Coming later this morning we will have the show report from Memphis - She was at the show last night and we expect to have agreat review in from her. Did you notice her chat with Bono ? Meantime the setlist has been updated - We await for MM to file her report
Bono is back to leaping and jumping again, and the delay in the end might prove lucky. During the past year, U2 has honed its show, added a few songs and integrated video of the Arab spring revolt into a moving “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Reviews of this leg — the seventh of the tour — are stellar. “Fresh and edgy as ever,” proclaimed The Salt Lake Tribune. “Lives up to image, hype,” raved The Denver Post.
The staging for “360 Degree” includes a 164-foot-high steel support rig, nicknamed “The Claw.” If that sounds like an expensive stage prop to haul around — it requires 120 trucks to transport — U2 can afford it: Even with a break for Bono’s rehabilitation, the “360 Degree” show has become the highest-grossing tour in concert history, surpassing the Rolling Stones’ “Bigger Bang
But that’s where the legendary U2 singer found himself Tuesday, stuck on the side of the road near Vancouver, his thumb extended in hopes of catching a lift. His chariot arrived in the form of a ride that brought him to his destination and turned the self-described rugby player on to Canada’s favorite sport.
“I like ice hockey, because people who play ice hockey are the kind of people who pick up hitchhikers,” Bono told a concert crowd Wednesday in Edmonton, Alberta, as seen in a video posted on YouTube. “I know this from personal experience.”
Bono and his assistant were out for a walk when, according to numerous reports, it started to rain. The U2 frontman/hitchhiker said that Edmonter Oilers player Gilbert Brule and his girlfriend were driving in a truck when they spotted the forlorn traveler.
Kelsey Nichols told CNN affiliate CTV, that she didn’t believe her boyfriend, Brule, that the hitchhiker was Bono. “I said no, we’re not picking up a hitchhiker. We’re going to die,” she said later, with a smile. “There’s no way.”
But Nichols, who was driving, changed her mind and turned around. According to the Edmonton Sun, the couple had set out for a local park to walk their German shepherd — a dog that eventually shared space in the back of the truck with the singer and his assistant.
During his Edmonton show Wednesday, Bono said that he had decided “that I now want to be Gilbert Brule,” a five-year NHL veteran center who scored seven goals in 41 games last season with the Oilers.
He then went on to cast his bandmates as other members of the Oilers’ franchise, dating to its 1980s heyday as a juggernaut on ice.
The lead singer decreed that Larry Mullen, U2’s drummer, would be Mark Messier, who won five Stanley Cups with Edmonton and another with the New York Rangers. Bassist Adam Clayton was dubbed Grant Fuhr, in honor of the famed ex-Oilers’ goalie. As to The Edge — who was born as David Evans — “he’s kind of the Great One,” Bono decided in casting him as nine-time league MVP, Wayne Gretzky.
Brule, who flew from Vancouver to Edmonton so he could go backstage at Wednesday’s concert, told CTV that he was “star struck” upon meeting the rock star and taking him to Horseshoe Bay.
“I couldn’t believe he said that,” said Brule of Bono’s gushing praise. “That was insane — I think I want to be him.”
Its been since 1997 when their last appearance was here. U2 remains timeless – 35 years of hits, moods, and tests of the holy sprit. U2 fans are not like other fans, oh sure we have heard that before about other fan bases, however the truth is that U2 fans dig deep and have passion for life, and love of people beyond space and time.
The stage is so massive it sets the tone for a intimate show
Bono of course knows how to work his audience with a few references to Canada and even a well scripted invite of a female from the audience to recite the lyriices of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” Bono was in the zone, ready bring the passion and power to all those that waited to see them
U2 band took the stage around sunset to open with Even Better Than the Real Thing. Read into that what you want. The Edge’s distinctive chiming guitar led the way in I Will Follow, sounding as fresh as it did when it came out in 1980. Mysterious Ways brought the energy to an even higher level, something that would happen repeatedly throughout the night: Beautiful Day, Pride (In the Name of Love), Vertigo, each song much more than a mere song, but a stadium anthem that invites the mass singalongs that again are thrilling in themselves, just to be there. To elevate, as it were, rock songs into such grand and grandiose statements would seem absurd from anyone but U2.
