On saturday night, Shauna, her parents, and I went to see U2 at Soldier Field.
A couple thoughts…

-Overall, I loved the show. Only U2 can mix bombast with intimacy, high-tech corporately-sponsored space ships with old irish hymns, and a mirror ball with a call to make the world better. . .and take 65,000 people on a holy, ridiculous journey that feels both circus and church. A U2 show is both Saturday night and Sunday morning.

-Bono’s voice sounded better than i’ve ever heard…and the band was great.

-A couple sections in the middle felt quite tired. (1) “The Unforgettable Fire” fell with a painful thud, in spite of pulling out all the visual stops. (2) “Pride” / ”MLK” / ”Walk On” felt old and going through the motions.

-But I loved the couple big risks that they took. (1) The Rave version of “I’ll Go Crazy” was the gutsiest moment of the night. They took a very mediocre song and injected a ton of life and excitement. So great! (2) “Ultra Violet” launched the second encore with Bono in a neon jacket, swinging around the stage on a hanging, glowing steering wheel mic, with a huge disco ball turning Soldier field into a surreal, spacey world. The disco ball kept going and brought us right into “With or Without You”. Nice work, boys.

-I think that U2 is much younger and more progressive than their audience.

-My absolute favorite moment was “I Still Haven’t Found / Stand by Me”. As soon as they begun this classic song, Bono waved off the band and let us all sing from the top of our lungs. It was spine-chilling. The band jumped in and carried it to the end, but then Bono turned the singing back over the 65000 person choir. Check out the video from my iphone below…

Were any of you there?  What did you think?