Gothenburg: Amazing and Wet
Our woman in Gothenburg reports the rain starts to come down on Ullevi stadium during ‘One’ and the place lookes amazing as more people than ever hold their cell phone aloft. The band follow up with ‘Rain’ and then leave the stage, as Bono tells the crowd: ‘What an amazing night.’
During With or Without you, Adam stamps his feet in the puddles of water on stage. The surprise of the night comes during The Fly, when Bono flings in a few bars of Billy Boola (in response to a challenge from a fan back at the hotel), only to be topped by none other than… a completely spontaneous Party Girl, during which Bono gets out a bottle of champagne and sprays the audience, like in the good old days. Yahweh is dropped from the set.
U2.se’s ‘white wave‘ crowd participation plan was a big success. Bono even changed the lyrics to I Will Follow and apparently exclaimed: ‘Oh my God, what have we here?’ The crowd, reportedly ‘laid back and polite’ while queuing turned into a somewhat over excited mob in the front pit, but an awesome audience overall.
Check out Göteborgs-Posten’s fantastic cover shot. Their headline: ‘Bono is King’.
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Billy Boola.
Wow.
Billy Boola.
Wow.
It was more like Bono sortof shouting “Billy! Boola!” a couple of times during the Fly. It was really funny though… I’m sure it went way over people’s heads, including Edge and Adam, who gave Bono some real funky looks.
Adam stamping the puddles of rain during With or Without you was really cute. He was playing and sortof marching in place, like a little boy, then just cracked up laughing.
It had been so hot all day, humid and the crowd was getting dehydrated, very tightly packed in a sardine like fashion. When it started raining, it was kind of like an “anything goes” signal, and everything just went wild. From all the gigs I’ve seen this tour, this was the most tight crowd… even surpassing Glasgow, imho.
Absolutely awesome gig. Not really because of the setlist, but of all the little things. Like how Bono directed the band, to continue a song longer, to listen to the chorus, or see him hold up his face to the rain, and just drink in the atmosphere. They were so loose and laid back, it’s really been a pleasure to watch. It was funny to see Edge coming forward to play Yahweh, and Bono deciding to do something else instead. They still fucked up all the lyrics, but it didn’t matter, because the crowd has it covered, doing all the clap-clap-HEY thing for them. Bono handed the mic to Edge for a bit of it, when he opened the champagne, looking really mischievous when he went to spray the front row with it :-] Nobody minded, we were soaked anyway, and it smelled good. Also funny to see him take a sip, turn the bottle to look at the label and kind of see him decide it was pretty alright, since he set the bottle to his mouth and drank some more… I wouldn’t have minded some of that. The evening called for a celebration :-]
Shame Willie is just missing all the best gigs in his diaries, isn’t it?
Great to see how far the band have come since Brussels, every night is like a whole new experience. Class.
Last gig for me tomorrow…
It was more like Bono sortof shouting “Billy! Boola!” a couple of times during the Fly. It was really funny though… I’m sure it went way over people’s heads, including Edge and Adam, who gave Bono some real funky looks.
Adam stamping the puddles of rain during With or Without you was really cute. He was playing and sortof marching in place, like a little boy, then just cracked up laughing.
It had been so hot all day, humid and the crowd was getting dehydrated, very tightly packed in a sardine like fashion. When it started raining, it was kind of like an “anything goes” signal, and everything just went wild. From all the gigs I’ve seen this tour, this was the most tight crowd… even surpassing Glasgow, imho.
Absolutely awesome gig. Not really because of the setlist, but of all the little things. Like how Bono directed the band, to continue a song longer, to listen to the chorus, or see him hold up his face to the rain, and just drink in the atmosphere. They were so loose and laid back, it’s really been a pleasure to watch. It was funny to see Edge coming forward to play Yahweh, and Bono deciding to do something else instead. They still fucked up all the lyrics, but it didn’t matter, because the crowd has it covered, doing all the clap-clap-HEY thing for them. Bono handed the mic to Edge for a bit of it, when he opened the champagne, looking really mischievous when he went to spray the front row with it :-] Nobody minded, we were soaked anyway, and it smelled good. Also funny to see him take a sip, turn the bottle to look at the label and kind of see him decide it was pretty alright, since he set the bottle to his mouth and drank some more… I wouldn’t have minded some of that. The evening called for a celebration :-]
Shame Willie is just missing all the best gigs in his diaries, isn’t it?
Great to see how far the band have come since Brussels, every night is like a whole new experience. Class.
Last gig for me tomorrow…