13th July Amsterdam – Arena

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13th of July - Amsterdam Arena

Hi, my first thread creation :up:

I may not be very objective for this one because I just lost my virginity with U2 :lol:

I sat on the opposite of the stage.
Kaiser Chiefs and The Killers sounds were not very good. I could barely hear what Kaiser Chief's vocalist sang. The Killers were a little bit better.

I was in the restroom, when Arcade FIre's song was played (Run run run!!!) :evil:
I was waiting for 'everyone, everyone,...' but the boys showed up on the stage before the song was finished.
So there we went standing and cheered them with a very loud voice (as fas as I could hear).

Maybe some others Interferer (Zwerver, Lila) will post other details. Here are my remarks:
1. The sound was not very good in my section. I could not hear very clear to what Bono said.

2. People in my section were very very unreal. Almost all were standing and moving all the time. We're rock!! :)

3. I saw all people in wheelchairs dancing with their hands, especially for Sunday Bloody Sunday :drool:

4. I think we were an incredible audience, Bono looked awed sometimes (I think) and said something about (I could only hear the sentence "Thanks for giving us a great life" which is often said by him, but I could not hear the first few sentences). That's why we have 3 concerts here :evil:

5. I almost lost my voice in Beautiful Day because I sang loudly from the beginning. How can vocalists sing night after night? :lol:

My personal rants are I will not see them again, maybe never again if I return to my home country and I cannot hear Bad live.
But hey, I remember many of my friends may not see U2 live ever so I will cherish this wonderful memory.

I hope that is not my last U2 concert.

ps: I will try to post pictures or videos from my friends' cameras later.

ps 2: Thanks U2!
 
Also my first u2 concert. And i was three rows away from the stage, which i never expected in my wildest dreams :D
And it was just so amazing, the audience was great. I could hear bono sing and saying things quite clearly, so the sound was not so bad in my section. I just loved every song, and i'll try to find out to post some pictures, because i've got a whole bunch of them :D
I don't know what to say more about it, it's still just too overwhelming!
 
Great for you, Linda :up:

I almost forget to add the highlights:

1. We sang happy birthday for Anton Corbijn. We should sing it with the Dutch way :wink: (Hip hip huraaaa!).

2. The coexist symbol was really great in the big screen.

3. Bono dedicated Running to Stand Still for Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by extremist for making the movie 'Submission'. Ut was very beautiful, and the crowd sang 'Still running.....'.

4. After With or Without You and the band left the stage, the crowd sang 'Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo....' from With or Without You while clapping and screaming (Heh I could not do the scream because I sang :lol: ).

5. People outside Amsterdam Arena still sang Vertigo sporadically :wink:
 
Re: 13th of July - Amsterdam Arena

Dionisius said:
Hi, my first thread creation :up:



ps: I will try to post pictures or videos from my friends' cameras later.

ps 2: Thanks U2!



Hi!

Was it easy to take a camara with you??
Didnt they check?
 
Re: Re: 13th of July - Amsterdam Arena

Ageeth said:


Hi!

Was it easy to take a camara with you??
Didnt they check?

They check, but cameras are allowed. Just no professional cameras or SLR's, but compact (digital) cameras were no problem at all..

I'll post some pics later
 
totally agree with all of the above. Crowd was amazing. I was on the rails on the b stage at adams side. But if I looked back even the people who were far in the highest seats in the back totally joined in. The lighting phones were awesome. Bono was very appreciative of holland (all sounded very sincere too).
Killer versions of some songs (although in the first 5 songs bono seemed to have lost his breath once in a while :wink: )

I also loved the way the crowd carried on after the song stopped, especially RTST and WOWY. And was very funny too see that people in the hall ways after the show still sang vertigo despite of all the bitching about vertigo 2x (ALthough I agree with zwervers that the second one blows the first one away so why not start with a different song, but thats another discussion thats been done already)

cameras were no problem at all (I was one of the first 50-100 in and hardly got searched although i showed my camera). Almost all my pictures didnt turn out so well (my camera was new to me and had some delay in when i wanted the picture to be taken, so i got only 5 normal pictures :huh: very annoying)
So im really hoping for a lot of high quality pictures to be posted as i will download them all :wink:

*sigh* still totally into yesterday...
 
