after Denver did them some good.

GA line-up: Much more of a headache than it had to be. We arrived at 8am and were 74th in line. The arena staff was not issuing numbered wrist bands but the people at the head of the line were keeping a list and marking hands – not sure why. At 9am the arena moved the line and tried to split it into 2 lines – 1 for presale and the other for non. Lots of people ended up in the wrong line, however, due to poor communication and there were lots of hours wasted throughout the day as people worried and obsessed about the two lines and which was which and about how during the move the order of people had gotten scrambled, too, so people who arrived later were ahead of those who had arrived early on. The new lines were put in these serpentine barricades which made resetting or reshuffling or communicating anything a pain in the ass so people fretted, the arena staff glared and did nothing (they aren’t obligated to do anything) and in the end it all worked out fine. I do wish arenas would follow the example of San Jose and others by doing the numbered bands thing. That way, you won’t have people waiting in lines at all and you can really avoid lots of bother about people trampling on foliage next to the barricades (“We must save the foliage!” was a popular sarcastic mantra for the people in our area after the head arena line Nazi chastised us for short-cutting through the bushes to get in and out of our spots in line). They also were really worked up about people having lawn chairs in the line because they took up too much space in their opinion and made the line unnecessarily non-compact so they announced at 1pm that all chairs had to go and let me tell you that did not go over well at all. Luckily, the junior arena person overseeing the line let people keep most of their stuff once the head person left so it worked out well enough I suppose. Neither of the 4 of us got into the ellipse but we got a good spot on the rail in the corner outside down on Edge’s side.

Staging: It really is Elevation evolved. I enjoyed all the lighting and effects – nothing too over the top and every song had some nice unique touches like the confetti in COBL and spiral floor lighting that pops on a couple of times.

Celebs and sightings– Eddie Vedder was there, along with Bill & Melinda Gates and Patty Stonescipher and her husband. Dallas came by before the show and gave the woman next to me a guitar pick “from Bono” he said. Paul McGuinness hung out right in front of us for most of the show, apparently keeping an eye on Gates and the others in the VIP section since it was just to our left in the stands.

The Set (comments not in order of set):

Love and Peace – what a great opener, with Larry and Bono on the drum kit at the end of the stage. Don’t know how it compares with City of Blinding Lights as an opener but damn I can’t believe it could be any better. Simply awesome.

Vertigo-Elevation – Super.

ElectricCo/Into the Heart/An Cat Dubh – Great to hear the old stuff. Band was energized and the crowd hung with it and kept up the emotion as well even though you could tell many were not that familiar with these tunes.

COBL: The whole confetti and light strands thing is pretty darn cool.

BD: Beautiful.

MD-SYCMIOYO – Awesome. MD was dedicated to Jennifer, a sick girl Bono had must have just met who was maybe in the crowd – not sure. SYCMIOYO for his pop, of course.

WTSHNN – One of the highlights of the show – but I don’t like the segue from Pride. It is a little abrupt and less magical than what they have done in the past with other songs like Bad. The African flags as a backdrop are nice, but I liked the traditional red light backdrop and Really miss the white lights at the beginning. I appreciate them trying to change things up and not do the same staging but for me it just wasn’t quite as powerful. The white lights at the end is still the bomb, however.

One – A pretty straight rendition. Bono was having lots of problems with his guitar and got very distracted by it, as he stopped singing about two-thirds of the way through and ad-libbed some weird stuff bit by bit after that until it ended.

BTBS – They have refreshed this one a bit. Edge has reinvented his solos and they have shortened it down a fair amount. Consequently, it seemed much less oppressively preachy and heavy and I liked it very much.

Pride-NYD-SBS-Mysterious Ways: Big crowd pleasers very well performed. The band was very energetic throughout these three. Personally, they are a little tired to me and while I enjoyed them, I would not be upset if they wee dropped from the set and replaced with some others. Others reviewers from other shows have mentioned some good choices like Gone, Kite, Walk On, EBTTRT, UTEOTW, etc.

RTSS: So cool to hear it again live, but I think I like the version from JT better when it is a bit more driving and less like a soft ballad.

Yahweh– ABOY: I’m not real big fans of these songs on HTDAAB but they were better live for me. Maybe Yahweh was a little flat, they play it as an acoustic number just before 40, but due more to its position in the set than the performance itself.

40 – perfect. And to see Larry on guitar on Edge’s side of the stage is just refreshingly weird.

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