Opening//Night

Now that I'm back in the office for a day and have my head above water with work, I have time to review the two shows of the tour so far. Opening night was a mixed bag. I'm not sure how much of it was situational, but I walked away with a bad taste in my mouth from the show. We didn't get into the Bomb Shelter and we were about seven people deep on the outside of the egg, despite getting there at 6:45 am. We only lasted about 20 minutes before my poor pregnant wife needed air. Getting smushed and not being able to see anything didn't make for a good show. We went to the back and enjoyed the rest of the show from there.

The boys truly didn't seem ready to begin to me. Bono screwed up lyrics in a number of songs, including Elevation and Yahweh. I did, of course, enjoy most of the show. The opening works well to me, with City of Blinding Lights. I know that others disagree, saying it isn't fast enough to get th energy going. I think it's a perfect musical intro for a show, similar to how I imagine the J-Tree tour might have been with "Where the Streets Have No Name" opening a show. Going into Vertigo right away was the right choice to pump things up. On opening night, the show stalled after that with the "Boy" segment. With AnCatDunh the show was nearly boring. The highlights of the night were "Love and Peace" and the Worship to close the show. The six-song Encore was the best I've ever seen. I also enjoyed the new 'version' of Bullet the Blue Sky, throwing in some unspoken protest and some spoken protest "Johnnie comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah"..."These are the hands that built America".