Big Daddy Gouda

As we took our seats in Gillette Stadium about 15 minutes before U2 took the stage I instantly became nervous.

There standing before me, seeming so close I could reach out and touch it, was the Irish band’s $40 million 360 Stage, which Bono dubbed “The Spacechip”.  It kind of resembled a giant colorful spider and, from what I’ve read, was built mainly to enhance sound for the purpose of stadium shows.

I instantly pictured Edge strumming the first note on his guitar and like Marty McFly in Back To The Future, the sound from the speakers would send me flying to the back of the stadium, stopping only when I smashed into a wall somewhere.

How silly of me to worry. How naive of me to think that U2, a band who has been touring for 30 years, a band who was charging $100 a ticket in this poor economy, a band who craves audience adoration more than any other, how silly of me to think that they would spend $40 million on a sound system and have it suck.

Yes, my fears were assuaged the second the  band took the stage and began playing Breathe, a song from the new album. Sure the sound roared through out the stadium but it was perfect. Not too loud, juuuuuuuust right. Hell, at times the crowd was much louder than any sounds coming from “the spaceship”.

All in all a great show. The band played for a little over two hours, which included two encores. The last few times I saw the band was in somewhat intimate settings, like The Hartford or Providence Civic Centers and while our seats last night were pretty kick-ass, when you see a band composed of four guys, playing on a giant stage in front of 70,000 people, well, lets just say “intimate” is not the word I’d used to describe it.

Rumors have it the U2 will add a second leg to their US tour in the summer, when the weather is a bit more agreeable. Here’s to hoping the spaceship lands at Rentschler Field in Hartford.

btw, U2 more than any other band out there today is all about spreading peace and love through out the world. You would think this would reflect well on the audience coming to see the shows. Obviously not the case as I walked to the bathroom wearing my New York Yankees hat and some old cougar casually says, “Nice hat faggot.”

THE SET LIST:

1. Breathe
2. No Line On The Horizon
3. Get On Your Boots
4. Magnificent
5. Mysterious Ways
6. Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet)
7. Elevation
8. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Stand By Me (snippet)
9. Unknown Caller
10. New Year’s Day
11. Stuck In A Moment
12. The Unforgettable Fire
13. City Of Blinding Lights
14. Vertigo / She Loves You (snippet)
15. Crazy Tonight
16. Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet)
17. MLK
18. Walk On
19. One / Amazing Grace (snippet)
20. Where The Streets Have No Name

Encore(s):

21. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
22. With Or Without You
23. Moment of Surrender

This entry was posted on September 21, 2009 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Stuff . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.