Well, Tampa was every bit the amazing show that I had hoped it would be, and what an incredible experience for my first U2 show! Here are my thoughts, and as I'm a positive person, I want to hurry up and get the cons out of the way so I can spend the larger, latter portion of this review on the good stuff.
Cons:
- The noise! I'm stunned that for a band this big, they had the volume cranked way too loud and the sound mixing so far off. You could barely understand what Bono was singing half the time, and the Edge's guitars were at times like someone clanging a bell and playing it through a megaphone pressed right up against your ear. Sometimes you couldn't even really make out all the notes from the oppressive volume of it.
Now, we were in GA just a few people away from being able to touch the B-stage, and maybe we were just in a bad spot, but especially at the very beginning, it was so brutally loud (it looked like someone even conveyed that message to Bono) that it became very hard to enjoy (this problem subsided slightly as the show went on, but it never really hit that sweet spot where were were standing). However, that might have also been because it was Sunday Bloody Sunday to start the show, which is very overrated and the second a good bit as well.
- Sunday Bloody Sunday and One, again, because both are terribly overrated.
- Red Hill Mining Town. I feel bad listing this as an actual con, but I do it because it's probably the lone reminder that there's no such thing as a perfect album, despite how close TJT came to achieving that status.
- The Trump video, and not because of political reasons, but rather because it just seemed unnecessary and sort of disruptive to the flow. Exit is a dark enough song as it is following the mournful, yet hopeful One Tree Hill. This just kind of took things in a weird direction for a minute.
- I had hoped for A Sort of Homecoming. I started listening to it when I discovered it was in the set at the earlier shows, and I grew quite fond of it.
- Very little Achtung Baby, although I sort of get it. You play a full album and something is about to get cut.
- The audience's reaction to Beautiful Day. For being such an iconic song, I was amazed that the crowd didn't seem to go as nuts for it as I would have expected. I felt like there was all this buildup and it seemed like people were slightly jaded. Maybe it's time to give the tune a break, although I, for one, was glad to hear it.
- Bono's performance during Vertigo. I was THRILLED that the song was included, and I enjoyed it immensely because the instrumental portion was great, but Bono just seemed totally out of gas during it. It seems like, based on live recordings, it's a massive highlight of the show, and the audience reaction lent itself to that (I had a blast), but Bono seemed like he was somewhere else mentally.
- Tampa traffic. Ugh!
Pros:
- Folks, seriously, the show was just absolutely fantastic. The setlist was might solid, and the production was exceptional.
- Being so close to the B-stage, even with us not getting there much before OneRepublic's set.
- OneRepublic! I feel bad for opening acts because few people are ever really there to see them and they don't get to make full use of the stage, but man, they did an awesome job! The sound mixing was great for them as well.
- Adam Clayton: the master of chill. I think if I could only hang out with one member of the band, it'd be him, because he just seems so laid-back and yet it really seems like he's just there to have a good time. Plus, his purple and green basses are among the sexiest instruments in existence, and I say this as a guy who is trying to learn guitar.
- The stage. WOW, was that an impressive screen! As someone who was only eleven years old at the time of PopMart, it's nice to get a little bit of an idea of what that setup was like. Again, the production of the show was epic.
- The way the band seems like they're still in their twenties just trying to put on a great show and really connect with their fans. It's amazing the difference that B-stage makes. It doesn't seem to matter to them that they've been the biggest band in the world for so much of their career. They made it seem like they were still trying to win our approval, as if a sold-out football stadium wasn't enough to convince them that they already had it.
- The entirety of The Joshua Tree. My opinion of the album is very much elevated now, and it was mighty high already. Even songs I had considered overrated like ISHFWILF and WOWY were very good, and of course WTSHNN made for a killer opener and a spectacular introduction to the might of that stage and U2's ability to make themselves much bigger than four Irish guys just having a good time. Also, Bullet the Blue Sky was downright intense. This was one of two points in the show where the power of that sound made the song more than it ever was on the record. It felt like we were standing in the middle of a city being obliterated by an air strike.
I want to give a special shout-out to side two, though. In God's Country, Trip Through Your Wires, and One Tree Hill are a trifecta of greatness and possibly my favorite part of TJT now, and that's saying something. One Tree Hill is in my personal U2 top ten, and the other two are way up there in my rankings as well, and the live renditions were just incredible. Exit was the weakest moment of the side two five, but that's like saying that $900,000 is less preferable than an even million. Mothers of the Disappeared was also beyond spectacular, and I almost felt guilty for enjoying it so much given the dark subject matter. The visuals on the screen were perfect in creating a somber, haunting ambience for the song, and wow, was it a powerful end to the main set.
- Beautiful Day and Vertigo, because I couldn't just list them in the cons. I don't care if the audience didn't seem as into the first as I would have expected and if Bono wasn't on his A-game for the second, they were great. Vertigo is a sick closer, by the way.
And now, for the absolute highlight moment of the show:
EL
E
VA
TION!
Oh my gosh, I have never seen an audience so into a song as this, and I'm not sure I ever will again. On top of that, the whole band seemed as if they wanted to shake the Earth to its core with this thing, and we all joined them willingly in their quest to do so. Even my wife, who isn't really a big U2 fan, LOVED this song. It was the most rock and roll memory I've ever experienced, and bless U2 for not doing the extended intro to it where everyone just kind of sings the whole first verse and chorus before finally making it into the actual song one to two minutes later. I feel like some of those live recordings build up the energy only for it to dissipate because of the desire to just get the song going (maybe it's just my own impatience). I defy any other band to deliver power like U2 did during this number. I think U2 could have even played Zoo Station and I'd have been hard-pressed to get as enthusiastic about that as I did with this one. When tens of thousands of people are hoo-oohing even during parts of the song where it isn't supposed to be happening because they (read: they and I, lol) maybe forgot where the breaks in that are, you're doing something right.
TL,DR: the show was beyond exceptional.
