by Darren O''Beirne

This was my second dose of Pop having been to Wembley the week before (see earlier review). I had actually been really looking forward to the gig all week, perhaps even more than I had for the earlier concert.

The crowd in Dublin didn't arive as early as the fans in Wembley. Hours before the gates opened in London the place had been jammers. Why people hadn't arrived early in Dublin simply to annoy the easily annoyable residents I simply don't know.

I was fortunate enough to have great seats for this show. No orgies in the rain for me. VIPS were buzzing around the place. U2 biographer/former soccer star/journalist/miserable git, Eamonn Dunphy sat in front of me. Paul McGuinness along witha huge posse including PJ Mara and BP Fallon came up to him and joked for a couple of minutes. Who said that music, sport and politics don't mix?

So what about the music? The sound was a bit muffled. On a couple of songs Bono's voice was drowned out by Edge's distortion. Bono did seem in great form though, giving thanks to Irish fans and joking about the Lansdowne residents throughout the show. During "Until the end of the world" he sang, "It's not the end of the world, just a gig in Lansdowne stadium" over and over. He later asked the audience to "please keep the noise down, I don't want you to get us thrown out of here" and "Missus can I have my ball back please".

For the karaoke song Edge decided to confuse all the Americans present by introducing Dana's "All kinds of everything" as possibly our next national anthem.

Songs sometimes didn't run into one another very well. On a couple of occasions backing tracks came in over the audience singing the ends to the previous songs. This bad timing hadn't happened in London, where the band allowed the audience's singing to run its course.

All round it was an amazing concert. Not a sort of, but a definite and triumphant homecoming.

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