by Elizabeth

I took the day off work to recover from the show, and I'm glad I did, because it was just that amazing. I've been listening to past concerts all day.

Elevation of course started up with all the house lights still up. I thought this was a nice touch because it surprised many crowd members and got everyone pumped up instantly.

I was impressed throughout with the lights and stage design. After the amazing madness of the Popmart design, I found the Elevation set to be toned down just the right amount. For example, during WOWY (I think) there were banners that hung down from the rigging and the band members' shadows were projected onto them. Very creative and seemingly not that hard or expensive to pull off. Viewed from the right angle, occasionally Bono's shadow looked like an alien. Another nice touch was the TV screens with band members projected on them throughout the show. I was on the right side of the stage (230 in the Target Center) so we only had two, as opposed to anyone who sat in front of the stage and could see four. One was always showing Bono and the other one switched between the other band members. I got to see Larry take a drink of water and scratch his nose.

One of the people I was with commented on the fact that the show could sort of be seen as a U2 Greatest Hits Jukebox with songs from the new album inbetween the megahits. Of course Bono is God, and whatever he and the band choose to play is great in my book, but I think there's a little more room for older songs that weren't necessarily the biggest of the big hits. For example, I thouroughly enjoyed the intimate version of Stay.

New York is one of my favorites from the new album and it was done excellently. The energy that Bono put into this song (and the whole show) made it even better than I imagined it would be.

I enjoyed being able to sing "How long to sing this song" and feeling like an old-time U2 fan. I'm actually pretty thrilled that I got to sing that at an actual U2 concert, and was pretty surprised they stuck it in during Bad.

WTSHNN is my all time favorite live song, and if you pay attention, ever since Joshua Tree, whenever they do it live they turn the lights on really bright at the exact same moment close to the beginning. I loved seeing Bono's energy as he ran laps around the heart and then was able to continue singing.

Mysterious Ways had a nice touch with Bono laying on the TV screen as it rose to reveal a dancing woman.

The Fly started out more mellow, with Bono singing "Love/we shine like a burning star/falling from the sky tonight" and then kicked into a more rockin' version. It was funny to see all the people in front of me who had just sat down jump to their feet again.

All in all, they turned in a fabulous performance, enjoyed by everyone from the casual listener to the obsessed fan.

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