Take Me Slow Dancing
Here we go.. Jennifer (VelvetDress) and I went to the show together, and hours after we wrote this up, even posted it a year ago. I hope you all enjoy reliving it, such a fabulous show!
October 31, 2001
Stunning, just an incredible show, both of our favorites of every show we've seen. By now you've
seen the setlist and it was every bit as amazing in person as it was on paper. Party Girl, Slow
Dancing, Wild Honey, and Larry's awesome speech... the band just came out rocking in a different
fashion than Prov 1.
Bono ended Elevation with "celebration, celebration" over and over, and that just set the tone for the evening. At the end of the song he mumbled "Happy Birthday Larry" into the mic before
Beautiful Day came crashing in.
Beautiful Day- He sings "The heart is abloom" thump thump "shoots up through the stormy ground" thump thump. (The thump thump was him knocking the microphone against his chest.) He smiles b/c he's GOT it at that moment- loved that little addition. Later Bono changes the lyrics to "See Adam Clayton standing right in front of you", also Adam very blissed out at this show. At some point Bono grins at heart and says "Looks like an election" due to all the bright green papers that had "Let Larry Sing" on it and "Happy Birthday Larry"
Until- Some girls up front had a sign for Adam that said "Pose for us Achtung Baby style" and proceeded to strip off the velcroed pieces of clothing on the sketched Adam, leaving nothing on him except a shamrock. Adam was completely rocking. Instead of interacting with a girl, Bono took a helium 40th bday balloon from the heart and sang to the balloon then at the end of the 2nd verse he bit the string of the balloon, and released it.
Then when he got to the tip, he pulled a photographer from the pit, but the guy seemed to be a fan who had happened to get press passes, not a news journalist. Instead of the bullfight! - he beckoned the nervous photographer towards him, as Bono embraced Edge, putting his arm around his neck as edge played and they both posed for the photographer until the end of the song. Their poses were aggressive with gnarled teeth and daring faces. B gave the photographer a weird hug at the end, not really hugging.
SBS- Bono did the foot thing w/ the people at the tip of the heart, putting his feet up in their face. He reached in with his hand at one point, very able to touch the girl's hand but never actually having contact. He looked for Larry to keep beat going but there was a miscommunication so the band stopped while Bono talked about the IRA. When he's done SBS kicks in again, a bit awkward. Bono wanders back to the main stage, this is when he sees the girls w/ the flag shirts who will comeup later. After SBS, Bono encouraged the crowd to sing a Happy Birthday to Larry, which everyone started in at a different time so it was a bit muddy.
Bono then said (from what we remember) "When we asked larry what he wanted for his 40th birthday, he said he wanted to play a gig in rhode island." Larry laughed and said something we couldn't hear, then stood up and waved. Then he walked around the kit to the front stage, where Bono hugged him and presented him with a cake. Everyone was smiling a lot, the cake had one candle in it...Larry took the (chocolate) cake and pretended to throw it into the heart, laughing. Then Larry took the mic and -well the crowd went NUTS! we KNEW what a treat this was!!- "em, hello." and "I've waited 40 years to get up here at the front of the stage." At this point, bono is looking like a mischiveous boy on Larry's drumset. Then Larry says "and I really quite like it up here!" crowd goes wild. then he said something about feeling safe b/c "At least Bono can't play the drums" !! Larry said next: "There's no way I'd rather spend my birthday than with 18,000 of my closest friends. I feel so close to you that I could borrow money from you." then he gave bono the mic back. Bono said laughing "yeah and you'll never see it again."
After the speech Bono consulted Edge for a second, and the band started Party Girl. We flipped out!!!!! A large portion of the audience seemed to know it and they played the entire song, excluding just the line about "when i was three". It was a very solid version, unlike boston 4 with only Edge and Bono playing there. We sang the "ooh"s for Bono and he said Thank You.
After party Girl, again Bono paused to consult Edge and said something like "It just can't stop
here" and then started playing SLOW DANCING. by this time, we weren't sure if we had died and gone to U2 heaven. or if we were just home with the b-sides blaring. At some point Edge joined Bono on guitar, and then eventually Larry and Adam BOTH joined in as well. They played the whollle damnnn songggg it wwassss awessommme!!!!! AND BONO KNEW ALL THE LYRICS!!! The people in the heart really got into it and raised their arms and swayed back and forth to the song. After they repeated the chorus THREE times in a row, it became obvious that they didn't know how to end the song. Bono then started alittle speech about how "there's a phenomenon back home called the ballroom" and something about how they never got into it and that's why they became a rock and roll band, and he motioned to stop with his hands and the band complete ended the song w/o an ending. Edge was laughing and Bono was cracking up. It was hilarious, and such a treat!!!
