by Jim Manc uso

I am long term fan of U2, having been to dozens of concerts since 84 all over the world. This was my first of a number of concerts on this tour and while it was 'good' it was a little dissapointing. The show felt tired in parts - almost forced. We had A1 seats, but the stage is at times chaotic, lacking that backing reference of the colour screens of the Elevation set-up - perhaps its better to be a distance away? The opening trio and then the connection to Boy is great, but I must say that New Years Day bled the energy out of the crowd. It use to do the same thing on Elevation - it isn't the crowd pleaser that it once was. Killing off the Bad/AIWIY combo before Streets may have been necessary for freshness (or ime constraints - do e always need to be under 2 hours) but it has removed some magic from the show. As Bono may say, he's at a point were he campaigns for justice - but that has replaced the touching elements of faith that we had in Elevation (and War tour...); so Walk On goes but Bullet stays, Bad goes but Running comes back (played soulessly - go back and review how powerful that was during the ZooTV tour and compare it to now - a real low point). Then after dong the justice stuff we are right back into the party mode of Fly/Zoo Station etc. That's at the expense of more uplifing stuff - With or Without You or Angel etc. I'm not lobying for particular songs - with the cataloge that exists its impossible - however I thought the goal was Soul - and I didn't get it last night - for the first time in about 10 shows.

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