by Chris Bautista

Well, today is Veteran's Day and I feel like hell! What else can I say after the 30 hour roundtrip drive from New Jersey to Saint Louis and back! I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!!! It was by far the best U2 show i have seen including the front row seats I had for the first Giants Stadium show back on May 31! (see reviews) It was me, my wife Carla, two brothers, one sister, and their "significant" others and friend! We drove out in a 15 passenger van to see Irelands Fab Four one more time during this amazing tour!

Boy was it worth it! A few highlights for me were:

1) "Mission Impossible" before "Pop Muzik" was very cool!
2) New Years Day, All I Want Is You, and Desire which were not played at Giants Stadium!
3) "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" - Hey, Karaoke was neat and fun but SBS brings chills to my spine!
4) MacPhisto (hats off to the fan who did a great job up there) was comical and brought back great memories of Zoo TV and Bono switching outfits and then going into "We Will Rock You" (not America!) was absolutley incredible.
5) "Streets" which always brings a tear to my eyes especially when the floodlights fill the stadium as the songs beginning reaches the climax! Nothing quite like it!
6) Then it was the little things that added to the show like the Edge making the sign of the cross b4 descending from the lemon, Larry shadowboxing along with Bono b4 MOFO, "Heaven In Your Eyes" and "The Fly" at the end of "Discotheque", the extended endings to "WOWY" and "One" and "Funky Town" at the end of "Mysterious Ways" with Edge doing his little foot slide while still playing guitar, and of course Bono kissing the camera at the end of "HM,TM,KM,KM"!
7) "Wake Up Dead Man" works beautifully at the end of the concert and brings a spiritually haunting feeling to the show!

I read a few other reviews who say that open air was better, but I believe the sound and the effects worked better in the dome! Especially the Lemon reflecting from every possible direction!

A couple of notes:

1) St. Louis you have a great town and great fans! I was disappointed with the number of fans in attendance, but the ones that were there were all wonderful and helped make the show what it was - PURE MAGIC! Next time I'm in St. Louis I hope I have more time to admire your incredible city!
2) I tried to get people to sing "How Long....to Sing this Song" when the concert ended and our section joined in but I couldn't help notice that a lot of people thought we were just nutz (judging from their faces)! "40" was and still would be the perfect way to end a U2 show because the crowds would still be singing as they were exiting the building, but I guess we must all move forward!
3) I hear from too many people that they only like "old" U2 and not the "new" stuff and that U2 has sold out! They are soon to follow this with comments like, "The Rolling Stones would never "sell out""! I love the Stones too but they did sell "Start Me Up" to Bill Gates for 12 million dollars and it's a lot easier to keep rehashing songs from the same formula instead of experimenting in new innovative directions like our boys U2! POP is amazing and POPMart even better! Let's face it- it's not "old" U2 or "new" U2, it's just the biggest baddest boldest band in the land - U2!!

Thank you Bono, Edge, Larry, and Adam, for not letting well enough alone! Keep pushing the line and F***ing up the mainstream! You make music still worth listening to!

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