Fourteen years since their last appearance in Edmonton, Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry have almost perfected the stadium rock experience. They’re not ashamed to make it as big as they possibly can – because that’s what we expect from these guys.
Under a partly cloudy Wednesday sky, and a 50-metre alien crustacean known as the claw or spaceship, Bono and his boys took fans to new heights of excess, excitement and hockey hysteria at Commonwealth Stadium — 14 years after the band’s last visit to Edmonton.
(Truth be told, the excess started hours before their 9:09 p.m. start time — with a police escort from the airport to the venue for a quick sound check.)
If you’ve been keeping track of the U2’s current 360 tour, you’ll know the first few songs didn’t differ much from their usual set list — starting with Even Better Than The Real Thing, I Will Follow, Get On Your Boots, Magnificent and Mysterious Ways — five songs from three different decades of their career.
In a way, watching the Irish rockers on their giant screen was almost better than trying to see the real things on a puny stage in the middle of a huge football stadium, especially for those fans standing on the field. Bono and his bandmates looked larger than life on their circular screen, and so did the entire scope of the show, thanks to camera angles which incorporated the breadth of the almost sold-out stadium.
“Welcome to the 325 tour,” Bono quipped, making a dig at Commonwealth’s seatless south end.
Late morning, May 21, 2010, word shot around the world of his emergency back surgery and U2’s need to postpone a series of shows, including a stop in Edmonton.
Bono reportedly came close to losing the ability to walk, but his recovery looks complete — as he crouched under his microphone, shimmied, and swaggered around the stage, which featured an outer circular rim and two moving bridges. After hurling a bunch of white roses into the crowd during Until The End of The World, he treated fans to a story about hitchhiking in Vancouver and getting a lift from none other than Oiler Gilbert Brule and his girlfriend. The tale then prompted Bono to compare each one of his bandmates as to a former Oiler.
The Edge, or “Wayne Gretzky” on guitar, stickhandled his way through explosive anthems (Elevation, Beautiful Day) and touching ballads (All I Want Is You). Stoic bassist Adam Clayton, or “the Grant Fuhr of the band,” backstopped with steady and sensual bass lines, while drummer Larry Mullen Jr., or “the Mark Messier” of U2, was suave yet feisty behind his kit.
Unlike the band’s show in Winnipeg, where the city’s name was spelled with only n (and Manitoba was referred to as a state) on the band’s giant screen, there were no such gaffes in Ed- or rather Edge-monton. Instead, fans were treated to such happy pre-show facts as the number of suicides this year (422,982) and the number of days until the end of oil (15,535).
U2, of course, need a lot of the liquid to power their beast of a tour, yet the Irish rockers try to compensate for their materialistic ways by supporting social and political campaigns, such as Amnesty International, Make Poverty History and Product RED AIDS.
Fans celebrated the latter two efforts by bringing red and white balloons to the show, which provided a bit of distraction for a few minutes after the opening act, The Fray, left the stage.
As expected, Bono dedicated the last song of the night, Moment of Surrender, to the survivors of the Slave Lake fire, as thousands of cellphones lit the stadium in a warm glow.
“I have some people here from Slave Lake I’d like to dedicate my song to,” he said. “Whoever it is you want to hold in your hearts, hold them in your heart.”
Gates opened at 5:20 pm local time and U2 should be taking the stage about 9:00pm local time. We of course will be streaming the set list on our site.
Eager fans of the Irish rock band U2 tried to earn themselves a close-up view of the band by lining up outside Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium a full day before Wednesday’s show.
Joe Ahorro of Edmonton was the first person in line. Ahorro has seen the band at least 47 times on four different continents and believes the wait is worth it. You get to see a lot of the interaction between the band members. You see them talk to each other, make jokes with each other. You see them make their little mistakes and there’s just a lot more energy with the fans at the front, I find.”
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Fans have already begun to stand in line. The wait is half the fun. Soon the boys from Ireland will be upon us said one local fan, its been a long time coming. Fans are on high alert for U2 staking out the Fairmont Hotel, watching the weather, planning the day before the be show that everything is in order.
The Concert of the Decade !
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