by Ron Eniclerico

OK, this was my first Popmart show, and I have some mixed emotions about the whole thing. First of all, I think it was a bad night. I'm not sure it was a bad night because it's the only night I've seen and I have nothing to compare it to, but the video screens weren't working at all, and this really hurt you if you had bad seats {like me}. I think the band was really thrown off by this as they messed up several songs. I don't think Bono sang one right line on If God Would Send His Angels. It was OK, though, because the emotion of the song seemed to redeem itself. Bono talked to the audience alot, mentioning how last time he was in DC he broke his arm, and this time they broke the TV screen. Like I said earlier, I think they were all really disturbed by this, and I don't think Bono was having a good time.

Another problem I had was the flow of the show. Zoo TV moved so flawlessly through the facets and stages of U2, that in comparison, this seemed a little jagged. An example of this is "Where the Streets Have No Name." In 1992, U2 used this song to bring the audience back from a feeling of uncertainty and chaos to a warm innocence. Here, it was like just... another song. Also, {and this is not a bad thing} most of the old songs really weren't as different as people had been saying. With or Without you sounded the same to me as it always has.

But there were some highlights-
1) Daydream Believer-I'm a huge Monkees fan, so I'm a bit partial to this one, and Edge really had the crowd singing.
2) Please-Not one of my favorite songs off POP, but it's obviously one of the band's. They put a passion into this like I've seldom seen before at any concert, and the Sunday Bloody Sunday beat really added to it.

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