U2 Vertigo, Arrowhead Pond, Anaheim, CA, Sat., 02 Apr 2005, 7:30pm

U2 Vertigo


Opener: Kings of Leon (bands for other venues include The Killers and Franz Ferdinand).

U2:

Title (Album, Track)

Encore 1:

Encore 2:

Albums:

From U2.com: Five On Four

Five Things You Might Not Know About The Fourth Show on ‘Vertigo//2005’.

1. The band opened with Love and Peace for the second successive night - all members pacing the elipse-walk in the dark and only their powerful flashlights, strobing the audience, indicating who was who. Are we safe to assume this could be the main opening moment for the tour ? (Don’t count on it…)

2. Devin made her bow tonight, a little girl in her best rock concert pink and shiny outfit, lifted onto the stage during the close of Into the Heart and walked hand in hand around the elipse. At Bono’s suggestion she put up her hands towards the heavens and looked up at the roof – at which point a million pieces of sparkling confetti started raining down through the spotlights with the opening chords of City of Blinding Lights. And Devlin, unlike Tiffany the night before, was much quicker off the stage – straight back into her parents arms.

3. On the day that John Paul II died, Bono remembered his meeting with the Pope in Rome back in 1999. ‘I met the Holy Father and I was so taken by this great showman, this great performer and communicator,’ he recalled. ‘And even if I didn’t agree with everything he said, there was something really true about the light in his eyes. I said, ‘Holy Father, do you want a pair of Fly shades?’ He nodded, yes, and I gave them to him and he put them on and he made a face and he reached out and he gave me this - a little cross, they call it the crooked cross, designed by Michelangelo, my rosary. I put this in my pocket when I am at a rock show – you understand?’ Commending the wonders of science and the gifts of the medical profession, he starts to sing Miracle Drug, a song inspired by the story of the Irish poet and novelist Christopher Nolan.

4. Nearing Los Angeles, maybe it’s no surprise that the celeb quotient is nudging up and tonight it took a little leap. Matt Damon (second night running) was cheering and singing along like a hardcore fan – and nearby was Owen Wilson, Jon Voigt, Rick Rubin and Tom Morello of Audioslave. And then there was someone who knows a thing or two about a rockband on the road: screenwriter, Cameron Crowe, wrote, amongst other things, Almost Famous, which – getting a bit nerdy now - was partly filmed at the I-Pay One Center in San Diego, where the opening two shows on the tour were played.

5. Your starter for ten: when was the last time that the Declaration of Human Rights received cheers and applause? (Apart from the night before tonight that is.) Perhaps one of the most unusual aspects of the new show is the fact that, night after night, when Article 1 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, starts to scroll on the screens above the stage, the audience breaks into spontaneous cheering. In case you want to clap too, here it is: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’

Read the rest of it here http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html


U2 rocks again, with the Vertigo Tour in support of their latest album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Kings of Leon opened for them, but we came in the middle of their show. U2 started at 9:00 with a rockin' Love and Peace or Else, the song that I had in my head the most the days before the concert, probably my favorite song on the album. Pairing the songs with activism for social issues really makes the songs more meaningful. Bono dedicated the song "Miracle Drug" to Pope John Paul II, who passed away earlier the same day. They displayed the UN Declaration of Human Rights to cheers by the audience. They promoted the ONE organization to help end poverty. Overall, it was a rockin' and spiritually uplifting concert, as usual with U2.

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