(actually it are more just thoughts… and I have so many thoughts about these 2 concerts that I doubt it will be readable :P )
I have been to both the U2 concerts in Amsterdam! :D
I had seat tickets for both shows: (remember this picture? It feels like I made it years ago! :P)
At both the nights I sat in the middle and almost at the back (on tuesday I sat on row 26 of 27), so it is a good thing that I’m not afraid of heights :P
I went alone monday (yeah, all alone in a stadium with 60.000 others there XD)
MONDAY 20 JULY
On monday 20 July U2 give their first show in Amsterdam. I’ve never been to a U2 concert before so I did not really know what to expect… It was in fact my first concert at all! I’ve never even been in a stadium before :P
I was very very excited and could not wait to get there, so I arrived way too early :P Ah well, more time to admire the beautiful Claw :P
The Claw is HUGE! This is what the stadium looked like around 19:00 on monday:
This is what the stadium looked like at 19:00 on monday
The traffic was stuck, so it took a long time before everyone was in their seats…
At 20:00 Snow Patrol started and they were really great! I’m very happy that they were the support act. I am going to listen more to Snow Patrol, but it hasn’t converted me into a fan… they’re just a nice band :)
They played all their famous songs, but I did miss Take Back The City…
And then, at 21:30 Space Oddity played… That song is absolutely the best opening track imaginable for this tour! I absolutely love it! (I already did, but now even more :P) And then Kingdom! :O :D Can’t wait until the next album comes out! :P
Setlist 20 July (from U2gigs.com):
- Breathe
- No Line On The Horizon
- Get On Your Boots
- Magnificent
- Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet)
- Mysterious Ways
- I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Movin’ On Up (snippet)
- Angel Of Harlem / Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (snippet)
- In A Little While
- Unknown Caller
- The Unforgettable Fire
- City Of Blinding Lights
- Vertigo
- Let’s Dance (snippet) / I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
- Sunday Bloody Sunday
- Pride (In The Name Of Love)
- MLK
- Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
- Where The Streets Have No Name / All You Need Is Love (snippet)
- One
encore(s):
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
- With Or Without You
- Moment of Surrender / 40 (snippet)
Larry is the first to walk onto the stage and starts Breathe. Breathe does not give the same feeling as Elevation or Zoo Station, but I do think it is the best song of the album to open with. It was very impressive! And I know it was very very predictable, but I loved it when Bono opened with “20 July, nine-oh-five”! It immediately made the smile that I already had into a much bigger one ;P
Bono also said something in Dutch: “Fijn dat jullie er zijn!” It’s always good to hear Bono say something in Dutch! :)
No Line On The Horizon is surprisingly good live! And so is Get On Your Boots! I have to say that I did not like the Get On Your Boots performances from the Brit Awards and the David Letterman show. I knew that Bono really looked forward to playing it live so I hoped that it would turn out ok… And it really did!
Actually every song of the whole concert was great, so I think I’ll stop naming every song :P The beginning of Beautiful Day was BEAUTIFUL!!! I can’t wait for this show and the next to turn up on U2start.com! Before the first notes of Beautiful Day started I could have guessed they were going to play it… not because I knew the other setlists out of my head, but because of the fact that the Claw was now green and blue and what do they sing in Beautiful Day? Yep, “See the world in green and blue” Haha Bono sang: “See the world in green and blue/ Larry Mullen right beside you” :P I almost forgot! Bono did a very funny sort of robot move with his arm at the end of the song! XD
And then, my favourite of the evening! They played THE song I wanted to hear!!!! :D Mysterious Ways! It was so beautiful… *going into dreamy mode* :) Edge did not do his funky dance, but I could imagine it, so it made me smile ;P
I don’t know Movin’ On Up, so I wondered what he was singing, but it sounded great, just because Bono was singing it :) Oh and In A Little While was so great!!! I might have said before that I became a U2 fan thanks to the Elevation Tour dvd and In A Little While is one of my favourites from that show (together with Bullet The Blue Sky). I thought that this In A Little While was just as lovely :)
Edge’s solo on Unknown Caller was also one of the highlights of this show for me. Unknown Caller together with Mysterious Ways made me reconciled to not hearing Love Is Blindness.
