by Jeff

I chose to go to this concert because I thought that U2 would do something special, having never played in Russia before. Boy was I right, from the moment thay walked on hte stage they had a swagger about them that I have not seen for years. This performance took me back in time to a U2 I have not seen since the mid 80's. The weather was just like the "mud bowl" back in '85, it simply poured down for the entire U2 set, the only difference being I was not covered in mud from standing in a field. It was great to see that, like us, U2 did not let the rain get them down. They simply powered their way through the first part of their set, Beautiful Day, New Years Day,Mysterious Ways, Elevation, I still haven't & Pride were all Magnificent. By the way for me Stingray was an unusual way to start the show, but it worked well, even the poor Get on your boots sounded good tonight. Sunday bloody Sunday seemed very apt in Russia, knowing the struggles they have been through, it was great to hear the crowd sing along with Bono to Get up, stand up. I was supprised to hear the beautiful MLK inclueded in the set.
Then came the real highlight of the concert, the encores, One & Amazing Grace, it was like being transported to another place. Bono asked the crowd to turn the stadium into the milkyway. The sight of the buffalo gracefully running across the giant screen, then Bono got his wish as I did a full 360 of the stadium, it seemed that everyone of the 60,000 people in the stadium had held up their lighters. to turn the stadium into the Milkyway.
Yet the the highlights kept coming, the band returned to the stage for Where the streets & With or without you. Then time for one last encore, Bono came back on stage to say they would like to do something special, he introduced a Russian singer Yuri Shevchuk. Then we got yet another special moment as they deted on Knocking on heavens door, if the stadium had had a roof it would have been blown away, even Larry was singing his heart out. Finally Bono dedicated Moment of surrender to the people that had lost their lives that summer fighting the forest fires in Russia. When U2 finally left the stage, it seem like the concert had only started 10 minutes ago not over 2 hours, I had completely forgotten that I was soaked to the skin & my shoes were full of water.
After such a great concert, I hate to leave a sour note, but I feel I must. Someone has to tell the police & thoses people in charge, this is not the way to marshal a rock concert. You don't stand 50 odd policemen in aline in front of the exit to the tube, at the entrance to the box office & again at the various entrance to the standium. 3 times we had to walk around these lines to again access, which was right in front of us. Even though we had standing tickets, we stopped from entering the stadium & told to go to the next entrance, which took us back to where we had tried to enter in the first place.
Worse came after the concert, the police blocked our enterance to the tube station & made us walk down the road away from the tube station. When we tried to turn left & double back on ourselves, our path was again blocked by a row of policemen across the road. Eventually after about half an hour we managed to get back to the tube station & catch out train.
My other gripe is what happened to the merchandising stall, we could not find any?

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