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.