by Jimbo in CT

Stop number four on the tour, and finally we have a slight change in the setlist...but more on that later.
Sgt. Pepper once again led us into the show, which I think is just too damn cool. Elevation into Beautiful Day was a great start as always. Then, the Achtung Baby 1-2 punch of Until The End Of The World & Mysterious Ways kept things going before Bono addressed the crowd. By the way, I've found it kind of interesting that UTEOTW has become such a constant live staple over the past couple tours, even ahead of something like Even Better Than The Real Thing which was a bigger hit. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
Bono had a nice little conversation with the audience here, as he told us the amusing story behind Kite. Basically, he was being a good father, taking his kids to the beach or the park or something, and was trying to show them how to fly a kite...until the kite ended up stuck in a tree, leaving our hero a little humiliated. [I'm sure that's not exactly right, but it's the best my memory can do.] Obviously there's more to Kite than that, i.e. saying goodbye, etc., but apparently that incident is what inspired the song. This little VH1 Storytellers segment was really great and served to reinforce U2's standing as the only band who can actually make an arena concert feel intimate.
Kite was followed by Gone, with its cool four-color lighting effect at the end.
And, in what's becoming a recurring story, some people opted to sit down during New York. And, as usual, they all got back up again for I Will Follow.
Sunday Bloody Sunday was, in my opinion, as intense as it needed to be. It still rocks and the crowd still gets a charge out of it. I don't know if maybe some people need to see Bono running around with a white flag in order to enjoy this song, or what their deal is...all I know is that if U2 weren't playing it on this tour, we'd be hearing complaints about its omission. There's no pleasing some people, and that's all I'll say about that.
Then we had a little shakeup from what I'd seen before as Stuck In A Moment came in here. There was no In My Life intro this time, which is okay by me only because it would have sounded a little out of place following Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Next, the stripped down soul of In A Little While, and the band introductions. There was a cool little intro to Desire, as Bono mentioned something like..."a song about faith and ambition, and blind faith and blind ambition."
And now, for something I hadn't heard before, Bono dedicates the next song to a girl in the audience and a chord sequence by Edge I didn't recognize at first turns into...The Ground Beneath Her Feet! Very cool. I do wish the crowd had been at least a little more familiar with a great song, as it seemed I was one of about two or three people in my section singing. It's a beautiful song though, of course, so no way to really go wrong here.
Bad, "40", Streets, Pride. A fantastic live band playing its best live songs...I do believe Bad and Streets are the two greatest live U2 songs ever.
Charlton Heston yapping about his "credo." As usual, mixed fan reaction. Bullet The Blue Sky was excellent, very intense tonight. I love the "Who's that man? Watch that man!" sequence. I think I also caught some stuff about John and Yoko and peace and love. And "War is over!....America's making war on itself!" I'm eagerly waiting for the DVD to come out, because so far I haven't been close enough to Bono to make out everything he's saying during this song.
No surprise as With Or Without You comes next...hmmm, tracks 3 and 4 of The Joshua Tree, except backwards!
And then, there was a surprise...The Fly was curiously absent. I certainly missed it, especially since it made for a shorter encore. Also, after the concert, some station in DC (101.something?) was playing the night's setlist through again, the original studio versions of all those songs. And I thought that was pretty cool, except when they played The Fly...which made you wonder if they were even paying attention to the concert, or if they just used an old setlist from some other show.
The abridged encore continued with One and concluded with Walk On. Both were excellent, as one would expect, and the night ended on an emotionally high note.
Well, after the first three concerts I'd seen on this tour, this one proved that the setlists are not set in stone. In short, a very good show...which would pale in comparison to the following night. Until next time everyone, dream beneath a desert sky.

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