6/04 – Chicago, IL – Soldier Field

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Video taken last night... have to say that I preferred the second show out of the two, personally!

In God's Country:

Trip Through Your Wires:

One:
 
It's a real bummer that they end the show with a new song instead of I Will Follow. Is this Bono trying to make them relevant with new material. I'm going to Pittsburgh and hope I Will Follow will be back in the set.
 
Weekend in review . . .

Posted this over at @U2 as well . . .

What a weekend. I have the voice of Tom Waits and legs of jelly, but it was worth it 100x over.

Like many of you, I prefer arena shows. After the amazing experiences I had up close for the I+E shows in 2015, I tempered expectations for GA field (probably smart). But, if there is a band that can make even the biggest spaces feel small, it's U2.

This is a great tour - not their best, but worthy of a band with U2's live reputation. Could the set be a bit longer? Yes. Did I feel cheated after either of the shows? No. In fact, the opening salvo is so powerful that I expended a ton of energy early.

The highlights:
1) Opening on the B-Stage - SBS, NYD, Bad/ASOH, Pride is such a kick-ass start to the show. I prefer Bad, and wish it and ASOH could BOTH be in setlists going forward. Either way, the energy was palpable at the start of both shows. This band knows how to make an entrance, and some of the coolest and most understated ones (Elevation tour, TJT 2017 tour) are the most memorable.

2) Streets is the best live song, not just by U2 but any band I've ever seen. They do it justice on this tour (think Rattle & Hum with a gigantic 8K screen awash in red light), and the single song is worth the price of admission.

3) Side B of TJT is for hardcore fans, but the audience was attentive even if they weren't all-too-familiar with the songs. The best of the bunch? Exit. I personally love it when Bono hams it up, and he digs into it with this new character in the cowboy hat.

The encore leaves something to be desired. Miss Sarajevo is alright, and the accompanying video is quite touching. One is . . .well, One. Never been a great live song (at least, not since Zoo TV) but it's tailor-made for a singalong. Ultraviolet kicks ass, and Bono's voice was on point. From the field, there were audible reactions as different female icons displayed on the screen. I don't mind it, and the song speaks for itself. Beautiful Day-Elevation should be kept as is - tried and true, and the latter gets an incredible response. I Will Follow ended N1 with a punch, and The Little Things ended the weekend beautifully (though Bad to close would have been all kinds of epic).

I get to see two more shows - Louisville and Cleveland - so it feels good to have seen it, loved it, and know I'll get a couple more cracks at it. Best of all, what a nice appetizer for the presumed Experience Tour next year. These shows won't touch my first (Elevation, Indy 2001) or the Chicago 2015 run (3 of the 5 shows), but they are better than the Vertigo and 360 Tour shows I've seen. Oh, and there is no sign of aging. The guys came out each night and just played a damn good (and LOUD) rock show.
 
Let me preface this by saying that this was my first U2 show, and my first time at a concert of this massive size. I've been wanting/trying to see U2 live since 2005, but circumstances never smiled upon me until this year.

I had to travel from quite a distance out of town to get to the show, so by the time we got seated at 6:30PM, I was pretty worn out, but I knew once the band got on the stage I would be pepped up.

Our seats were on the 300 level at the end of the field. High up, but not in the extreme nosebleeds. We were also pretty centered and had amazing views of the stage and screen.

Pre-JT:
The start was incredible. It was really happening, and Sunday Bloody Sunday is an energetic opener, even if it's not a "happy" song. The crowd was into it, the middle aged people that dominated my section were rocking out.

Fast forward to A Sort of Homecoming. I yelled "FUCK YEAH" as soon as I heard the opening notes. I am convinced that they brought it back personally for me, after psychically hearing my yearnings and grumblings. The crowd seemed unfamiliar with the song, but I didn't care, I loved it. And what a neat arrangement.

Pride got the crowd pumped again, and then the screen turned red.

JT
I was partially spoiler free for the tour. I had looked at setlists and skimmed discussions, but hadn't watched any footage/scopes. So everything that happened on the screen during the show was new and fresh to me, and I'm glad for it. Because we were so far back from the stage, the screen was the main focus and it was beautiful. The desert road was perfect for Streets. The way it was shot drew you in and made you feel like you were traveling to another place. Transcendence.

Bullet, of course was great (loved the visuals there too). And then RTSS started. And a whole bunch of people were like "oh, a slow song, time to sit down". RTSS is one of my favorite favorite U2 songs, and though I enjoyed seeing it live, my favorite live version will always be ZooTV style with the hallelujahs.

Red Hill Mining Town was better than expected, and I liked the veterans brass section on the screen. Speaking of the screen, In God's Country was beautiful with the colorwheeling Joshua tree fading to an Irish flag. Would love a high res photo of that as a desktop wallpaper.

Oh, and I give Bono credit for acknowledging that the casuals weren't familiar with the second side of the album.

Fun moment: Bono pointing up at the literal moon when singing One Tree Hill. I couldn't see it because it was behind the stadium, but clearly Bono could see it and seemed pretty gleeful about it.

And of course Exit was fucking phenomenal. I can die happy having seen that.

Encore:
Miss Sarajevo was amazing. The crowd was transfixed by the video. In fact I was so transfixed by it that it took me a minute to notice the giant freaking photo traveling around the lower tier of seats. The performance was incredible, but at the same time I was irritated by a drunk lady in front of me attempting to do an inappropriate sexy dance to the song. Her total lack of awareness for the message was a little bit offensive.

There were no grumblings or nasty reactions to the women on screen during Ultra Violet. Michelle Obama got big applause, being a Chicagoan.

Cute moment: "We don't want to leave!" where the mid-encore break would have been. The four boys got into a huddle for a moment, and then went right into Beautiful Day. And say what you will, but Elevation IS a really fun live song. The energy was incredible all throughout the stadium. And you can dance to it. Dance to that, drunk lady, not the song about war-torn refugees :|

We had a fun little moment of Bono leading the whole stadium in a sing along. You could really tell he was enjoying himself and enjoying the show and enjoying the audience. Any rumors of the band phoning it in or not having energy on this tour are completely unfounded.

I saved my first proper listen of the new song for the concert, hoping they'd play it. They did, and I'm glad. Can't wait to hear the rest of the new album!

Lastly, Bono's parting words to the audience were another gem: "Go to bed, it's Sunday night for fuck's sake".



It was an incredible experience. It still feels almost unreal, but I am also still recovering from not having much sleep at all since Friday night.
 
Chicago 2

This was my 10th U2 concert, and I enjoyed it. It wasn't the best I've been to, but I've never been to a bad one. This is the 2nd time I've seen them at Soldier Field, and I prefer arenas just for the intimacy.

The opening four songs were terrific. I wish ASOH and Bad would both be included instead of only getting one of them each night.

I also thought the JT portion of the show was great. Side 2 of the JT is underrated and I liked the new arrangements.

The encore was a bit clunky and while I like the idea of finishing with a song pointing to the future, it was a downer after BD and Elevation.

One question for anyone that was there...were there times during the show where the bass interfered with the vocals? I like the bass line, but at times it seemed overpowering and the bass waves caused the vocals to be muddy. It wasn't like the crisp sounds on the IE Tour. But maybe that's just a symptom of an outdoor stadium?
 
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