by Tim

Wow. So I had the privelage of being elevated four times in five days. Thank God, U2 has a large following in Chicago.
I was able to secure a spot on the outside barrier of the Heart, about 25 feet from the tip on Edge's side. The band stormed out to Elevation and left no one feeling grounded. But when I was expecting to hear the opening sounds of Beautiful Day, I instead heard Edge's intro for The Fly, the band launched into the same version that they usually close the first sit with.
We had heard Dallas tuning one of the guitars for Even Better then the Real Thing, so it was no surprise when that was the next song up. Let's just say that Edge's solo is still as good as it was 10 years ago. When the intro to Mysterious Ways started, I realized, I was living the ZooTV live from Syndey. Bono's opening lyrics also included something about his baby (not my baby's having a baby but similar).
One was moved from the encore to just after Mysterious Ways, keeping with the ZooTV theme, Bono and Edge even dropped in Wake Up Dead Man. The Until The End of the World/New Years Day sequence was much appreciated after a two show hiatus.
Bono introduced Stuck by saying it was a about an "arguement you want to have with someone, but you can't because they aren't........"
Kite was gorgeous as usually, all though it didnt' include the Solo Intro or end that we had seen in the previous Chicago shows. New York was New York, Bono wandering around the catwalk, missing his cowboy hat and such, but the song was still an incredibly show-stopper.
I Will Follow was a really good rendition, just before the "Your eye's make a circle" Bono starting ad libbing lyrics that went something like "20 years ago this week I was walking down these streets" basically it was a mintute long song about how much he liked Chicago and how much he liked being a rock star. The Song ended with Bono saying "I Will Follow, I Will Follow, I will, so you don't."
For Sunday Bloody Sunday, the crowd starting singing the notes before Bono could direct them too. During Ege's guitar solo, Bono walked up to him and hugged him, went he pulled away, he pulled Edge's guitar cord out of the guitar, strangling the solo cold, so Bono, runs away sheepishly and scat-sings the guitar part until Dallas runs on stage to plug Edge in.
Sweetest thing was nice, nothing fancy that I can remember right now.
Edge started playing Angel of Harlem as he was walking down the ramp to the tip of the heart. It was incredible. To hear the entire audience singing along.
But then Bono starts to introduce the next song by going, "This next song is an old B-side of ours that we haven't played in years." When Edge broke in to Still Haven't Found, I thought the roof was going to be blown off the United Center. This was the first time that I have ever heard this song performed acoustically with just Bono and Edge, Edge even played the acoustic guitar solos from the studio version, something I've never heard him play before.
All I Want is You had the whole band up onstage again, playing and singing, just like they did for the RnH version.
The usual Streets with the psalm read over the opening organ (I managed to get ahold of the copy at the tip of the heart). Then there was Pride closing the first set.
The NRA skit opened the encore with a great version of Bullet with Young Americans tacked onto the end.
With or Without You was as glorious as ever. The band added a coda to the song, similar to the one on Rattle and Hum, "Yea we'll shine like stars in the summer night/I'm going to see my baby tonite(?)" something to that effect.
It was obvious the band was ready to walk off stage because both Edge and Adam handed their guitars over and started to wave good bye. But Bono got them back together and Bono said "Thank you, you have been beautiful tonight" and then the band launched into Beautiful Day.
"This is a song that Joey Ramone taught me when I was 16 years old" was the intro that I Remember You got.
Walk On took it's place as the closing song.
In all the show was a huge success.
This show is tied with the first Chicago show for my best shows, I'm not sure which is better, they both have thier moments.
But I keep remember what Bono said the second night, "you can be sure that the next time there will be a song called Chicago."

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