| Tuesday May 15th 2001, United Center, Chicago Illinois |
| The third U2 show, I had to do a little bit of "roughing it." This was the only show that I didn't have General Admission seats for. I must say that in hindsight I'm glad that I opted to sit in the stands at least one night. It allowed me to see things from a different perspective obviously. But I'm sure that I'm going to opt for GA seats whenever I'm giving the chance. I had surprised my friend Bernadette with tickets to tonite's show for her birthday. A slight fan, not on the par that I am, but she was excited and giddy in anticipation of the show. If you want to hear about how I met Bono, how I met Adam, how I met The Edge, how Bono said he'd play 11 O'clock Tick Tock for me, well you can follow the link above. Otherwise, here is the concert review. I took myself, Bernadette, Chris and his friend Jen to the concert. We got there about 630pm with the GA line quickly dissappearing into the building we went inside and found our seats. 300 level. Nose Bleeds. 5 rows from the back wall. From the front row to the back row. Life has it's moments. I sat down and soon a young guy sat down next to me with his mom (I would have brought mine but she had had surgery the day before). We got to talking, he had been to one of the Weekend shows, but had sat behind the stage, so he was happy to be given the chance to see everything dead on. Sitting up in the balcony was a lot of fun. Well at times it was. I was able to look down and see the entire heart jumping up and down at the begining of Elevation. That was an awesome sight. I got to see the band walking from under the United Center to the stage as well as being able to see them walk up the steps to the stage instead of merely seeing their heads as they got to stage level. No New Years Day after End of the World, but that's ok. Discotheque and Staring at the Sun are great songs live. When Bono grabbed a guitar the kid next to me was saying "oh, It's I Will Follow" I'm saying "No It's Kite." I won. Kite That song has really affected me in the last few months, that and Stuck in a Moment, both hit home with me in several ways and I'm glad that the boys decided to make it such a memorable part of the concert. To be honest, I can't remember all that much about this specific concert. So I'll skip right to the good part. "This is our first single on Island records for you this evening..........................................That was our first single on Island records for you this evening,..................next up............is our second single on Island records." When I heard the opening notes of 11 O'clock Tick Tock, I was hitting/grabbing/punching Bernadettes arm so hard that she actually had bruises. Then. Edge stopped playing. "Oh Shit, Something's wrong." That's what I was thinking "Just give us a second, I'm not sure my heart can take that twice, alright we haven't played this in about twenty years alright?" With that the band launches into 11 O'Clock, a song that hadn't been played in about 20 WEEKS not years, but it was the first time on the Elevation tour that the song was played. The crowd didn't get into it all that much until Edge launched into his solo. So I was happy. "That was our first single on Island Records, this is our very first single..... maybe" Larry's Thundering Bass Drum offset by Edge playing about two notes of the Intro for I Will Follow lead into the one song probably no one in their right mind had expected to hear from the band, ever again. So he changed the words a bit. But still Out of Control is Out of Control. "We Played at that Parkwest, you know the rest, we played it at Parkwest you know the rest." Unlike the other shows where U2 has brought out new material, Bono did not use a cheat sheet for Out of Control. I guess those songs that you write when you are 18 and thinking you can take over the world stick with you longer then you think. Bono went off on a tirade before Stay about how the Band went to Hansa Studios in Berlin to record Acthung Baby. He ended the spiel by saying "I could talk for hours actually." Which, most of us know, he can. In the end the show was great. Even though Bono did play a song for me, it wasn't the greatest of the four shows, but it was up there. |
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