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By Julie Rowe
2005.04
If die-hards felt a little "rocked" to sleep at the Key Arena Sunday, their wake-up call was on its way. Maybe U2 was looking for a little redemption, or maybe the band was just hitting its stride, but whatever the case may be, U2 blew the house down on Monday night in Seattle. Opening with "City of Blinding Lights," Monday's set list varied a bit from Sunday's. A lot of fans may have expected more songs from "All That You Can't Leave Behind," but U2 only delivered "Beautiful Day" and a partially a cappella "Elevation" with a few notes of "In A Little While" tossed right in the middle to tease the audience before the music kicked in near the end.
Back catalog favorites such as "Gloria," "The Ocean" and "New Year's Day" filled the slots for older material, with "Gloria" sounding especially first-rate. During an emotional rendition of "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own," Bono selected a boy named Jason to escort onstage. Bono draped an arm around his shoulders as they walked, in an almost fatherly gesture that underpinned the content of the song perfectly. "Love and Peace or Else" flowed into "Sunday Bloody Sunday," during which Adam Clayton really shined, stealing the spotlight and definitely enjoying it. Clayton was more visible and enthusiastic on Monday than on Sunday, and all the band members interacted more with the crowd and each other.
"Bullet The Blue Sky" was a medley with "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"—an ode to a country at war—and segued into "The Hands That Built America," a song that many would love to hear more of in concert.
"Running to Stand Still" flowed into the "Bad/Ruby Tuesday" combination, thrilling the enraptured audience. Perhaps the biggest crowd reaction was for "Pride (In the Name of Love)," which was played back-to-back with "Where the Streets Have No Name."
During "One," with thousands of cell phones held aloft, Bono said, "I want to thank you for the spirit in the room of support." He was probably hoping that people were actually texting their names to the One Campaign and not just using cell phones as the 21st century's answer to the cigarette lighter. As the names scrawled across the screen, at least one was universally recognizable—Microsoft’s own Bill Gates. "There's a lot of reasons why this group loves Seattle," Bono said. "Some of those reasons are here tonight."
The "Achtung Baby" songs continued with a trilogy of "Zoo Station," "The Fly" and "Mysterious Ways." "Zoo Station," in particular, was electric, and Bono was in top form there, playing to the crowd outside the Ellipse.
The band wrapped up with three new songs and the audience was excited when Bono announced "Original of the Species" by saying, "We've only played [it] once before, this could be interesting." It worked out very well, indeed.
During the final set, Bono said he was going to give the audience an English lesson about the word “encore,”—"From the Italian, which means…to play the same f***ing song again!" I'm not sure about the translation but that's just what the band did, launching into hit single "Vertigo" for the second time that night to close the show, instead of regular tour closer “40.”
If there could be any regrets to be stated, a lot of fans were hoping to see "Until the End of the World" make it back into the set list tonight, but there is no sign of it as yet on the Vertigo Tour.
For the audience, many of whom were already worn out from the previous night, Monday's show was well worth the effort of returning, and newer fans saw what U2 could really do at full steam. Even opening act Kings Of Leon seemed in better form on Monday and had a nice surprise for the crowd—bringing out some Seattle rock royalty when Eddie Vedder joined the band onstage for its last song.
On to Vancouver!
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Published on
04-27-2005 at 11:29 PM |
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