by Milo

It seems like every time I'm ready to give up on U2 they "pull me back in."

The Apple debacle put a sour taste in my mouth that was so bitter I couldn't enjoy listening to the album and, therefore, wasn't planning on hitting a show. However, finding myself in Arizona for night one of the two night stand, I grabbed tickets at the last minute and was glad I did. An awesome, personal show with incredible highlights such as "Iris" and "Every Breaking Wave" with Bono absolutely nailing the latter to the point that it became an instant U2 classic. "Electric Co" was the best version I'd ever seen (I thought Glendale 2005 was good and this blew it away) and the stage setup was probably my favorite since the simplicity of "Elevation."

I won't lie - I found myself getting emotional during "Bad" while remembering all the times I've sung "I'm not sleeping" along with Bono; this, of course, was followed by an awesome "With or Without You which simply never gets old. I loved it when I heard it at 15 and I love it even more now. 

It wasn't all gold, however. "Invisible" sucks - stop playing it! Also, they have almost completely sucked the energy from "Streets" to the point where it almost felt like a ballad. I couldn't help but think how more effective Stephen Hawking's words would have been leading into the organ, and not Bono's speech which pretty much said, "We know you love this song, but let me start it on a down note that it will never recover from." And "Pride"? Ugh - time to retire it. I will give credit where credit is due - when I saw they were playing Sunday Bloody Sunday (again????) I winced, but this version is awesome and is as important as Red Rocks '83. 

The band looked in great spirits and were clearly having fun, but the key was that it was a ROCK show - four lads jamming it loud and hard onstage. The 360 tour clearly lacked that to the point that if Edge's guitar became unplugged I doubt anyone would notice through the layers of computerized garbage. That was not present here, however, and the arena versus stadium definitely brought back a sense of intimacy that they seemed to have abandonded a long time ago. Bigger is not always better, lads....

You still have it, boys. Rock on. 

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