I was also one of the first to enter, and they didn't even checked my camera while i had it in my hand.
I justed looked at my pictures, and they really turned out to be great. I also filmed a little bit, also when bono came really close to us during city of blinding lights. i would really like to share everything, but i'm afraid that i don't know how to do that. i'm not that handy with computers, and i don't know where i should upload it. So if anybody can help me a little with it, that would be great!
 
Some pics from yesterday...

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Waiting for U2 (6:22 AM)

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Waiting for U2 (10:10 AM)

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The Kaiser Chiefs

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The Killers

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Waiting for U2 (8:15 PM)
 
Sitting here with mixed emotions about last night. The boys looked like they were in great form, but the sound was absolutely awful.

Arrived at the stadium around five-ish, but we didn't want to sit at the same spot on the field until nine so we wandered around a bit.

Kaiser Chiefs' sound was horrible, if I hadn't actually seen their singer sing I wouldn't have believed he had actually opened his mouth. Killers sounded a tad better, but at that time both my girlfriend and me were really hoping U2 would have their sh*t together better than these guys.

Sadly, they didn't. Bono sounded like he was on helium constantly, a strange high pitch to his voice even when he was just talking. Actually the only thing coming through loud and clear was Larry's drumming (to be fair, it sounds amazing). At points Adam's bass came through loud and clear, at some (bullet) it wasn't anywhere near as clear as needed.

The absolute low-point to me was when I found myself thinking 'hey I know this rhytm, and I know this bass-line'. Turned out I had been missing all the of the guitar-intro for 'All Because Of You'. The same problem spoiled 'All I Want Is You', 'One' (normally, I love the guitar solo to the point of wishing Bono would just keep his mouth shut and not start singing again), and several other songs.

We didn't have a spot on the field close to the front so we wandered around a bit, and generally all across the field the sould just sucked. We've stood right behind and next to the mixing stage at the side of the field, (seeing Willy at work, which was nice), way back and smack in the middle.

The sound seemed to be a bit better at the very end, so I'm hoping the engineers get things fixed completely before tomorrow.

High points: Running To Stand Still, Vertigo (crowd singing so loud Bono might as well not even bother with singing any of the chorus) and the crowd-singalong Elevation.
 
:hyper:

hi guys :wave:

this was my first u2 concert and I was front row!!!!!!
right in front of Adam.:drool:
It was a great show..and the second Vertigo is really awsome:wink:

I'm extremely tired right now, since I had only 1 hour of sleep in 36 hours:ohmy:
And I'm still so overwhelmed with everything..man, I love this band!
The only thing that comes to my mind right now is that I had one Bono moment :drool:
two Larry moments an a billion Adam moments...he was really into me and my friends and he posed twice for me so I could take a picture.. and blew me a kiss:combust:
he was smiling at us all the time..:drool:
I'm getting my pictures developed right now..( yeah, I'm old-fashioned..I don't have a digital camera :reject: )
I hope they turn out well...
 
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Leetah said:

right in front of Adam.:drool:

.......someone here was right next to me......

no digital camera you said???? You don't happen to be one of the two girls i took a picture of while sitting with their back to the fence??? (if it's you, you made me take two pictures in case I screw up one of them, which is a wise decision considering the number ofpictures I screwed up yesterday)
 
This was my second U2 concert (I saw them in Arnhem for Elevation) and it was totally amazing. I thought the Kasier Chiefs were great too (although it seemed at times as if I was the only person singing to their songs ;)). Sound was a bit temperamental, but the crowd more than made up for it. :) We were sat almost at the back of the stadium, but I got to actually see the figures on stage this time (I'm short, so at the Elevation concert, I had to jump up and down to see the stage :D).