Unknown Caller
The Unforgettable Fire was simply lovely and the Claw was so pretty with City Of Blinding Lights! :) City Of Blinding Lights is actually not really one of my most listened U2 songs, but oh it was so pretty! :P
The Unforgettable Fire
City Of Blinding Lights
The I’ll Go Crazy remix was so much more fun than I expected!!! I really really liked it No, I LOVED IT! Those heads were just too funny! Hahaha how could you not have fun when you see Adam, Bono, Edge and Larry like that! XD It was really hypnotising! And the bass and the djembe were also delicious!!! This was the moment when the most people went to buy drinks (ignorant people!) and hurried to get back when they heard Sunday Bloody Sunday…
LARRY! during I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
MLK was very beautiful… and Walk On too, but it made me think of the Elevation Tour where it was the last song, so I started fearing the concert was coming to an end… The You’ll Never Walk Alone snippet was also great! I’ve wanted to hear that sung by a full stadium for some time, but never thought I actually would! Thanks Bono! :)
One
What happened next came as a total surprise to me… I had read that Bono was wearing a suit of lights during the encore (very beautiful!), but I did not know there was a microphone coming down from above which Bono used to s(w)ing :P I was very confused at first (Hahaha that was the right way to Confuse-An-Anna) but I still enjoyed it :) Do you know what it made me think of? Drowning Man! “HOLD ON! Hold on tightly! Hold on…”
I think That Moment Of Surrender is a great song to end the concert with. It’s long and beautiful… It made me go away very peacefully :)
Lovely, lovely, lovely!
When I was lying in my bed what songs do you think were stuck in my head?
Space Oddity and some Snow Patrol songs! XD
TUESDAY 21 JULY
I went home very happy on monday and very glad that I had tickets for the next day!
This day I went with my mother. We had better tickets, because we were now much closer to the Claw. We were seated exactly in the middle of the stadium (I was surprised to find out how well you could follow the soccer if there would have been a soccer game!), but when we arrived at the seats I instantly feared we could not see Larry! One of the legs of the Claw was in the way so that we could not see the middle of the stage! Snow Patrol started with Take Back The City (the song I wanted to hear!) and played again very good! I could just see the drummer, but I wasn’t comforted by that, because he wasn’t in the middle of the stage, like Larry probably would…
This is Snow Patrol, you can see the drummer on the left of that leg...
Setlist 21 July:
- Breathe
- No Line On The Horizon
- Get On Your Boots
- Magnificent
- Beautiful Day
- Elevation
- Desire / Billie Jean (snippet) / Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough (snippet)
- Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
- One
- Until The End Of The World / Break On Through (snippet)
- City Of Blinding Lights
- Vertigo
- O Come All Ye Faithful (snippet) / I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
- Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet)
- Pride (In The Name Of Love)
- MLK
- Walk On / You’ll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
- Where The Streets Have No Name
- 40 (snippet) / Bad / Fool To Cry (snippet)
encore(s):
- Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
- With Or Without You
- Moment of Surrender / Drowning Man (snippet)
Larry walked on stage, and… disappeared behind the leg! :(
No Larry...
I was disappointed for a little while, but when I could see Bono, Edge and Adam so much better than the day before I got over it… Beautiful Day was very beautiful just like the day before, but Elevation really blew me and everyone there away! IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!! For me THE highlight of the two shows! And then it was followed by an acoustic Desire! Oh, it was so lovely! sigh :) I did now hope that they would play Staring At The Sun next, but Stuck In A Moment followed and was just as lovely as Desire! Edge sung his bit so great!!! Oh, I love his voice! And then they played One!!!! I can’t remember the last time that I have been that much surprised! Did you know that with the exclusion of the 16 May 2001 show, this is the earliest One has appeared in the setlist since 1993? No I didn’t either :P And Bono added the “Hear us come in love” verse!!! (or is it “Hear us coming Lord?” I’m not sure…) I loved that from the PopMart and ZooTV dvd and now he also sang it here!! :D
And then Until The End Of The World! It was just as brilliant as the one from the Elevation Tour Live From Boston!
City Of Blinding Lights 2
The setlist now returned to the songs they’ve played the day before. The songs were again brilliant and I’ll Go Crazy was again very funny :P
Wow… and then they played Bad! :) It’s getting a bit boring, but I have to use the same words again! It was beautiful, brilliant and lovely!!!
On monday they had a milkyway during One and tonight that happened during Moment Of Surrender:
The Milkyway
At first I did not know what concert I thought better, but now I do! Monday was brilliant, but Tuesday was simply incredibly crazy!!! :D I’m very very happy that they decided to have a big setlist change on the second night!!!! :D
I’ve heard a lot about the bad sound of the Amsterdam Arena, but U2 really fixed that! It was really good! :)
I can’t think of a negative thing to say… well, I couldn’t see Larry, but that did not spoil the concert…
I loved every single minute if not second of both shows! U2 is truly the best band in the world!
