I attended the U2 360 Tour in Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas on October 23rd and Vancouver BC October 28th. Since they were both virtually the same shows this one review will accurately cover both shows. I've read MANY concert reviews on this tour and seen many pictures of the stage. I will say that seeing it in person is quite something else. The huge Claw stage does many things; it blows smoke from many spots, it has moving ramps that allow Bono to interact with the audience from many angles, and it has a huge 360 degree video screen that is capable of stretching from ceiling to floor (entirely engulfing poor Larry Mullen, Jr!) when they so desired. This was my 9th time seeing U2 in concert and I will say they did a VERY good job of creating a seemingly "intimate" environment in a 50,000 seat stadium.
As for the music? Well....I'm not a fan of the No Line on the Horizon album...in my perspective it's an "ok" album, but nothing special and they do 7 songs from this album. I had hoped some of those songs I was luke warm on would have a better presence live. Actually, a few did. I thought Magnificent might be great live...I was wrong...it's exactly the same as listening to the album. Get On Your Boots is still not all that exciting either...I had higher hopes for that...HOWEVER, Unknown Caller had a video that played along with it and was VERY good. The boys did a disco beat and a video with I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight that made it very interesting...They ended the show with Moment of Surrender, which also was much better live than on the album. NLOTH is not my favorite album by any means, but I think a few of the songs may survive past this tour...
Amidst the new material there were a LOT of the standards; all the Joshua Tree giants, the high points off Achtung Baby, and of course Sunday Bloody Sunday. This was the first time I've ever seen them in concert that they DID NOT play Pride (in the Name of Love) though...curious. Bono and Edge did an accoustic version of Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Our Of, and in honor of Vegas, Bono threw some Elvis hits in there...
This was a huge, larger than life show...even Bill Clinton was in attendance. We never saw him, but Bono announced his presence and his motorcade nearly ran over me on my way out of the tadium parking lot! I'll take Bono's word for it. I will say I attended 5 shows on the last tour, which I felt was a PERFECT show: Great album, great show, intimate venue. I think because I enjoyed the last tour SO much it made me more critical of this one. My friend who was with me hadn't seen the band since Pop Mart and she LOVED the show...if they come back she has stated she would like to go again. I believe based on her reaction I will say that U2 knocked it out of
the park in finding a way to give as many fans as possible an "intimate" experience without having to play a 220 show tour. I'll give U2 360 two thumbs up!
