dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
Please post all reviews of the October 28th show here.
28th October Houston - Toyota Center
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James U2
The Fly
worst venue i've ever seen a major concert in. every luxury suite had full lights on through the whole show and no curtains were pulled shut at the tunnel entrances, which absolutely sucked. horrible sound, as well. but aside from that, great show.
Here's a long-ish review of the Houston show....
I used to be a big U2 fan from 1986-1989 and collected a huge amount of Joshua Tree tour bootlegs. When they played Fast Cars tonight, it made me feel like I did when I found out they’d played Spanish Eyes back then! Unfortunately, I never got to see U2 on that tour so tonight was my first U2 show; my wife bought tickets for our wedding anniversary from an agency and we had seats high up on the right side. I don’t know how much she paid, but whatever she paid was worth it because it was a great show and I really enjoyed it.
The opening five songs – City, Vertigo, Elevation, Follow, Electric Co – were faultless! It totally rocked, even up where we were. What an amazing start. The lighting – the dangling lights behind the stage and the shooting lights around the ellipse – was spectacular and well used. The “woohoos” on Elevation were great, and hearing I Will Follow was almost worth the price of admission. I even managed to fall into the guys in the row of front of me! But I have to ask what was going on in the ellipse? Some people were standing still for IWF – come on, hadn’t you been waiting all day!! We were hoping for Gloria so when The Ocean came up, I knew we missed the chance, so a little disappointed. However, ISHFWILF was next up and although it’s not my favorite U2 song (heard it too many times), live it really worked out with the crowd singing along. I think Bono preceded this with a story about Edge coming from another planet (Zootopia?), which was fun, but I imagine he says it every night.
I thought the next section sagged a bit. Beautiful Day seemed a little flat, Miracle Drug is just a little bit too new and a little bit weak, but SYCMIOYO was better.
However, the next trio of songs brought things back up. LAPOE was one of the highlights of the night, with Larry turning up, from nowhere it seemed, out on the ellipse before trotting back to his kit and Bono finishing off hammering out the ending. SBS followed and it was SBS. They quickly followed from the end of SBS into Bullet the Blue Sky. This is probably my favorite U2 song and I was really looking forward to hearing it. The version they played was pretty good and dramatic with the stage lights shining on. But it wasn’t as good as either the album version or other live versions from the JT tour I’ve heard on tape. It seemed too fast and lost a lot of its effect.
Throughout the night, I’d been thinking that Bono’s voice was struggling a little. Not sure if it was the mix or where we were sitting, but it wasn’t really clear. (Reading the comment above this may reflect Toyota Center sound.) However, Bono sung Miss Sarajevo, which I’d never heard before, really well, especially Pavarotti’s bit. The guys in front of us, who were big U2 fans, remarked at this point that this was the first time they’d ever sat down at a U2 concert. It did bring the atmosphere back down again. However, Pride (the opening chords of which had me jumping to my feet) and WTSHNN brought things to a great closing crescendo. I think the band was genuinely surprised at the crowd’s noise at the end of Streets, which went on for some time, and was probably the highlight of the show. One finished the night, continuing the high. I can take or leave Bono’s politics now; his efforts are truly heroic and I think he deserves the Noble Peace prize (which I’m sure he’ll get one day), but I’m glad he kept his comments relatively short!
The opening encores were slow but good, and WOWY was outstanding, the crowd singing along. Bono danced with a girl from the crowd and wore a couple of cowboy hats. That was the end of the first set of encores and then I can’t believe what happened! People started streaming out of the arena! Don’t they know U2 mostly always finish with 40?? Houston is a funny place. The band came back out and played a rocking version of ABOY, followed by Fast Cars, which was a blast. I think Adam did a lap of the ellipse at this point, and got some well deserved cheering; he is the coolest in the band. I was hoping for them to finish with Bad and then they started Yahweh, which I’d forgotten about and was really good.
I would have liked a few older songs thrown in the encores – perhaps The Fly, UTEOFW, Angel of Harlem (they did in Dallas), God’s Country, October/NYD, Party Girl. They finished up with 40, and this really is a good way to end the show. Bono shone a light around the arena; everyone in each section had their arms up in the air as the light went by. Larry finished up with his solo and walked to the front of the stage to huge cheering. I thought he was going to say something into the mic, but he turned back.
So, clearly the best show I’ve been to in ages; my throat, arms and legs were still aching today because of all the cheering and jumping up and down! I’d go see them again, but probably not at agency prices. Walking back to downtown, we joined in with some more Elevation “woohoos” from cars going by - cool way to end.
