by T. Kalleske and S. Gibb

Forty minutes after an excellent set from local Oz band "Sidewinder", the drum and bass rythym of Mission Impossible signalled the four and a half year wait was nearly over......

To the Popmuzik remix, U2 once again decided to throw caution to the wind for the sake of trying something different , this time making an enterance out of the players race at Waverley Park Football Stadium, and walking through the crowd to climb onto the catwalk stage.

The onslaught of sight and sound that is the "Mofo" opening, eventough expected still blew us away. "Are you up to it!!??" Bono screamed to the crowd....Shit yes!..Bring on the show. A similar meaning song, yet written almost a generation ago, "I Will Follow" brought a great response from the 35, 000 fans.

An early highlight for us was the scrambling sprint down the catwalk Bono made during the ending of "Last Night On Earth", which brought the crowd together as one whether six or six hundred feet from the stage. For the begining of "Until The End Of The World", the white towel was swapped for a red guitar and for a split second we actually thought someone in the tenth row would be taking it home with them. Bono and Edge's cat and mouse game up the catwalk to the ZooTV like ending left Edge with a hundred foot dash back to the main stage where he was due at the piano for the opening of "New Years Day". The 1982 classic bringing the best response from the crowd so far.

Bono's sentimentally charged speech at the begining of "I Still Haven't found..." , thanking the crowd for coming to the show from wherever they had travelled had special meaning for us as we'd travelled from Adelaide to see the show to be a part of Popmart '98. Following a humourous ending to "Stand By Me", our favourite U2 track "Bad", continued the theme of the Australian leg with a few lines from INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart" for the Late Michael Hutchence as a part of U2's tribute to him.

In the now famous tradition of ZooTV , Bono and Edge made use of the B-Stage for "Staring At The Sun" and a 'special' highlight for us, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" being played in Australia for the first time since the 1984 Un forgettable Fire tour.

An explosive version of "Bullet The Blue Sky", inspired by the current Iraqi conflict made way for the nights centre piece of the 'Irish Prayer', "Please", which would be close to the nights biggest highlight for us, seemlessly ran into the old show opener, Where The Streets have No Name, now at home closing the main set.

From the U2 of old...straight back into the new with the forty foot Lemon moving near the B-Stage for the encore, bringing a hero likereception as each of the band members strolled down the ladder one by one. Bono's accapella start to "Discotheque" followed by Edge's riff, really brought home to us how much they've progressed over the many years of performing. Keeping with the Popmuzik theme, Bono threw in a snippet of "Stayin' Alive" at the end of "Discotheque". From Lemon to Mirrorball, the mood changed with an acoustic version of "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" and a shortened "With Or Without You". From Mirrorball to Devil, U2 caught the crowd by suprise with Bono playing the Joker, posing for us on the screens and offering his arse for the "Kiss Me" lyric in "Hold Me, Thrill Me"

"Mysterious Ways" rocked as we all have come to expect, and as has been the case for the whole of U2's live career, they resist the temptation for an up-beat end to there shows, and PopMart is no exception with a very emotoinal version of "One" and "MLK" dedicated to Michael Hutchence. As U2 left the stage the Nick Cave song "Into My Arms" came over th PA system leaving the crowd in almost complete silence as a mark of respect to both Michael and U2.

A fantastic show, everything we expected and much more, leaving us with enough memories to last until next time. Memorial Drive (27/10/89), Football Park (16/11/93), Sydney Football Stadium (27/11/93) and Waverley Park(21/2/98).....where to from here???????

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