by David Allen

We arrived late afternoon on Saturday and stayed at a motel in Howell, about 30 minutes from the stadium. The reason I mention this is that there was a hot air balloon festival taking place on the grounds of the local high school. We watched the launching of 42 hot air balloons. It’s not something one sees everyday and it added to the magic of the weekend.

We arrived at a parking garage about 1:00 Sunday afternoon and walked up and down Grand River Avenue. Heard the sound check going on and headed over to the stadium. The guys from the church group were entertaining but all of the people with sign-up sheets for recalls and protests were not.

Florence was okay, with her set not taking off until the middle of it.

I don’t think I’ve ever been barraged as I was with the opening AB in-your-face salvo! Hearing those songs in succession was unbelievable. It was fun watching my son bee-bopping to IWF. The image of him bouncing at the knees to the same song at his first-ever concert ten years ago at age 11 is burned in my memory. (I mentioned this in my comments for the Lexington show in 2001.) This was the first time I heard EBTTRT and HMTM live and they were better than I imagined. IMO, EBTTRT is a perfect opening song. Of course, I was disappointed with the video mishap at the beginning of BD. I was also disappointed with the snippet, or lack thereof, for Vertigo. Zooropa was killer; I never thought I would ever hear it live and it was one of the highlights of the night for me. It was AMAZING! Also, it was fun seeing Adam getting down during Crazy Tonight. Bono sounded as good as I've ever heard him. I thought he was going to skip the band introductions but he got them in at the end. I think the setlist was about as good as one could hope for; definitely better than the ’09 shows.

The GA crowd was rockin’ all night long. They were loud and boisterous and I am sure many of them were sore this morning from their non-stop bouncing. Even though we had decent seats, we were in Section 8, Row 23, I was wishing I was in the middle of the throng. I made up my mind right then and there to see them in Pittsburgh and I'm going to be in that GA crowd.

My opinion of the crowd in the seated sections is that they were DEAD! Yes, they came to life for many of the songs but I have never seen anyone sit down during a U2 show. They did not sit for just one song, but several - Stay, MS, Zooropa and One. When I saw just a smattering of people standing during those songs, my jaw dropped. This may not have been the case for the entire stadium but it was that way for as far as I could see. It was one of the oldest crowds I have seen at any concert, maybe that’s why they sat as they did. It was as if they were at a Yanni concert or something. It seemed everyone enjoyed the show but I don’t think there were as many fans as I have seen at the seven other shows I have been to. It was obvious that many people were not very familiar with their songs.

It was a great, great night.

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