by Colin T

Positives: U2 played a good set under what must have been very difficult personal circumstances for Bono, it was good to hear “A Sort of Homecoming” again and the Thin Lizzy references were nice. The sound I thought was very good considering the actual size of the venue and it didn’t rain.

Negatives: I arrived at Slane at 3pm, during the two mile walk to the venue from where I had parked, the sight of young people lying around in the street helplessly drunk wasn’t particularly pleasant. My first reaction on entering the concert was that the venue was dangerously full and that there were far more that 80,000 people inside, I note with interest that an article in the Irish Independent newspaper puts the figure closer to 100,000. The amount of drunken, mouthy youths falling about created a nasty atmosphere and didn’t make the place feel particularly safe. The toilet facilities could best be described a “medieval” and to be quite honest were an insult. Perhaps my biggest complaint was that when U2 were on stage the giant video screen was at least 2 seconds out of synch with the sound coming from the speakers. For a band that prides itself on technical innovation this was frankly unacceptable.

The HUGE VIP stand looked very impressive and I’m sure that all the celebs and journalists sitting there got an excellent concert experience, unfortunately I didn’t. Two weeks ago I saw U2 play the 12,000 capacity Birmingham NEC, Arena in England, with superb organisation and facilities, I paid the same amount to stand twenty feet from the stage and had an incredible U2 concert night.

Slane Castle LOOKS like a good venue for a big concert with it’s picturesque castle and sweeping fields down to the river Boyne but in my view it just isn’t able to offer good enough facilities or appropriate safety for a crowd of 100,000, many of whom had gone to extraordinary lengths to get tickets, I think Irish fans deserve better than this.

I'm sure many fans had a good day but this was my experience.

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