After that a bottle of champagne magically appeared when Bono said "we need champagne" Bono
shook it obnoxiously and sprayed it all over the crowd, then on Larry, and then Larry took the bottle and took a healthy swig after toasting the crowd! He set it on his drumkit, smiling away and
waving at the crowd's hysteria, and Edge casually ambled over for a swig of his own! When the crowd saw that they cracked up even more and he laughed as if he was surprised at having gotten "caught". The champagne bottle was then given to a lucky girl in the front of the heart.
After a very solid Kite, with the usual "I wrote this song for my kids but I think my dad wrote it for me..." SUDDENLY OMG here comes Wild Honey. AFter Bono performed CPR to rescuitate us he kindly finished the song. It was not another goof version. He jumped up on the ramp and walked to the tip where Edge met him and they sang the song together. It was fun and beautiful and again Bono sang all the right words, although the lyrics were on the floor. Please acoustic with piano was next. It was beautiful. Bono spoke about the IRA laying down their arms. Bad and they put the house lights up during the latter part of the song. It was great! He changed the lyrics to "three colors fly". A fan had given him a book of sketches from pictures of Bono and his family at this point. He took it, leaving it open to the picture of him and Elijah. Repeated twice "it's not my fault."
There was a snippet before 40 which we don't know what it was from. A girl on her boyfriend's shoulders in the GC made a Bono connection.
Streets- he recited part of the Psalm again, which he hasn't been doing on this leg. It was a little
altered "I raise a toast" b/c he's forgotten the words. Ran by and glanced at my sign out of the
corner of his eye.
Found- another good performance which kept the momentum going. Changed lyrics to "when I'm burning inside her". Amazing transition from Found into Pride. Crowd was singing the chorus and clapping and then Larry KICKED into Pride w/o a single beat in between the two songs.
PRIDE. These is from two girls, who btw, are a bit tired of Pride. BUT, tonight was a different story
entirely. Somewhere in the middle of the song, Bono produced three beautiful girls wearing identical outfits- jeans with long sleeve shirt with the flag imprint. They followed him onstage
behind Adam, onto the heart ramp behind Edge, and were dancing and clapping their hands to the song. Bono paused midway and offered his arms to escort the girls to the tip. At the tip, he said "i brought these girls up from the back of the arena, and i'm putting them in the front row." He helped them climb on each of the three platforms at the tip where Bono sometimes uses to step into the crowd. He left them there dancing and grooving and smiling and singing for the rest of the song. They were incredible.
MLK speech was also included at the end of
Pride.
I had made a sign for Larry's birthday. It was basically the symbol for the Harley Davidson motorcycles, but instead of saying "Harly Davidson" I wrote "Happy Birthday" and where Motor Cycles was, I wrote Larry Mullen.
Anyway. As the band was leaving the stage I threw the sign up in the air- we were near the back, inside tip of the heart. Bono IMMEDIATELY saw it and smiled and pointed at my sign and showed it to Larry. Larry smiled and said something- i *thought* it was "I know" but i'm not sure, either way he was loving it and once I realized they saw the sign i started jumping up and down and they looked at it for several seconds! After the show I gave the sign to Dallas, who told me he would give it to Larry. Then Dallas went and got me the setlist Larry used to read during the show.
"Osama bin liner, as we like to call him - he can kiss my Irish ass" Bullet- kind of flat at start, B wanders around w/ hand shielding eyes - "outside outside outside" w/ Edge's guitar getting shrill.
Bono puts on cowboy hat at the tip of the heart.
What's going On & NY- saw them setting up spotlights, B right in front of us for start of song, behind the scrim, doin finger motions to girl on the other side of heart. One scrim wouldn't come down b/c of the balloon.
One- dedicates it to firefighter & stops his speech short- also praised fans about 1000 emails a day from fans to politicians about Debt, said amazing generosity consdiering what we're going through. The rest of the show was solid and gorgeous, though no other heart attack inducing set list changes!
Bono had us in the palm of his hand throughout the show and it was a much different atmosophere from the somber performance the night before. From the setlist that I got, Wild Honey is on the setlist but Party Girl and Slow Dancing are not. Also, the setlist has POE, but they substituted it with When Will I See You Again.
Forgot to mention the stunning I Will Follow. "Ring those bells Edge" over and over was reintroduced. As well, Bono sang the words "You've changed....you've changed me. Thank you." It took our breath away. He was incredibly gracious and humble and you could tell it was a special night and special moment, and this lyric change was not pre-rehearsed or done for effect. He also changed the lyrics "Your eyes make a circle we see you when we go in here," while gesturing at the heart.
At the end of the show we sang Happy Birthday again. Bono said something about the heart, with this big smile on his face as he looked out at all of us.
Jennifer & Carrie's review of Providence 2, about 1 hour after it ended.
I am soooooo excited, Happy Birthday Larry, what a wonderful, amazing astounding show!!! 
to our lords of song....
I remember that!! ~LadyLemon~ it was sooo fun meeting u! I remember how pretty u were, Larry musta been totally taken with you! 
