Beautifully staged, great lighting and video.

Very moving in spots, very congregational and they love the audience and the
audience loves them back. Tough New Yorkers singing every word for the whole
show, and that's a lot of words, many of them the most sensitive poetry in rock. 

Great story by Bono about coming across the Brooklyn Bridge from JFK and
seeing the city for the first time, asking the manager (Frank Barsalona, a legendary 
genius) how they could afford the ridiculous long car...manager explains that they 
are going to do it just like the Beatles start in New York and fan out across the 
country from there... And Edge saying, "Well boys, we're the toppermost of the 
poppermost," (quote from Beatles bio). At the time they were 16, 17 thereabouts. 

The next night they played at the Palladium, their first US appearance, in 1980. 
I was there. Hearing Bono tell this story 25 years later was overwhelming and 
I stood there 52 years old crying like a child and totally unashamed. 
The tattooed Bronx bruiser on my right patted my back and we smiled.

The presentation was spectacular, and again, the lights were innovative, and
beautiful, and well integrated into the show. There was one very cool video
moment where Bono (playing a blue Gretsch Country Gentleman) dissolves into
pixelated shimmer,then as they zoom in on the pixels it becomes clear they are a 
mosaic of faces, then it becomes clear that they are faces in the crowd at the show. 
5 cameras. Flawless. The production was the best I've ever seen.

Evans was fabulous, had a really great night, spraying sparks and shimmering rainbows 
from a variety of really cool axes, including a cream original Les Paul PAF blackpickguard, 
through several excellent thoroughly recent and modern Stratocasters, and a really good 
sounding Tele. Oh yeah and a Gibson Hummingbird and Dove, just to drive me totally crazy. 

How they manage to maintain such precise intonation on the strats I have no clue. 
His tech was in a sunken room built into the stage to his right and was a pretty busy guy. 
I'd love to understand his pedal board and preamp rack and how all those AC30s and little 
Fenders are wired up. He did have one of the Vox Valvetronix modeling amps and used it 
a fair amount. 

Bono was self-effacing, almost goofy, a country boy in the city... Very humble and in awe 
of New York and how far they had come. The political stuff was less forced than I'd thought
it would be. The audience is behind him, so he doesn't exhort. Smart. Last 20 minutes were 
pretty thick with proselytizing, but who cares. Hard to disagree with, and he didn't come off
like a dickhead.

Bad news: The rhythm section unfortunately never really takes off. Ever. They are just too stiff 
and restrained for the show to attain the exuberant heights that Edge and Bono try for. 
Very careful, dogged and robotic. But. There's a great military and tribal subtext in the 
drumming, and he obviously didn't win All-Ireland Band Drummer in 1978 for nothing. 
I just wish he and Adam would loosen up. The whole sound is bright and thin, and could use 
a little more Motown bottom end push, to really make it a universal sound. As it is, it's pretty 
white, and more brilliante than soulful. 

IT was a great night, tho, and I plan to hit one of the Fleet Center shows in December. 
Jamie