by Nick Haj

After writing a review of Wembley 1 and stating this tour may not be up to Elevation/Vertigo standards (musical wise more than stage wise !) the boys had the chance to prove me wrong in Cardiff – did they manage it ?????? Read on !!

Transport : Used the P+R off J33 off the M4, no complaints, a ‘Usain Bolt’ type display after cheering the band out of the stadium post MOS saw us on a bus within 20 mins and heading out of Cardiff within around 35 mins – can’t argue with that !! I didn’t mention the Wembley transport in that review, we travelled down by train from Warwick and the organization of getting people away post gig by rail was very, very good (well done to Chiltern Railways et al).

Stadium : Superb, acoustics mostly excellent (seated rear left of stage in £85 area), far superior to Wembley at any rate, it was nice to actually hear some of TUF at this gig !! As with the Vertigo there was an abysmal lack of sellers on the merchandising stall we visited (early I might add) and no ‘snake’ system queuing – this resulted in a sweaty scrum Wales rugger team would be proud off, a free for all, and I’d imagine a fair amount of abuse for those 4 people (and a 'manager' content to sit on his bum and watch the pandemonium) who were trying to cope with what was an impossible task.

Band : 12/10 for effort and, despite the hangover from the Corrs wedding, the band fed off the incredible atmosphere generated by the passionate crowd (much better than the wembley ‘prawn sandwich’ brigade!) and turned in a largely blistering display (Bono did seem to flag a bit near the end, but I’ll forgive him this once).

Lowlights – very few – being picky - a crowd level light meant NLOTH was a ‘shut your eyes’ job, but fortunately said light stayed off or was adjusted for the rest of the show. Edge solo missing from end of MW again, no ‘Shine Like Stars’ verse in WOWY - it’s a bit annoying that they have created fantastic live versions of these ‘classics’ on past tours but we now getting ‘watered down’ renditions (see Wembley report lowlights for more re this point !). There was nearly an hours wait between Glasvegas and U2 taking the stage – why when all the setup work seemed to be complete at least 20 mins before they appeared ??!!, coming on earlier would allow them a decent break between the encore tunes. Support band ‘The Hours’ were pretty good btw.

Highlights – The crowd were superb and stayed virtually to a “man” to cheer the crowd off the stage post MOS which was great to see - well done Cardiff. I’m not sure that Bad was in the original setlist as Bono definitely spoke to Edge at length after One - I’m thinking this may have been a late addition due to the crowd being so brilliant (take note USA fans !!). Anyway, after missing Bad at Wembley this was a definite highlight for me, even if it was a slightly shortened version and Bono needed some help with the lines from the crowd. I think Vertigo is taking its place as one of the great U2 live tracks of all time, the house absolutely rocked to it. Setlist was excellent and was in line with expectations from the 1st leg euro tour closer – Party Girl would have been the icing on the cake though !. The outer ring seemed, to me, to be used more than at wembley, we got to see all the band members from our side.

Conclusion – a resounding 11/10 and this particular show would definitely be in my Top 5 of U2 concerts I’ve been at.

Return to previous page | Post a Review of this show!