360° of U2

Last year I bought tickets to see U2 for Tara's birthday.  We were both really excited to see Bono and the boys one more time.  Unfortunately, Bono had a problem with his back which required surgery.  The last part of the North American tour was postponed and we were left in limbo.  Should we turn the tickets in and get our money back or should we hold onto our passes and wait for U2's possible return to Utah?

We held onto our nose-bleed seats and I'm glad we did.  Last night was the return of the 360° Tour to SLC and it was worth the wait.  U2 came onto the stage and overwhelmed the crowd with a musical and visual force that's hard to describe.

A lot has been made of "The Claw" - U2's gigantic stage.  With it's unique design, including 4 massive legs and a mammoth video screen you couldn't take your eyes of it.  To be honest, we couldn't take our eyes off of it because it was the only way we could see the show.  Still, that was the intended point, as the stage was designed so that you could see the action no matter where you were sitting. My favorite part of the show was when the screen broke apart into hundreds of smaller shapes and became a video curtain that stretched down to the stage. It was something I've never seen before and it was unreal!


With a collection of songs over the past 30 years it was easy for U2 to pick a vast array of diverse songs. Good thing for us. We weren't really big fans of the last album, so it good they didn't choose many songs from No Line on the Horizon. To be honest, Get on Your Boots actually sounded great live. Take a look at the setlist from the SLC show and you'll find a great mix of old and new:

Even Better Than The Real Thing
I Will Follow
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Mysterious Ways
Elevation
Until The End Of The World
All I Want Is You
Love Rescue Me
Happy Birthday to Bob Dylan
Stay (Faraway, So Close!) - This was a great acoustic set with Edge and Bono
Beautiful Day / Here Comes The Sun (snippet)
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Miss Sarajevo
Zooropa
City Of Blinding Lights
Vertigo / It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It) (snippet)
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight / Discothèque (snippet) / Mofo (snippet)
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Scarlet
Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)

Encores:
One
Blowin' In The Wind (snippet)/The Times, They Are A-Changin' (snippet)
Where The Streets Have No Name - Loved watching the stage go red during the intro!
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender


We loved every minute of the show, but as the second encore was starting we knew we needed to end our night.  Jason and Kristin were nice enough to watch the kids (on Kristin's birthday no less) and our night was well after 11:00 pm when the boys started playing With or Without You.  We decided to pack it in and head to TRAX, hoping that we could beat the rush and make it home by midnight.  We were wrong about everything.  The TRAX riding crowd had no end and we missed every connecting train.  It was impressive.  In fact, we couldn't have messed things up any better.  Still, we finally made it home a little after 12:25.

So, that was our night with U2.  It was fun to see them - probably for the last time for us.  Their music was great.  The show was beyond description.  The night was fantastic.  For a night, we were taken back through the years and U2's part of our lives.  It was just us and a band that have been together a long time.