Best bits: The split screens meaning that there were sometimes two Edges (one for the concert and a spare for me, please? :love:), seeing the other band members faces on the big screens when Bono went on one of his 'talks' (Larry had that 'Did I leave the oven on?' look about him :D), Bono getting all dressed up for Zoo Station :drool:, and Yahweh/City of Blinding Lights/Sometimes you can't make it on your own.

Worst bits: The number of people sat next to us smoking continuously throughout the concert (someone open a window, dammit!), the guys in front of me playing air guitar while the band were playing (please guys, have some respect, the Edge is in the room :wink: ) and sounding like Marge Simpson all day today because I sang too much. :)
 
Ok here are some of my best pictures (hope it works)

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they are a bit little, see if i can change it sometime
 
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Vorsprung are you by any change the guy passing around the beer to a girl opposite to you (with the zooropa shirt)!
 
Great pics Linda!!

A digital one??
You had a good spot! What time did you go to the stadium?
I am going on saturday,, so try to work out what the best time is to go.. i want to have a good spot:drool:
 
Re: Re: Re: 13th of July - Amsterdam Arena

Vorsprung said:


They check, but cameras are allowed. Just no professional cameras or SLR's, but compact (digital) cameras were no problem at all..

I'll post some pics later


uhm what are SLR'S? :confused:
i do have a digital camara but i can make a movie with too.. do you think they look at that?? I dont want it to be taken from me :(
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: 13th of July - Amsterdam Arena

Ageeth said:



uhm what are SLR'S? :confused:
i do have a digital camara but i can make a movie with too.. do you think they look at that?? I dont want it to be taken from me :(

I forget what is the acronym of SLR but it is a very good camera with long lense (I think).
It is not a problem for the usual digital camera, which I assume most of us have and can make short movies.

One of my friend has a professional Nikon digital camera with long lense. The security took it yesterday and kept it. Fortunately, it is still in a good shape after the concert.
 
adam07.jpg


Adam on the b stage

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the fly

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also the fly

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Larry on LPOE


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Bono on LPOE


LPOE.jpg


again bono on lpoe

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Bono walking of the b stage during zoo station
 
@ ageeth: SLR = spiegelreflexcamera, normal digital camera's are no problem at all.

@ Leetah: how great to find another sponge-water lover :yuck: :wink: . By the way, I hope I didn't screw up. Most of my pics didn't work out good, since my camera stopped focusing well somewhere during the Kaiser Chiefs, so I couldn't make any good close-ups.

@ zooholland, I passed around quite a few beers but as I recall not to a girl wearing a zooropa shirt.

and now: the review

I have a bit mixed feelings about yesterday, but that's not because of the concert, but more because of the company I was with (not you Leetah). I promised two tickets to my cousin and unfotrunately she took her husband with her. I always kind of disliked the guy, but during the day he actually seemed quite nice. This changed later on (in the stadium).... I don't wanna say too much about him.....only that I don't know why such a rude, negativist, prejudiced xenofobic asshole goes to a U2 concert!!! Bu well, since I didn't let him ruin my experience also because I moved back from him two or three rows (where the view is just as good and I had more room to go totally insane) I still had the best time of my life!!. At least I'll be with some nice people when I'll go to the Nice gig (I know, terrible pun). I got tickets to that one about two weeks ago. It just fits in perfectly with my holiday plans....

and now really: the review

Kaiser Chiefs were great!!! They were just about everything a young, fresh and energetic band should be: young fresh and energetic!! :wink: Unofrtunately, loads of people in the audience didn't seem to care anything about them, which really was a shame... However, I must say they don't work out really good in a stadium, but I'd love to see that band on a night out in a club or at some festival!!

Killers were a bit disappointing though, also because I had quite some expactations, especially after reading the Cardiff review. I just had a feeling they didn't put in all the effort they could do, maybe because the crowd didn't really help them that much either.

U2 themselves were fanfuckingtastic!!!! So I've heard Bono's voice had improved, but I didn't expect it to be this good, a lot better than during elevation (Arhem 3) and Popmart (Hannover)

Just some personal highlights then:

Vertigo (2x): Stop bitching about it being played twice. It just simply rocks!!

