by mattde

I was lucky enough to be front row in the Ellipse for both Philly shows. This show rocked. Much better than last week's Philly show. The Ellipse filled up early and felt much more enthused than Philly 1. When you are in the Ellipse/Heart,it's sometimes hard to comprehend that the band is playing to 20,000 people. It feels like they are playing a local gig to 300.
I was a little worried both about the band coming off a MSG show the night before and a Sunday night crowd in Philly. But both equally were in peak form. Even Kings of Leon put on a good set that the fans supported.
Before the show I saw a copy of the set list and knew we were in for a treat:
City of Blinding lights: this song is a great opener for the tour..oh you look so beautiful..
Vertigo: hate the recorded version of this song, but it is very powerful live..another energy pumping song.
Elevation: can I dare to say that this is the new Streets for U2 tours?? Even Larry sang the words to the whole song.
Gloria: great to hear live again.
The Ocean: this surprisingly came off very good
Beautiful Day: What can you say? Tattoo Boy gets on stage and Bono improvises the song at the end to read off his tattoos.
Sunday Bloody Sunday...sounded great...I haven't heard this anywhere else but I thought it sounded and looked like Bono once mocked the words 'how long must we sing this song'....are they finally getting tired of playing this song??
The Achtung Baby encore was much more energized than last week's show.
The girl on stage for Mysterious Ways and With or Without You had the best time of her life. She was visibly trembling on stage. I thought she was going to faint. It was awesome.
According to the printed set list, the second encore was supposed to be Yahweh on the ramp and Bad. But they came out to All Because of You (which rocked). Due to time constraints, they played Yahweh on the main stage and instead of playing Bad they played 40. It looked like the band was a little confused by the set list change and at one point it looked like Edge was going to go into Bad.
Being in the Ellipse I don't care too much if they walk around it all that much. But, it didn't seem Bono or the rest of the band made much use of it. Edge was hooked into his amp all night (not sure if there were technical issues) so he couldn't go on the ramp. The one time he wasn't hooked in (All Because of You) he made a full circle.
Can't wait to see them in October..can I get lucky a third time??

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