by Paul

All the U2 bashing is actually quite humurous.
Everyone talks about how U2 isn't the same, how U2 has sold out, how U2 isn't special anymore, how U2 is just going through the motions, etc.

What everyone seems to not know is that during the Joshua Tree Tour, people were criticizing them for selling out back then, that their shows lacked the intimacy of the smaller venues of the Unforgettable Fire Tour.
During ZooTV they were criticized for all the extra visual stuff and the music was lost as the focus of the performance. Then POPMART was criticized for not being as good as ZooTV. Elevation was criticized as being even worse, becoming a U2 Greatest Hits Tour and therefore proving people's "sell-out" theory.

U2 was better at the second Chicago show, but the fans were not as good as Chicago1. At the 2nd Chicago show, fans sang very quietly during elevation and pride, and hardly sang at all during 40, (thinking, yeah, how long is Bono going to sing that song?)

Bono was the normal great showman at the 2nd show and concentrated on his vocals. Vocals on Sometimes sounded fantastic. An cat dubh/into the heart was soothing, and when bono pulled "Laura" up onto the stage, it sent Edge and his tech scrambling to find a guitar that would work for Party Girl (humorous moment, as they were not expecting Bono to screw things up again), even though Laura missed a few chords, bono kept encouraging her to continue as he sang to her. Fantastic, beautiful, spontaneous U2 moment.

The rest of the songs were strong, especially Miracle Drug, Bullet, Running, and even Pride, New Year's Day and Streets were performed well.

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