The Great U2 Road Trip of '05 Part 3

Which brings us to Saturday night - which, thanks to The Baker (you know who you are) and the proximity to the stage of my seat, was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

My seat was on a row of chairs just above section 118, I'm looking straight across the stage, from about 20 yards away, with the Edge on my side of the stage. Nice to have some room, I was next to the end this time, again on the left of the row. Institute comes out, it's loud, but for some reason you couldn't make out the lead guitar, I saw him talking to his tech, don't know if they had issues or Gavin doesn't want to be upstaged. The music sounds better tonight (again that baker), Everything Zen is a slightly different version, when they got to Machine Head, there was a rode-hard, put-up-wet, fried-hair, Gretchen Wilson Redneck Woman off to my right doing the meth dance. Made my head hurt just watching her. Institute ends with a different song, a slow-build guitar workout, again, I couldn't hear the lead very well.

So this dude next to me sits there without moving a muscle, sipping his soda, I of course am foot-tappin', beer-swillin'. I'm thinking, ok, either this guy wandered into the wrong place and doesn't dig rock'n'roll at all, or he's a hardcore U2 fan and could care less about Institute. Turns out it is the latter.

After I returned from hangin' in the concourse during the break, diggin' the "prime cheese" and more beer, he starts talking to me and the woman to my right. This is his 7th U2 show, he's from Burnsville, NC. I told him this was my fourth, I told him about Kenan Stadium in '83, he was impressed, he first saw them in 87 or so. The woman to my right was from Brazil, this was her first show, she said "I grew up with U2 as a teenager".

So then U2 kicks in, it's loud, it's crystal clear, it's like going to your buddy with the killer stereo's house, and hearing your favorite album in a whole new light, realizing that rock'n'roll really is meant to be played LOUD. I'm standing there with my mouth hanging open at how AWESOME the whole experience is.

I was basically looking over Edge's right-hand shoulder, could tell he was wearing black Chucks (the former Helmet dude that plays lead for Institute was too, I have a pair myself). I can see his massive pedalboard, he's got 3 rows of at least 12 buttons each, he's pushing one every 2 measures or so, for changes more subtle than I can detect, I'm amazed at how he keeps up with it.

Here's the setlist.

City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo / Rockaway Beach (snippet) / Rock 'N' Roll Nigger (snippet), Elevation, I Will Follow, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Beautiful Day, Happy Birthday, Original Of The Species, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own / Torna A Surriento (snippet), Love And Peace Or Else, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bullet The Blue Sky / When Johnny Comes Marching Home (snippet) / The Hands That Built America (snippet), Miss Sarajevo, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Where The Streets Have No Name, One, MLK
encores: Until The End Of The World, Mysterious Ways, With Or Without You, The First Time, Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Bad / People Have The Power (snippet)

Otis had said beforehand if the Gibson Explorer came out to look for I Will Follow, sure enough, the tech handed it to him and that's what he played. Heavy-metal heaven.

From this vantage point, with 3/4s of the crowd facing you, it is amazing how gonzo the crowd is. Bono, who had said at one point on Friday night "you guys are CRAZY", commented that the crowd was even more fired up tonight. When the crowd was cheering and clapping, it was louder than the music. And you got the full power of 18,000 people singing in unison - goosebump city. Even the normally stoic Adam was wearing a SEG as he took a "victory lap" around the ellipse. What a rush that had to have been for the band, it sure was for me.

The Brazilian woman is bouncing up and down the whole time, she knows all the Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby songs by heart, the guy that was so wooden during Institute is letting out "woo-hoos" every so often, these guys are much more involved than the folks from Friday night.

Bono gives shout-outs to REM (again), Third Day, Ted Turner, who we sing happy birthday to , Bono says Dr. King's family is in the house, sings MLK, which I didn't recognize, I never listened to Unforgettable Fire much, having listened to Under A Blood Red Sky last week, I remembered why I was so disappointed when Fire came out, since Blood Red Sky was ROCK'N'ROLL, and Fire was when they began crafting their more mature sound. I remember at the time reading an interview with Edge, and he said that if they had kept going down the road of Blood Red Sky they would have become the ultimate rock'n'roll band, a caricature of themselves. My favorite song on Unforgettable Fire was Wire, I came to appreciate Bad from the Wide Awake in America EP.

This show was plenty rock'n'roll to me, thanks to the close-in seat, the baker man, and The Edge, who, while a totally different style, is right up there with Clapton, Page, Hendrix, etc. in my book. As Otis pointed out, on Bullet the Blue Sky, he played more of a David Gilmour space blues lead than the slide stuff he's done before. Between that and Adam and Larry's locked-in, thunderous groove, that song was phenomenal both nights.

All in all, one of the most emotionally intense events of my life, right up there with the births of my children.