by Matt

Dallas-Fort Worth was elevated to a record height last night (excuse my
cheesiness).

I saw U2 at the same arena on April 3rd--it left me blown away. Last night,
however, was even more incredible. The band was in fine form, Bono hit the
highs, and the setlist was complete with a few surprises.

Elevation, Beautiful Day, and Until the End of the World all rocked the
crowd into action as usual. In either Elevation or Beauitful Day, Bono
kicked a couple drinks (Coke? or was it beer?) into the heart. Then he made
some "you want some of this? Bring it on!"-type gestures which were really
funny to see. During UTEOTW, Bono was given a cowboy hat from someone
outside the tip of the heart. So he did some rather funny moves as if he
were bull riding while singing, and then of course made his way around the
heart to duel with the Edge and his guitar.

After UTEOTW came the first surprise. I heard the first few chords of Out
of Control and, unable to help myself, I let out a big scream. This song is
absolutely great to hear live. Midway through the song (I think), Bono
talked about it being their first single, etc.

New Year's Day came after that, which really got the crowd cheering. A lot
of people knew Out of Control, but of course EVERYONE knew New Year's Day.
As Bono repeated "with you again" over and over at the end of NYD, Larry
sorta bridged the drums of it with the beginning of Sunday Bloody Sunday,
and Edge and the rest of the band soon joined in for that.

The band played a great rendition of Stuck In a Moment--after hearing it
live again, I have a renewed liking for this song. Bono and Edge hit the
high notes quite well on it, and their emotion really showed. Afterwards
Bono spent a couple minutes talking and strumming chords from Kite after
every sentence or two. Right before launching into Kite, he said (regarding
Stuck) that he wished he could have given that talk to Michael Hutchence
while he was still alive. I hadn't heard this one live yet, so it was a
nice treat. Towards the end, though, Edge had some guitar trouble. I think
his amp might have been damaged--there was some weird feedback-type noises
coming from the speakers before he turned it down. They were able to get
through the song OK, though.

We got our second surprise at the tip of the heart after Kite. I thought
the acoustic version of In God's Country would be a one-time deal in
Phoenix, but we were lucky enough to hear it too! It was really cool, and
the parts with Edge joining Bono in singing were wonderful. At the end of
the song, Bono mentioned that it was the 2nd time they played it in "15
years," although as noted on the Phoenix setlist, it was more like the 2nd
time in 12 years. Bono and Edge stayed at the tip of the heart and played
the acoustic version of Please that they've been doing recently. It really
is kind of haunting in this form.

With the full band back together, the Edge launched into Bad. Nothing
unusual about it, it just rocked as always. At the end, Bono started
singing "Who's Gonna Run Your Wild Horses" as he has been recently. Edge
was still playing the Bad chords at this time, but Bono motioned back
towards the band to play with him, so Edge started playing WGRYWH on his
guitar while Bono sang. I'm not sure if they have done that much at other
shows, but I think Bono got through at least 2 verses of the song... at
which point they launched into Where The Streets Have No Name. As was the
case at the Dallas show in April, this song had I think the peak noise level
from the crowd. Awesome. After Streets, we were treated to I Still Haven't
Found What I'm Looking For and Pride, both of which were excellent. Towards
the end of ISHFWILF, Bono said something along the lines of "It's Sunday,
time to go to church!" which got a whole lot of the crowd singing along.

In the first encore, poor Edge had a lot of guitar trouble again during
Bullet The Blue Sky. Dallas Schoo came up and tried doing various things at
Edge's little "command center" a couple times. At one point, Edge was
kneeling down in front of it trying different settings while he played his
guitar. Despite the trouble, he played very well through the rest of it.
Gwen Stefani joined Bono in singing What's Going On. New York was played
with its revised lyrics, and I think it was during this song that Bono was
given another cowboy hat from a fan, which he wore as he walked around and
sang. The band made a second encore after this point--probably so Edge's
guitar and/or amp problems could be looked into.

When the boys came back onstage, they played a beautiful version of One. As
has been said by many, it was touching to see the names of the victims of
September 11 scrolling in the background. After they finished the song, the
names kept going and Bono started singing Peace on Earth. He didn't stop
until all of the names had been shown. Then they kicked into an awesome
conclusion with Walk On. U2 put on yet another incredible, spiritual show
of magic.

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