U2 - Vertigo Tour 11/8
3rd leg of Vertigo Tour brings U2 back to North America, namely Vegas and Oakland.
Videos are stored over on my other site: Vegas and Oakland. Commentary about the show itself is shared on both sites! Scroll down below the pictures for commentary originally posted on the video site...
The confirmation of lunacy. Vegas on Saturday, back from Vegas on Sunday, Monday evening, off the San Francisco Bay Area to see U2 in Oakland on Tuesday... (ok, Annie was a little more sane and flew up Tuesday afternoon...)
Monday evening, Sophia and I flew up from Burbank. Uneventful flight. Head over to my parent's house to have dinner and spend the night, plus I can take care of a few necessary errands. Dinner initially looks like leftover green beans until my dad opens the refrigerator. We're all soon hard at work preparing scrambled eggs, more veggies, soup, rice, and catfish! YUMMY!!!
Next day, after errands are run and boarding passes are printed, we hop on BART up to Oakland and meet up with Annie. Dinner is with more of Annie and Sophia's family-- including Apple, Alex, and Ray, who escaped his company dinner-- plus Yoshi, who's joining us (Sophia/Annie/myself) for the concert. Dinner is excellent, although the name of the restaurant escapes me as of this writing. The UCLA connection is strong in this group, and soon everyone is swapping phone numbers and business cards during dinner. =P
Arriving at the concert, we meet up with Amy, who took BART up by herself... we would have met Pearl and Jer, but they had floor tickets and got inside the ellipse!! Introductions are made, then we start looking for Erik, who has Amy's ticket. We're forced to abandon Amy outside as Pearl starts texting furiously as the introduction songs wind down-- "whoa, Erik is coming after all? Awesome! ahck where is he? The PA is on Just Like Heaven! come quick!" and "Come now!! They're playing the song!" Thankfully, Amy stays and waits for Erik and actually does get to see the show... *whew*
Annie and Sophia, Yoshi and I run inside to our seats, just making it as U2 is walking on stage and City of Blinding Lights begins. **WHEW**
Up in the nosebleeds the effect isn't as dramatic as it is closer to eye level, and we're stuck in pairs this time, so we don't have the space to do the mutual bouncing around kind of thing. And Oakland Arena doesn't put you nearly as close to the stage as the layout of MGM Grand... but it's still an awesome show. (additional commentary is below the pictures)
The classic motions for U2 go through the concert, including the "el... e... va... tion!" chant for Elevation and the beautiful melody of Until The End of The World. Beautiful Day lacks some of the impact as we can't see the visuals too well from the nosebleeds, although hearing Miracle Drug dedicated to doctors and nurses feels a little bit special this time around. =D
We come out of the concert, packed down the stairwells, and meet up with everyone. Majed and his friends are gone already, but amazingly we've found Erik and Amy waiting, Pearl and Jerimy (clearly excited beyond mere words!) find us, and introductions are made again. Crazy as it is, 7 of the 8 of us present are UCLA grads. The whole "you look REALLY familiar... where do I know you from??" goes around and around several times as we discuss the concert and try to associate names and faces and degress of separation. Eventually half of us break down into politics and other stuff-- with a history degree, two polisci and two econ degrees present, we couldn't avoid it-- not with Erik there!!
Plans to find food afterwards are thwarted by long travel times ahead for everyone and the lack of truly memorable food near the Arena, so we snap some pictures and head home...
Good times for everyone... and quite an adventure for Annie's purse. Don't ask.
Left to right: Jerimy, Pearl, Sophia, Brian, Annie, Amy, Erik, Yoshi.
Setlist from u2.com:
City of Blinding Lights - mmmmmmmm good. The excitement is somewhat hampered by the fact that we're still trying to find out seats...
Vertigo - with an older crowd this time around, Vertigo clearly doesn't have the impact that some of the older stuff does.
Elevation - the memorable crowd-warming-up opening continues. Hard to complain!
Mysterious Ways - no belly dancer this time either, although I'm not sure we could see anyway!
Until the End of the World - this song has enough energy to demand group-body-swaying, despite the mellow tones it has. But there's just two of us this time... doh!
I Still Haven’t Found What I'm Looking For - Much more subtle in its beauty than the faster songs.
