Liverpool Daily Echo

15th June 2005

 

REVIEW: U2 CITY OF MANCHESTER STADIUM

 

by KATE MANSEY

 

' SUMMER is coming,' shouted Bono as he addressed the 30,000 strong crowd last night.

 

After a rainy day in the north west, the sun decided it was time to come out.

 

The U2 foursome strolled on stage as if taking on a stadium this size was just a walk in the park.

 

One of the biggest bands in the world cracked open a set brimming with anthems and tunes with the song Vertigo.

 

Bono's enthusiasm flared as he roared at the crowd during the opening songs, strutting down the elevated walkways that led to the crowd where lucky fans had been picked by lottery to stand at the front.

 

Only the harshest critics could have been immune t o Bono's charms.

 

At some points looking like a modern-day Fonz, the frontman and singer who can only be described with superlatives should by rights be cheesy.

 

During new hit single City Of Blinding Lights, he led a little girl on stage to sit at the bottom of the drum kit and enjoy the song with the best view in the house.

 

But he pulled it off. As did silver fox bassist Adam Clayton.

 

And, of course, it wouldn't have been the same without the politics, Bono donning a bandana with 'co-exist' on it.

 

In between songs, dramatic visuals broke up the set, although it kept flowing.

 

The Irish band made full use of the audience, asking fans to text ' Africa' to a number on the screen and throwing every ounce of energy and passion into a mind blowing version of Sunday Bloody Sunday, as the set was bathed in red light.

 

This is a band that has had more hits than you've had hot dinners.

 

It would have taken a particularly surly demean-our not to have the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when they played Where The Streets Have No Name, an example of the heights U2 can reach.

 

The encore, the first of two, was a break from the new songs with the band playing tunes from Achtung Baby, playing Zoo Station, The Fly and then breaking back with With Or Without You.

 

Underlying everything U2 does is a Mother Earth Ying-Yang philosophy of love many, hate none, perfectly shown in the symmetry of the set which was bookended with Vertigo.

 

A smart touch in a stupendous show

 

RATING 9/10

 

(c) 2005 Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd.

Belfast Newsletter

16th June 2005

 

U2 Hit Road With Explosive Mix Of Politics And Music

 

by Liz Kennedy

 

Bono dedicated a song to "any British servicemen or their families" in the emotional opening UK concert of U2's world tour. The extraordinary gig steered a course between political rally and anthemic rock, much like the diminutive Dublin rocker himself.

 

At times, he seemed tiny on the huge stadium stage, especially as he embraced himself in a bear-hug and talked about his late father Bob, before he sang Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own: "Bob was a working-class man from Dublin who loved the opera, a tough old boot who used to stand in front of the stereo and conduct it with my mother's knitting needle." If Bono got up close and personal for some numbers, he towered above the unforgivingly stark screens for others to demand that justice is done for the Third World. Bringing two audience members

up on stage with their fluttering white Make Poverty History banner, he explained that although it was simply a slogan, simply a T-shirt, there was "finally an end to the debt burden this week", after "seven or eight" years of work.

 

"Thank you, Gordon Brown. And thank your Prime Minister for that." Bono spoke of G8, as well, of the eight most powerful men in the world, "meeting in Scotland, on a golf course", but his most powerful political statement was with a head band with a "co-exist" message on it, written with a Muslim crescent, a Jewish Star of David and a Christian cross. "We are all sons of Abraham," Bono intoned, as he blended it with a Johnny Comes Marching Home Again melody line. Then he blindfolded himself, with it, prisoner-like appealing once again for justice.

 

For In the Name of Love, the U2 front-man mentioned Martin Luther King's Dream speech and reminded us that it was an African dream, as well as a European one and an American one. The Universal Declaration of Independence rolled across the screen and a voice-over narrated it to the Manchester crowd - the city that taught white people how to dance", according to Bono.

 

Then the "justice of the new Live 8" was the focus, with an appeal to Tony Blair to stand up for Africa. This tour the interactive weapons are "those dangerous little devices" (phones) to be part of the generation that made poverty history, by an on-screen text number. We were enjoined to "turn the place into a Christmas tree in June" with our lighted phone-screens, the 2005 cigarette lighters. But if I concentrate too much on the politics, the sing-along anthems were there too, with opener Vertigo, New Year's Day, Mysterious Ways and Elevation, Where the Streets have no Name and City of Blinding Lights all standing up to stadium rock. Beautiful Day is stronger in the studio mix, but it still made the evening sun come out. There was a nod to George Harrison's Here comes the Sun as well, at that point, with "a summer is coming" message and mention of Dublin. The image of the night which said it all, however, was the sell-out crowd howling under the half-moon, to their heroes of the night. Arms punched the air, darkness had just about fallen and the extraordinary metal screen was in full light. Tens of thousands of voices told the band: "With or without you, I can't live with or without you" as Bono roared the same message back

to us. That's fame, love and justice for you too, U2.

 

(c) 2004 Century Newspapers Ltd

Daily Telegraph

16th June 2005

 

Bono's glorious demonstration of stadium rock

 

David Cheal reviews U2 at City of Manchester Stadium

 

When it comes to the difficult art of playing guitar-based rock music, I don't think U2 are anywhere close to being the best band in the world: they can certainly play, but in a live context they can be a crude and ramshackle lot. However, when it comes to the even trickier art of getting stadiums full of people jumping up and down and clapping and singing, and presenting a big, sparkly, bombastic spectacle, they are simply unbeatable. There were times during this show when I feared for the structural integrity of the stadium, such was the bounciness of the crowd.

 

This was the first night of the UK leg of U2's Vertigo world tour, and if you have tickets for any of the remaining shows, you're in for a treat.

 

Here, the band - notwithstanding their technical limitations - were on fire, with The Edge delivering some lovely, fluent guitar solos, and Bono in full-on preacher-man-world-statesman mode. And, as the show moved through the gloaming of a temperate evening, their vast set, at the heart of which was a huge, concave backdrop-cum-screen, came into its own, shimmering and blazing. At times I didn't know where to look.

 

Music-wise, there were no major omissions; they played pretty much everything a U2 fan would want to hear, including Vertigo, Elevation, I Will Follow, One, Beautiful Day, Mysterious Ways, Pride (In the Name of Love), With or Without You, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where the Streets Have No Name�?25 years' worth of epic songs, custom-made to echo around stadiums, to get thousands clapping in unison.

 

And Bono? Well, Bono was Bono. He's sentimental, pompous, an ego the size of a planet, but, when he was holding forth on the need to end global poverty, not for a moment did I doubt his sincerity. He pulled two people out of the crowd who were carrying a "Make Poverty History" banner.

 

"It's a T-shirt, it's a slogan," he said, anticipating the objections of those of a more cynical disposition. "We need T-shirts. We need slogans. We need clear melody lines."

 

Oh, and he sang a bit, too, his voice a little rough at first but warming to the occasion, filling the place.

 

But time and again I found my eyes drawn away from the stage and back to the fans lining this elegant sweep of a stadium. It's a strange and beautiful form of entertainment, stadium rock: for it to work well, the crowd need to play their part, to become a third element along with the band and the set, and here they knew exactly what to do, clapping, jumping, waving, singing, shouting, cheering. Glorious.

 

Is there another band on the planet capable of sparking off such an awe-inspiring reaction? I don't think so.

 

(c) Telegraph Group Limited 2005.