by mark wallace

i will rank friday, november 30th 2001 as one of the best days of my life. beginning at 7 am in the ga line, to security forcing me out of the heart at the end of the night, this short post on this site will never say enough.
during Beautiful Day, Bono ended it, singing "beautiful...hangover", and then it occurred to me, oh yeah, they do usually throw down in atlanta every time they come here, with REM. i could see the fatigue in Bono's eyes, but with every song, he seemed to get stronger, though he was more vocally fatigued than anything. he usually pointed to the audience to hit the high falsetto notes for him in Bad, Bullet, etc. now don't get me wrong, The energy never lacked for a minute.
during Out of Control, Bono kicked a couple of cups of water into the front of the stage, where i was,a sort of baptizing of the crowd into the early punk days of U2.
Kite was dedicated to Mike Mills of REM's father, who also passed recently. Bono seemed to tear up a bit during this number, alot of passion in this song.
My Sweet Lord was somewhat of an improvisational tribute to the late George Harrison, a bit of confusion occurred between Bono and Edge regarding the changes, to which Bono ended the song saying "I'm Sorry George!!"
A fan was brought onstage to play People Get Ready, and for a brief moment, i'd say that Bono and Edge were upstaged. "Richard the Lionheart", as he was eventually intoduced to us by Bono,took the guitar from Dallas, and Edge began to make sure that he knew the chords, and this guy just nodded quite confidently, if not arrogantly, and didn't miss a beat after that. he was great. nice job Richard.
"you Americans have so much confidence" was Bono's response to Richard strapping on the guitar.
Streets had more energy than anything else that evening. so much energy. Best song of the night.
at the end of the show Bono informed us all of the previous night's events. (the Atlanta Journal reported the next day "Bono drinking vodka tonics" at the Leopard Lounge in midtown, and stopping earlier in the evening with Edge at the Cheetah, a club of the stripping sorts.)It was apparantly the end of tour party, and we can all only imagine the revelry of band and crew after 101 shows. after leaving the stage Bono made a quick turn to the crowd and sort of grabbed his head and said "owwwwww" as to indicate that he was still hurting a bit from the night before. Beautiful Hangover indeed. Thanks to John, Tai, and Christine for a Beautiful 11 hours in line. had a blast. It hurts me to think this tour has to end.

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