Beautiful Day - they continue to play this song at every show, and who can blame them? They love it, the crowd loves it, everyone is happy!
Miracle Drug - dedicated to doctors and nurses like it is almost every time (well, the Pope John Paul II a few times as well), leading into the next song, it just sounds right.
Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own - continues to be far more amazing live than it is on the album. Somehow, live, the reverberating vocals of "sometimes you just can't make it on... your... own..." come into their own.
Love and Peace or Else - not bad, but doesn't seem as strong as the older stuff.
Sunday Bloody Sunday - the power of the old stuff, the political message of U2, whatever's behind it: SBS continues to be one of the most rocking songs to hear live from U2.
Bullet The Blue Sky - missing the visuals on this one kind of sucks.
Miss Sarajevo - Bono filling in for Pavoritti still feels a little weird. You expect a deep tenor, and you don't get that... but it's close enough that this continues to be a wow experience.
Pride in the Name of Love - another classic. "In the name of looooove" followed by the instrumental backing right after has so much depth live... =D
Where the Streets Have No Name - having a poor angle on the visuals sucks. The crowd is always pleased, regardless of the view, so I hope I don't sound too critical!
One/One Tree Hill - surprise indeed. One lacks the excitement we had in Vegas, but the ending into One Tree Hill is unexpected and an amazing treat! I did not expect to hear One Tree Hill live on this tour... wow!
Zoo Station - fun! Would have been better with the belly dancer visual, but who cares!
The Fly - this song really has a strong set of impact from the visual-- we we high enough to see the upper video display with the words. Cool! Plus the people sitting next to us left early (!!!), so we finally had room to dance around!
With or Without You - very beautiful live. mmmmmmmmmmm.
All Because of You - seems a bit stronger this time around than in Vegas.
Yahweh - another unexpected change. Not as many people knew this song as it was from the current album, but the show is clearly very gracefully winding down despite the energy in the song.
'40' - the standard ending... it's a nice way to wind down, but so much is lacking compared to hearing Bad as we did in Vegas...
Original commentary from the video link.
Shot from inside the ellipse (7 o'clock position near the catwalk!) by Pearl, or 219's (side view) by Annie and Sophia.
After the amazing experience that was Vegas 2, nothing else had a chance to compare.
Oakland 1 was damned good, but the larger size of the venue alone-- equivalent seating but a much larger floor area and hence distance to the stage-- meant that it would have to work hard to compare.
Before the show was marred by some interesting screw-ups that will be told later.
The show was still amazing... it just lacked the personal touches that marked Vegas 2, and we were scattered in pairs all over the arena, mostly on the upper level. Dancing around in pairs just doesn't have the same energy as a larger group, particuarly when you're crammed in the upper deck and can't really move much, and can't see the graphics and the bright lights as clearly. Pearl and Jer scored their entry into the Ellipse at long last, though!!!
The Miracle Drug opening felt a bit more touching this time around, and Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own continues to be much better live than on the album. Hearing One Tree Hill was very unexpected, and Yaweh was a pleasant surprise for the second encore.
The feel was much closer to first leg shows at Oakland 2. The graphics were better and U2 really has things going smoothly, but the lack of special surprises made it feel much more conventional. Zoo Station sounded better in Vegas-- having heard it three (?) times now on Vertigo, I'm happy to hear it every time, regardless! With Or without You had nice touches in the "wooooooo wooooooo" being nice and drawn out from Bono.
I think we were just a bit overwhelmed. Too much U2 in too short a time, plus we had a much better view from our seats in Vegas...
Pearl and Jer emerged from the ellipse, Pearl's pigtails completely dishelved. They had tons of fun! =D
Who went... Majed, Rashad, and friends-- although we never did meet up with them. Pearl and Jer had their fan club floor tickets that got them inside the Ellipse! Annie and Sophia were two sections over from us, closer to the stage. Erik made it late (missed the first three songs), but he actually made it! Amy wasn't persauded by Sophia and I to come, so after Pearl got off work we pulled the heavy artillery (Pearl's insanity) and she convinced Amy to come. =D Yoshi finished up at clinic and made it, too! I don't think the conversion to complete U2-obsession happened to Amy or Yoshi like it did to Annie three nights ago in Vegas, but they had fun, and that's what matters. Woohoo!!