I will follow/Electric Co: Keep on rocking!!!!!!

LAPOE: Furiously emotional....this one really struck me more than I'd ever expected.

SYCMIYO: Beautifully emotional. Bono's voice hit all the notes which was again beyond expectations, and probably also beyond's Edge's expectations since he was ready and preparing to back up during the high notes, yet he didn't when he heard Bono hitting them all.

All I want is you: The crowd singing along to this one and the flabbergasted nervous look of the girl pulled up stage made this song even better than it already was..

ZOO Station/The Fly: This one made up a bit for my parents not letting me go to ZOO TV (so I was just 12 back then, they also could have joined me :wink: )

Streets: Hey, it's Streets, of course it's a highlight!

Running to stand Still: Running out of original comments, but trust me...it was a highlight.

The rest of the show: Really, also without the highlights mentioned above I would have been blown away!!

Other comments: I am glad that I was in very front of crowd being able to hear them every song loud and clear (though during ISHFWILF and WOWY even there it became a bit hard to hear bono sing). Also the echoing I heard at the back of the stadium must have been somewhat annoying if you're at the far end second ring....Okay, at least those people got to hear Vertigo 6x :wink:
And oh yeah....it was damn hot in the greenhouse we call the Amsterdam Arena.... Just a little suggestion for next time. If you want the roof to be closed, close it just before the support acts start so the heat won't build up.
 
i actually wanted to know if it was you (or the guy next to him , with all the colored bracelets) which was wearing the zooropa shirt but i quess not (the beer thing was 1 beer that was meant for some lady but the guy in the zooropa shirt couldnt bring it himself so it was practically passed along the whole b stage). But i quess it wasnt you then. Just thought i might be you since i saw that guy taking pics of the people around him incl. some girls and aa guy with a very cool One tattoo all over his back!!
 
Awesome photos LindaS. You might as well have been on stage with them...especially that photo of Bono. Looks like you're right on stage with him. Thanks for sharing :wink: :wink: :wink:
 
Ageeth said:
Great pics Linda!!

A digital one??
You had a good spot! What time did you go to the stadium?
I am going on saturday,, so try to work out what the best time is to go.. i want to have a good spot:drool:

Yep, i have a digital camera. We got at the stadium at about half past 7 in the morning. At our entrance (there are two entrances for the field area), there were already 180 people. But half an hour after we arived it started to get more busy. If we came an hour later, there would have been much more people. So I recommend: come early, you've got to wait a long time, but it's sooo worth it :D (and with our gettoblaster, there was also a good ambiance :))

@U2FloridaFan: we were indeed very excited of how close we were to the stage (since it was our first u2 concert). I also have a little bit of film, when bono came even closer to us, which is great. I'd really like to share it, but i don't know how :huh:
 
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LindaS said:


Yep, i have a digital camera. We got at the stadium at about half past 7 in the morning. At our entrance (there are two entrances for the field area), there were already 180 people. But half an hour after we arived it started to get more busy. If we came an hour later, there would have been much more people. So I recommend: come early, you've got to wait a long time, but it's sooo worth it :D (and with our gettoblaster, there was also a good ambiance :))

@U2FloridaFan: we were indeed very excited of how close we were to the stage (since it was our first u2 concert). I also have a little bit of film, when bono came even closer to us, which is great. I'd really like to share it, but i don't know how :huh:

Hi

Thanks for answering.. I am going on Saturday (tomorrow) to the arena.. i sure want to go early.. but when i am there, is it a possibility to get out to go to the toilets? And at 2 i have to get some tickets from a portocabbin there.. do you think that is possible to get in the line again?? 1 person will stay in line ofcourse, but i have to know for sure they will let me in again!
Well i hope you see this before saturday.. that would be great!
I think i will take my digital camara also...

thanks again!
 
Vorsprung said:
@ ageeth: SLR = spiegelreflexcamera, normal digital camera's are no problem at all.

Thanks! :D I dont have a SLR... so i guess i just can take my camara.
I could also take a disposable..but i dont think the pics would be nice.
 
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