U2 Vertigo Tour Twickenham 18/06/05

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jnr

Date: 18th June 2005   —   65.00   —   Other

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I really had been looking forward to this one for months. A U2 gig is a special event the whole process takes up a whole day, it’s a proper event not just a night out. As the program says U2 are the last band packing out stadium with a program that is not simply nostalgia. They may well go down in music history as the defining rock band for my generation. I last saw them in a packed out Wembley stadium on the PopMart tour in 1997, I missed the Elevation tour in 2001 which I was pretty pissed off about. So in fact you could say I had waited 8 years for this gig. It is all too easy to be disappointed when expectations are so high but then they were in 97 and I wasn’t disappointed then. I had taken my ex back then and she was well impressed and she wasn’t even a U2 fan. This time I had booked my ticket alone because none of the other feckers from work would commit to it. With the benefit of hindsight I could have ordered the extra 3 tickets I was entitled to and sold them many times over the amount of people who claimed they would have gone with me but hey ho it would have been a lot of money to shell out on spec and I could barely afford the ticket for me.

We were lucky enough to have 2 support acts both of whom one would be happy to pay money to see alone, and somebody I know has! Doves were not helped by the fact that for some unknown many people had not taken their seats which was their loss really because Doves’ set was excellent, it complimented the U2 sound very well and I was sorry that they didn’t get the crowd feedback that they certainly deserved, those of us who were their were enthusiastic. Amusingly I appear to find myself now in the Dad’s section, it was us mid generation boys who were getting well into it! I don’t understand why having paid what is a pretty substantial amount of cash why you wouldn’t want to see the whole show. Anyway on the basis of the performance I’ll be looking out for Doves next UK tour dates.

Following Doves we had Athlete who are a good SE London band who came to prominence last summer. They have a freshness and exuberance that comes perhaps from the enjoyment of doing some things for the first time. This was their first stadium gig in their hometown and they gave it everything they had with a slight air of not quite believing they were actually here! Anyway like Doves I can recommend Athlete as a live act in their own right.

So then the main event. Not as glitzy and comercialist as PopMart and I don’t think the occasion would have allowed for that. The light show was raw and grainy but good but it looked understated tho’ the effects were great. The show seemed to be in stages for starters straight into Vertigo and the crowd livened up quickly everybody in our section was up on there feet. I have, I realised, joined the Dad’s section in so far as I am now old enough not to give a monkey what I look like when I get up to have a bop. I was singing too loudly and dancing in unison with the other burly geezers either side of me to care what I looked like, which is probably just as well.

If you want the full running order of the concert you can get it here I was pleased that we got I will follow, but we didn’t get With or Without You or Wild Horses which they got on Sunday and happen to be 2 U2 songs with very loaded personal significance. There was a good mix of old and new and they were put together in a very fluid way. I think the biggest surprise was Running To Stand Still whilst the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was shown article by article on the screen and read in tribute to Burmese president elect Aung San Suu Kyi.
That was very powerful and the song was a perfect choice, a very underrated track off Joshua Tree and never previously part of the U2 live setup that I have ever heard. The main body of the show had a sense of the new mirroring the old in that City Of Blinding Lights is a very Joshua Tree style of track and there were quite a few older tracks played. The encore was very Achtung Baby and ended with Vertigo which again has that Achtung Baby industrial feel about it.

I could have listened and sung along all day, it would have been nice to have had Desire, Angel Of Harlem, In God’s Country, Discotheque, Ms Sarajevo, Stay (Faraway So Close) – in fact there was nothing from Zooropa, Pop or Passengers at all. When you have a back catalogue like U2’s there is always going to be so much left out. For me U2 albums have been such a fundamental part of my life that any of the songs have reasonance and reminiscence.

All in all I get very grumpy when I spend large amounts of money and get nothing back, I needn’t have worried about this and the elation prompted me to start looking forward to the possibility of the next U2 gig at the new Wembley Stadium in maybe 2008-9.

Song Of The Day ~ U2 – Whichever Song You Like

Original Comments:


Lynne made this comment,
Psst…check date in header, hon. ;o) At least no one can accuse you of living in the past, eh?
Glad you had such a good time.

Redbaron responds – Move along now nothing to see here! 😉

comment added :: {ts ‘2005-06-22 20:13:15’} GMT+01 :: http://raingoddess.blog-city.com

rocky made this comment,
oh wow, that sounds awesome!!
once again, i am dying of envy, since the last concert i went to was ‘destiny’s child’ and i was DRAGGED there by the boyfriend’s lust for beyonce’s booty…well, he claimed it was her singing, but we all know better.

i actually bought athlete’s cd recently and liked it, especially ‘half light’ (great song).

i can’t believe U2 didn’t sing ‘with or without you’ though…

comment added :: {ts ‘2005-06-23 14:32:27’} GMT+01

moog made this comment,
ok, baron, ill see you in wembely!!! i admit it, ii will love U2 no matter what they do! saw them yesterday, and they were great as always! am glad that you had such a fantastic time! x
comment added :: {ts ‘2005-07-03 21:22:01’} GMT+01

Stallionez made this comment,
I went to Rome to see them last Sat.
All i can say is that they were Awesome. I am a U2 fan, and i have never been to a concert at all in my life. not just a U2 concert, but any concert

It is going to take a very very special band to beat that concert for me in the future, Unless it is U2 again!!!

Bono works the crowd. They know the score.

-Redbaron responds – Yeah they’ve always been known for their big stadium gigs and it is a special experience. I don’t think anything else will beat it per se but I would advise you go to lots of gigs, get the experience, some newer bands you get to see at very close quarters and that’s a different type of ambience.-

comment added :: {ts ‘2005-07-26 21:15:33’} GMT+01

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