They were supposed so be here (Minneapolis) at the end of June last year, but that got cancelled at the last moment because of Bono’s injury. That later got rescheduled for July 23rd of this year.
Well, a couple of days before the concert date last year, I completed my bankruptcy, so obviously I was in no financial shape to go to the concert. I’d missed out on the previous one and well, despite the fact that they’re my favorite band, I’ve never been to one of their concerts.
Realizing that I wasn’t going to magically come up with the money this year, yesterday I sent out an email to my family with a one-item birthday present wish list, with a link to stubhub. For many years, I have steadfastly refused to provide birthday or christmas lists because my family had a history of not getting me a single thing on it to the point where it just pissed me off and I refused to participate any longer when they were blatantly ignoring my list. The list they kept hassling me about giving to them.
So honestly, I expected little more than a few laughs, a crappy shirt and some socks.
Today I get an email from my sister. She, her husband and my other sister got together and got me a ticket. And not just one of the nosebleed seats, a fairly good one. I am besides myself with joy.
So…
I recall a thread a year or so ago. But I’m feeling lazy and selfish and wanted to start my own thread to crow about my gift.
What can I expect?
Any other Minnesota dopers going?
About how long is the set?
Is Interpol (the opening act) any good?
I saw them in Oct. of 09. I think it was about 2 hours. It was a very good show, they played most hits but not all of them. If you have a floor seat and get there when the gates open you can stand in the inner circle right next to the stage. They let a guy in the crowd since a verse of a song - they threw him the mic. Of course the local critic thought that was terrible but fans liked it.
I saw it in 2009 in Dublin. Alas and alack, although it was a great old show I found it somewhat lacking. Hopefully they’ve stopped playing that turd of a last album of theirs. Magnificent was one of the few tunes off it that worked live.
My boyfriend was amazing and bought tickets for us, the really expensive ones, for the first night in Dublin 2009. I couldn’t get over the fact that the people sitting around us didn’t seem to be U2 fans at all. The tickets were something crazy like 130 euro each and for the life of me i couldn’t understand why people would come with friends or bring a family of 4 and not be interested in the show. I think i was the only person within a couple of rows actually singing the songs. I’ve never ran into this problem in the US before. One other thing that bugged me was that the support bands went on early and i missed more than half of a set that i was really excited about seeing!
Overall though i think the songs were good and they put on a decent show, the lighting and stage set up were awesome. Being a fan for years and years though I’m always wanting them to play more of their older tunes. They did do an encore of Ultraviolet which made my night Even with some of the crappiness of this show I’ll be forever thankful to my boyfriend for spending that amount of cash to make one of my dreams come true.
I’ll be seeing U2 in Pittsburgh end of next month, i think it’s July25th. I wish they would’ve come to Cleveland!!
Saw them…let’s see…I was pregnant with my son, it was a little cool, so must have been Fall 2009 in Oklahoma City (Norman, technically). Really loved it. We had nosebleed seats, but the stage was very cool–looked like a giant spaceship. Black-eyed Peas opened, but we missed half of their set due to traffic.
At one point Bono let a kid (probably 8 or 9ish) come up onto the stage and walk the big circle with him. It was really cute–the kid had this HUGE grin on his face the whole time.
The Oakland show last Tuesday night was exceptional.
They paced themselves with a handful of full-energy songs and tapered back to some slower tunes. Bono’s voice was not what it was for the Joshua Tree tour, but – heck – that 20-some years ago.
70,000 of me and my closest friends had a pretty decent night. And Lenny Kravitz, as the opening act, was okay as well (I saw him six weeks ago in an intimate setting and was very disappointed; like he was just dialing it in).
I actually might be able to make the Pittsburgh show, as I’ll be in the general region during my vacation. Their 1982 concert I attended, right before they broke big, was almost a religious experience for me.
My wife and I flew up to Chicago to see them in the fall of 2009. Neither one of us had ever seen them before. We were all the way up and as far back as you could be in Soldier Field, so it was kind of hard to see, but the stage was impressive, the video screen was pretty amazing, and U2 put on a good show. Snow Patrol opened for them - I had never heard of them, but they were a good opening act, and definitely preferable to the Black Eyed Peas.
I’m going to the Moncton New Brunswick show and have seats at the backside of the stage. I hope they don’t forget the fans back there but for $35 bucks a ticket you can’t go wrong.
I worked on the on-screen translations at the Helsinki gigs last August, so I saw the gigs from the FOH tower (where they run the lights and video from), but from what I saw, I was duly entertained. The video screen was really impressive once they got it to work for the second night; for the first night, something went wrong with the mechanics and it didn’t do everything it was supposed to (still looked fine to me). Cyros: as the name of the tour suggests, the video screens are 360 degrees, so I think even fans behind the stage should see pretty well.
I thought the video effects were really, really impressive for the most part, and the set was *massive *- the roadies started pulling parts of it down already before the encores during the second gig because it was just so huge and took so long to set up and dismantle. The set lists were good - they played a few songs I hadn’t expected them to, and I wasn’t too bothered by the No Line on the Horizon songs. The band also seemed to have a really good time during the gigs and joked around quite a bit (for example, the second night started out with pouring rain so they went off into a cheerful sing-along version of Singing In The Rain with the audience).
If I recall correctly, the whole thing (opening act + U2) was about three hours but I might be talking out of my ass here.
I was at the Baltimore show on Wednesday. The boys took the stage at about 8:55 and we were on our way out at 11:05. My fourth time seeing them and the second of this tour. Awesome show, according to this long time dedicated but not super hardcore fan.
Pre-Ticketbastard, the only way to get the “good seats” was by working for them by standing in line for hours. Sure, it was a hassle, but that ensured that only people willing to make the commitment were in the good seats.
Now, the good seats are either - people who lucked out when they purchased tickets on-line or people with a huge amount of money. So the really big fans, the ones who know all the words to all the songs, have to pay scalpers and are surrounded by a bunch of people there to hear a handful of hits.
While I’m not into their music, I respect Metallica for the “Snake Pit” they used to have, where 200 fans would get into a diamond shaped area right in the middle of the stage. You would have to get there hours early, and from what I understand, pass a quiz on knowledge of the band’s music administered by the road manager. This gave them a totally pumped-up crowd that the band could see and react to.
Meh, I’m pretty sure U2.com members get first dibs on a lot of tickets + the “real” fans turn up early anyway to secure a place at the front of the crowd in the standing area.
This tour I was surprised you can actually get pretty decent standing spots by the stage even if you don’t stand in line for ages. I guess because it’s just such a big venue or what. The good reserved seats are just too expensive these days.
Even with some of the crappiness of this show I’ll be forever thankful to my boyfriend for spending that amount of cash to make one of my dreams come true.