Incredible show last night, with one of the loudest audiences I've ever heard.
I was in a pub in Liege on Monday with my old Belgian mucker Neil. They have menus of Belgian beers here which are as thick as telephone directories, there are hundreds of choices of tipple. Everyone last night seemed to be drunk on beers called Richter or Decibel. The stadium was fairly quaking from the volume of the crowd, especially at the end of the gig when Bono was stunned into silence by the crowd response.
I was in a front row seat behind the stage in the corner on Edge's side, immediately next to the tunnel where the band entered the arena. It all began quite raucously with Stingray and Beautiful Day. Then there was another huge kick in the volume of cheering for I Will Follow, everyone around me, and everyone on both levels of the stands behind the stage, was on their feet, clapping and roaring. The pit was bouncing, and the people further back on the field were jumping too. It was an amazing, breathless start to the concert, and soooo incredibly different to the (sitty downy) Breathe-NLOTH combo from last year. (Although I'd love to see both songs back in the setlist.)
Boots and Magnificent kept up the momentum. Mysterious Ways had the entire stadium waving their arms in unison. Then Bono beautifully boosted the party atmosphere with a great speech about the 360 tour being a Belgian tour (cos of the number of Belgian crew and the Claw and screen being Belgian) and the Brussels show being a homecoming gig. The roar this got was shattering.
And interestingly, this was all so well received without any translations of what Bono was saying into French or Dutch on the screen. Neil told me that Belgium is on a political knife-edge currently. It hasn't had any government for 100 days now after an inconclusive election. Apparently there is a huge political divide between the Flemish speakers in Flanders and the French speakers in Walonia. There is even a popular movement within the Flemish speakers for independence.
The language issue is very sensitive in Belgium and I guess it wasn't possible to scroll translations of Bono's little speeches into two languages on the screen. So the Tutu speech wasn't translated. And I finally got to read what the spaceship cartoon characters say in the encore vid, after seeing it in German, Italian, Finnish, Russian and Turkish (it's really not worth waiting for).
But the crowd's singing for ISHFWILF was wonderful. There was a gorgeous happy party atmosphere in the stadium. As much as I love Miss Sarajevo (Bono again poured everything into the solo and stunningly nailed it), Mercy and North Star, these songs do act (perhaps intentionally) as a release valve for the atmosphere. I would love to have seen what would have happened if U2 had kept the momentum going.
As it was, the atmosphere settled, only to rise again for the COBL, Vertigo, Crazy Tonight, (and especially) Sunday Bloody Sunday quartet.
Bono played (improvised?) a lovely little melody at the start of One, sang Amazing Grace with amazing soul. Then it was Streets, whose opening synths sent a surge of electricity around the stadium for the collective lift-off. Everyone seemed to be lifted by it, the view of the people in both tiers of the stands on their feet and clapping was stunning.
Ultraviolet was fabulous again. And, despite what I thought was a relatively poor version of With Or Without You, the crowd response at the end was just crazy. Everyone on the field continued singing, it spread into the stands, and the crowd's energy just fed off itself for a couple of minutes, as they just got louder and louder, especially when they realised that they had stunned Bono into silence. The other band members also acknowledged the crowd's response. There was some big mutual lovin going on and it was beautiful to see (and partake in!).
Bono couldn't talk the crowd back into settling down, despite trying a couple of times. But the slow-build intensity of the intro music of Moment of Surrender brought an absolutely stunning, shared, wtf-was-THAT, quiet reflection across the stadium. Bono then put absolutely everything into singing MoS.
So, a rather bonkers noisy ol gig last night. And as Bono told the crowd, they're back again tonight ... (Hope I can get a damn ticket!)
