by The Fly Guy

After a great Night 1 in Chicago, U2 was back at it to deliver Night 2.  As Bono stated before I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, "We have always been a kind of Sunday Evening...Monday morning kinda band", and he was right.  The band delivered a high energy, exciting show...and the crowd fed off of it.  I personally felt the crowd was much more into this show than the proceeding show, but this is always tough to gage as it is highly dependent on the people who are around you.  Heading into the show, I personally was hoping for a return of A Sort of Homecoming and to have the show close with The Little Things That Give You Away.  I also wanted a setlist that was more like 22-23 songs in length.  Well U2 delivered on 2 of the 3 wants and they delivered on the 2 I wanted the most.  I miss ASOH in the setlist and was happy it returned for this show....it sounded fresh and reinvented.  I love Bad in the set, I just wish both could be played at the show like it was done on the first couple of shows.  The Joshua Tree portion was just as amazing as it was the night before.  The Encore was adjusted again, with Miss Sarajevo (now known as Miss Syria) opening it up, followed by Ulraviolet and One.  The band decided to not leave the stage before launching into Beautiful Day and Elevation....which got the audience as loud as they had been the whole night.  After Elevation, Bono sang some additional 'ohs' to buy time to get the band down to the B-Stage.  He even started a little snippet of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds (which even Edge began to strum the guitar too), and the audience responded quick and loud to it.  U2 then closed the show with The Little Things That Give You Away....which, according to Bono during the show, will be last track on the upcoming Song of Experience album.  This song is so good, and given the previous performances, I got the sense that a lot of the crowd knew the song already (at least our section did) and it felt like a great way to cap off the 2 nights in Chicago.  Overall both shows were fantastic, and definitely met expectation.  Although the Joshua Tree is 30 years old, it is so relevant today and the shows were some of the most powerful U2 shows I have been too.  Looking forward to the return this Fall!

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