Wrath of Lamb October 30/09

This may not be too popular, but here's my thoughts on the U2 concert Wednesday night. Was it good? yeah, of course, it was U2. It was really good.

Kind of.

The first problem were my seats. We bought the tickets ages ago... through the fan club presale, and they looked like they were gonna be great seats. That's because the stage set-up was supposed to be in the middle of the stadium, in the round. It was after all, called the '360' tour. But the stage was at the far end of BC Place, and we had a large lighting rig blocking our view.

Strike one.

The 'claw' which everybody has heard about, was really impressive looking. But that was about it. It didn't really do anything. The whole thing just felt overblown. Larry Mullen, the drummer, looked like hell. I thought he was gonna pass out a couple times. And Bono's voice was starting to show the strain of a long tour. The sound was pretty good, but not ideal. BC Place is known as the echo dome for a reason.

But perhaps my biggest complaint was the shameless marketing taking place inside the stadium. Every 50 feet or so there was a large Blackberry display, with 'Blackberry loves U2' written all over the place. I've seen U2 twice before, and this show was definitely number three out of three. I love U2, but it really seems like this tour was all about the money.