by John Petricevic

U2 at the Sydney Football Stadium on Friday night... The night was threatening to be a wash out, ominous grey skies over Sydney and finally rain right up to the start of the show.

I thought the rain would spoil a great night, but instead made the show that much more special. U2 came on at 8.40pm just after Pop Muzik and the sound was awesome.

The Sydney crowd, rain or not, was there to party and show this love of U2. This was also the eve of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gra, so there was a additional buzz going around.

I had seen there Perth show a week earlier and had been dismayed at the horrendous sound after reading how State of the Art POPMART was, but Sydney reaffirmed to me that is was the Perth venue that had let U2 down, not anything else.

Highlights : Most of the show, in particular, Mofo, Gone, Discotheque, MLK (to Michael Hutchence), Where the Streets have no name.

One amazing punter, climbed what would have been a 100ft PA Tower in the centre of the stadium and sat on the very top waving his T Shirt around to the end of "Streets" only to have serveral security guards climb up after him and bring him safely down.

After a tribute to Hutchence, U2 played "One" as the final encore with Bono asking for all the lights in the stadium to be switched off, and then he said "PopMart off" and the megascreen went off, now the stadium was in total blackness with rain coming down, U2 playing "One", and the only lights to be seen are cigarette lighters and lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. 40,000 people singing along with all there hearts. One of rock's great moments !!

Bono thanked the crowd for giving the members "a great life !"

Better than Zooropa '93 ? can't decide !!! In my opinion, both are absolutely and categorically the two best rock shows ever !!! I hope POPMART is out on video soon.

I like a lot of diffent bands, but I can't see any of them topping this, except maybe U2 of course ...

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