by Mike C.

First off, U2 gave a stellar performance!!! I loved every minute, and my voice is suffering today from my excitement. We received the long set list all songs they played in Miami on the opening show, but no extras. Which means we got all 3 POP songs, plus The Ground Beneath Her Feet, it was funny because I was probably one of about 20 people it seemed who cheered when he said this is a song written by Salman Rushdie. The media reviews do the show justice so I just thought I'd let you guys know some of the smaller details that make concerts so cool! First off in case you were unaware Denver is a U2 town, we've supported them since the early days with their first show at the Rainbow Music Hall on the October tour. I don't think they came here for Boy, at least I've not found any record of it. Anyway the crowd was wild! All except this middle-aged couple next to me who would only stand during the 80's stuff which kind of bothered me. Bono gave his Fly sunglasses away to an audience member at the very beginning of the set, in Beautiful Day I think. It was so refreshing to feel that eye-contact the whole show practically. During Elevation he was screaming we're a Mile High, Mile High. When he stopped to talk to the audience he said "I think we've been here before" which launched the crowd into hysterics. He went on to thank those involved with the Under A Blood Red Sky movie. He joked and thanked the man who created the wide angle lens which created the feeling of millions even though Red Rocks holds less than 10,000. He said "When we were mostly ignored in Europe, people saw this video with thousands of people going crazy in Denver, Colorado and figured something must be up with this band." He also thanked Berry Fey for sticking his neck out and helping them in those early years. (You could tell how many new people had moved to this state recently when they had no idea who Berry Fey was, he was Colorado's first major promoter who retired about 5 years ago). During New York and the shadow movements with the strobe lights he bent down so we couldn't quite see his true form and when the strobes were done flasing and it was once again solid light he stood up, with a cowboy hat on his head, it was quite cool they way he underwent the transformation (was this the same hat given to him in Dallas?) In Bad when he went into 40's "How long to sing this song" the stanza was repeated a good 10-15 times with Bono just holding the mic to us, you could see he was moved. During the Sweetest Thing some kids in the heart held up a banner which said U2 is the sweetest thing, after the song he ran and grabbed it holding it for the rest of the audience to see, and then donned it like a cape. He then went on to explain how "that song was the most expensive apology ever written because he had missed the Mrs.' birthday" so in return he told her he would "give her they copyright, and publishing royalties, which was fine when it was orginally released as a B-side because it wasn't going to sell very much but I think it was the Edge who decided to put it on the Greatest Hits album!" to which Edge just sort of shrugged apologetically. When calling down the band members Larry was hesitant to leave his drum set, so Bono had to say "Lawrence come on!" I think that's about it for the unique stuff on this show, however at the end of One he did do another stanza of "How long to sing this song" And thanked us for sticking around for a few years. The one thing that I was kind of mislead about was the screens saying "Leave It Behind" at the end of the show, either they changed that with us, or it wasn't described correctly, because we had the lights that normally projected the stars, projecting the end lyrics of Walk On, ie All that you build, all that you break... on to the audience. I also liked how they reworked the word play in the Fly, in Zoo TV it was Believe going into Lie, now it's Lie going into Believe, sort of a symbolic gesture away from the cynicism of the 90's to the hope of the new century. Also I thought more people would react to the Charlton Heston video with regards to Columbine, but they didn't just a few Boo's here and there.

As far as post show my wife and I waited forever to try to meet the band, even after security guards told us they had already left, we were like "yeah right, whatever" but when I went to youtwo.net this morning it said they were filming a video for Elevation this weekend so they probably did a "runner" as Willie like's to call them in his diary, so that was kind of disappointing, but it was still a great show!!! I hope you all enjoy yours as much as I did mine!

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