"It’s not Monday, it’s Saturday night and we’re a Saturday night-Sunday morning kind of band," hails Bono in the first moments of tonight’s gig. And he's right, this is far from a mundane experience: the epic arena setting, massive rock instrumentation, and Bono’s passion with the crowd does make for a pulsating experience.
Firstly, Edge’s guitar fills space like no other guitarist can claim. An elaborate effects board, multiple amps, and extraordinary technique mean Bono rightfully introduces Edge as the genius of the band. No other band with just a guitar, bass, drums and vocals and no overdubs sound quite so huge as U2 do live.
Beyond their set up, it’s the personality of Bono that engages this London audience. He is in an immensely provocative mood and it comes to its head when he introduces 'Iris (Hold Me Close)' - a song about his lost mother. He goes on to walk between two giant projector screens that hang above the long outstretching catwalk and interacts with a moving image of her.
The projections screens play an important role in the stage show from here forth and are as an impressive of a use of digital technology in an arena as it can get. The beautiful artwork on them is used to depict the street he grew up on during ‘Cedarwood Road’ and Bono simulates walking down it, endearing the audience closer to him and the band.
The whole band then shift themselves to the narrow stretch of the catwalk for 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and perform the homage to the war stood side-by-side as illustrations of Ireland at a time of war are shown. Bono belts out his part with touching sincerity.
Moving on from his Irish narrative, the set takes a on a global position mixing a spoken word piece reacting to opinions about him having a lot of money as a peace activist in a stirring rendition of ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’. Edge uses slide guitar to great effect here.
Then comes Bono's expected speech on world poverty and he takes a noble focus in support of Europe increasing the intake of refugees from Syria. The timeless classic of 'The Streets Have No Name’ is what follows. The entire arena is on its feet at this point and for the remainder of the set they stride through super-hits such as ‘In The Name Of Love’, ‘With Or Without You’ and ‘Beautiful Day’.
The highlight of the night comes in the last moment as Noel Gallagher joins the band on stage with an acoustic guitar to sing ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. A sure reminder that U2 certainly can inspire a Saturday night reaction from 20,000 people on a Monday.
U2 played:
'The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)'
'Out Of Control'
'Vertigo'
'I Will Follow'
'Iris (Hold Me Close)'
'Cedarwood Road'
'Song For Someone'
'Sunday Bloody Sunday'
'Raised By Wolves'
'Until The End Of The World'
'The Fly'
'Invisible'
'Even Better Than The Real Thing'
'Mysterious Ways'
'Desire'
'Angel Of Harlem'
'Every Breaking Wave'
'October'
'Bullet The Blue Sky'
'Zooropa'
'Where The Streets Have No Name'
'Pride (In The Name Of Love)'
'With Or Without You'
'City Of Blinding Lights'
'Beautiful Day'
'Mother And Child Reunion'
'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'
Meanwhile, U2's remaining tour dates are below. For tickets and more information, click here.
Thu October 29 2015 - London O2 Arena
Fri October 30 2015 - London O2 Arena
Mon November 02 2015 - London O2 Arena
Fri November 06 2015 - Glasgow SSE Hydro
Sat November 07 2015 - Glasgow SSE Hydro