I used to be a big U2 fan from 1986-1989 and collected a huge amount of Joshua Tree tour bootlegs. When they played Fast Cars tonight, it made me feel like I did when I found out they’d played Spanish Eyes back then! Unfortunately, I never got to see U2 on that tour so tonight was my first U2 show; my wife bought tickets for our wedding anniversary from an agency and we had seats high up on the right side. I don’t know how much she paid, but whatever she paid was worth it because it was a great show and I really enjoyed it.
The opening five songs – City, Vertigo, Elevation, Follow, Electric Co – were faultless! It totally rocked, even up where we were. What an amazing start. The lighting – the dangling lights behind the stage and the shooting lights around the ellipse – was spectacular and well used. The “woohoos” on Elevation were great, and hearing I Will Follow was almost worth the price of admission. I even managed to fall into the guys in the row of front of me! But I have to ask what was going on in the ellipse? Some people were standing still for IWF – come on, hadn’t you been waiting all day!! We were hoping for Gloria so when The Ocean came up, I knew we missed the chance, so a little disappointed. However, ISHFWILF was next up and although it’s not my favorite U2 song (heard it too many times), live it really worked out with the crowd singing along. I think Bono preceded this with a story about Edge coming from another planet (Zootopia?), which was fun, but I imagine he says it every night.
I thought the next section sagged a bit. Beautiful Day seemed a little flat, Miracle Drug is just a little bit too new and a little bit weak, but SYCMIOYO was better.
However, the next trio of songs brought things back up. LAPOE was one of the highlights of the night, with Larry turning up, from nowhere it seemed, out on the ellipse before trotting back to his kit and Bono finishing off hammering out the ending. SBS followed and it was SBS. They quickly followed from the end of SBS into Bullet the Blue Sky. This is probably my favorite U2 song and I was really looking forward to hearing it. The version they played was pretty good and dramatic with the stage lights shining on. But it wasn’t as good as either the album version or other live versions from the JT tour I’ve heard on tape. It seemed too fast and lost a lot of its effect.
Throughout the night, I’d been thinking that Bono’s voice was struggling a little. Not sure if it was the mix or where we were sitting, but it wasn’t really clear. (Reading the comment above this may reflect Toyota Center sound.) However, Bono sung Miss Sarajevo, which I’d never heard before, really well, especially Pavarotti’s bit. The guys in front of us, who were big U2 fans, remarked at this point that this was the first time they’d ever sat down at a U2 concert. It did bring the atmosphere back down again. However, Pride (the opening chords of which had me jumping to my feet) and WTSHNN brought things to a great closing crescendo. I think the band was genuinely surprised at the crowd’s noise at the end of Streets, which went on for some time, and was probably the highlight of the show. One finished the night, continuing the high. I can take or leave Bono’s politics now; his efforts are truly heroic and I think he deserves the Noble Peace prize (which I’m sure he’ll get one day), but I’m glad he kept his comments relatively short!
The opening encores were slow but good, and WOWY was outstanding, the crowd singing along. Bono danced with a girl from the crowd and wore a couple of cowboy hats. That was the end of the first set of encores and then I can’t believe what happened! People started streaming out of the arena! Don’t they know U2 mostly always finish with 40?? Houston is a funny place. The band came back out and played a rocking version of ABOY, followed by Fast Cars, which was a blast. I think Adam did a lap of the ellipse at this point, and got some well deserved cheering; he is the coolest in the band. I was hoping for them to finish with Bad and then they started Yahweh, which I’d forgotten about and was really good.
I would have liked a few older songs thrown in the encores – perhaps The Fly, UTEOFW, Angel of Harlem (they did in Dallas), God’s Country, October/NYD, Party Girl. They finished up with 40, and this really is a good way to end the show. Bono shone a light around the arena; everyone in each section had their arms up in the air as the light went by. Larry finished up with his solo and walked to the front of the stage to huge cheering. I thought he was going to say something into the mic, but he turned back.
So, clearly the best show I’ve been to in ages; my throat, arms and legs were still aching today because of all the cheering and jumping up and down! I’d go see them again, but probably not at agency prices. Walking back to downtown, we joined in with some more Elevation “woohoos” from cars going by - cool way to end.
tchaveziii
The Fly
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2005
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- 74
James U2 said:
Hmmm.. well I thought it was one of the better venues I"ve seen a show in.. it was my first time at the Toyota Center and I thought it was small for lack of a better word..the floor wasn't as big as other venues therefore, you got a pretty good view of the band from the floor unless you were standing behind a tall person.. I was 10 feet away from the front of the ellipse then moved back later on during the show..I did not notice any "lights" from the luxury suites, tunnel entrances, etc...paid no mind to them as there was a U2 concert going on. My friends had great seats at the level above floor front of the stage and they enjoyed the show immensely... I thought it was a better show than the Chicago show I saw in May. I saw them again in Oakland on 11/8 and that was a great show as well!! They never disappoint!!
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