Sunday Bloody Sunday
I hate it when Bono gets all preachy. OK I should mention that I saw U2 last night at the Banknorth Garden which I think used to be called the Fleet Center. I don't care if they're calling it the Garden now it will never be "The Gaaaaahdin". OK so Vertigo is the right name for this tour. We were in section 311 of the balcony. I hadn't been above the boxes before last night so when I got to my seat I had the uneasy feeling of falling out of my seat. That isn't the bands fault so much as the architects. So the show was good. We skipped the opening act which I find goes a long way to helping me put up with hard plastic seats for 2.5 hours. Again not the bands fault.
U2 came out and rocked. They seem to like playing in Boston. They had a really cool light effect. There were these curtains of individually addressable Christmas lights that gave the effect of looking at a TV set up close. They were able to make all kinds of trippy patterns and even, from where we sat, photorealistic images. It was an engineering feat. I applaud their lighting designer.
The music left a lot of their old classics out in the cold in favor of playing mostly new stuff. Nobody cared about the new stuff. That’s not why we were there. I know they’re not going to ever play my favorite U2 song, “Out of Control” but how can they think they’d get away without playing “New Years Day”? Bono did sing “Miss Sarajevo” which I hadn’t heard performed live. He nailed the Pavarotti part pretty well. Boston seems to have gotten some bonus John Lennon songs thrown in at odd moments and an encore that included “Instant Karma” which didn’t appear on the set lists for the other shows. Bono also included some Clash lyrics into “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Unfortunately it was “Rock the Casbah”. I think Too Much Joy said it best with “Every great band should be shot before they make their ‘Combat Rock’”. If Bono wanted to be cool he would have chosen something off of “Sandinista”.
Bono got preachy about Christians, Jews and Muslims all being “sons of Abraham” and they should mellow out. This seemed kind of like a strange fantasy coming from a man who grew up in a town murderously torn apart by two Christian sects that couldn’t get along. Get your own house in order before you go telling the world how to act.
The show was entertaining but not one I’d like to see twice.
U2 came out and rocked. They seem to like playing in Boston. They had a really cool light effect. There were these curtains of individually addressable Christmas lights that gave the effect of looking at a TV set up close. They were able to make all kinds of trippy patterns and even, from where we sat, photorealistic images. It was an engineering feat. I applaud their lighting designer.
The music left a lot of their old classics out in the cold in favor of playing mostly new stuff. Nobody cared about the new stuff. That’s not why we were there. I know they’re not going to ever play my favorite U2 song, “Out of Control” but how can they think they’d get away without playing “New Years Day”? Bono did sing “Miss Sarajevo” which I hadn’t heard performed live. He nailed the Pavarotti part pretty well. Boston seems to have gotten some bonus John Lennon songs thrown in at odd moments and an encore that included “Instant Karma” which didn’t appear on the set lists for the other shows. Bono also included some Clash lyrics into “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Unfortunately it was “Rock the Casbah”. I think Too Much Joy said it best with “Every great band should be shot before they make their ‘Combat Rock’”. If Bono wanted to be cool he would have chosen something off of “Sandinista”.
Bono got preachy about Christians, Jews and Muslims all being “sons of Abraham” and they should mellow out. This seemed kind of like a strange fantasy coming from a man who grew up in a town murderously torn apart by two Christian sects that couldn’t get along. Get your own house in order before you go telling the world how to act.
The show was entertaining but not one I’d like to see twice.
posted by Dean ASC at 11:09 AM
2 Comments:
Shit - I live in Boston and didn't even know they had passed through town. Guess I'm VERY MUCH OVER MY U2 PHASE. Yeah, that's the truth...
the war in ireland is pretty much over, and was never about religion it was about the freedom of a country that was overturned by british insurgents plus the war was mostly in the north and bono is from the south. although u obviously wouldnt understand as ur country is the invader not the invadee
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