Brazil nuts

U2 played their first South American show yesterday at Morumbi Stadium in front of an audience of 73,000 wild Brazilians. Bono spoke in Portuguese several times, which charmed the audience. They went nuts when he mentioned the next soccer World Cup: “Copa do Mundo. Vamos buscar o hexa?” “U2 é irlandês, Deus é brasileiro.” Translation: “World Cup, are we going for the sixth cup? U2 are Irish, but God is Brazilian.”

In the middle of the show, a 12-year-old boy is picked by Bono while singing “Miss Sarajevo.” During “Mysterious Ways” and “With or Without You,” a brunette fan danced with Bono, and she stole a very sensual kiss from him at the end. As he did in Mexico, Bono wore a jacket made with the local flag.

U2 will play again tonight at Sao Paulo, and on Friday will attend the Bahia Carnival by invitation of the Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil.

• Photos

• Globo video (concert footage at the end)

Setlist:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
Until the End of the World
New Year’s Day
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Beautiful Day
Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of (semi-acoustic)
Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride
Where the Streets Have No Name
One
Zoo Station / Jean Genie
The Fly / Satisfaction
Mysterious Ways
With or Without You
All Because of You / Norwegian Wood
Original of the Species
40

Mexico part II

Last night U2 performed again for the Mexican fans, possibly their loudest audience so far. Despite the long queues and cold temperatures the fans have endured over the last few days, Azteca Stadium was full of energy and the band responded in full form. All over the GA field, balloons with the colours of the Mexican flag filled the place.

Concert highlights include Bono pulling one girl to the stage to dance during “Mysterious Ways,” and his adding a “Cielito Lindo” snippet to the end of “Beautiful Day.”

Setlist:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
Mysterious Ways
Until the End of the World
New Year’s Day
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Beautiful Day / Cielito Lindo / Norwegian Wood
Original of the Species
Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet the Blue Sky / The Hands That Build America / When Johnny Comes Marching
Miss Sarajevo
Pride in the Name of Love
Where the Streets Have No Name
One / Unchained Melody
Zoo Station
The Fly
With or Without You
All Because of You
Yahweh
40

At the last concert held in Monterrey, the band dedicated “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m looking For” to the memory of Kirsty MacColl, and Bono addressed the Mexican goverment asking for justice for her. Yesterday, the office of President Vicente Fox made an official statement with the promise of a new investigation of the MacColl case.

Bonos Aires, part 2

Tickets for the second Vertigo concert in Buenos Aires on March 2nd will go on sale tonight at midnight through www.ticketek.com.ar. The only credit card allowed to purchase tickets is a VISA, as this is the main sponsor of the tour in Argentina. The other sponsors are Coca-Cola and Movistar.

Franz Ferdinand will open for the band at both shows.

It is rumoured that local TV channel Telefe will broadcast the second show for the Argentinean audience.

Lenny Kravitz: Proceed to Floor

Celebrities are so lucky. Not only do they have fame and fortune, they have luck too. Well, most of them have luck.

For U2′s second sold-out show at the Garden this November, a large number of celebrities scanned in Lucky Vertigo and packed the ellipse. Our non-celebrity staff (she’s a star to us!), who was also lucky and landed a spot in the ellipse, identified Lars Ullrich, Michael Stipe, Helena Christensen, Jimmy Fallon, Guggi, and Charlie Rose enjoying the show from inside the ellipse. (For the record, Rose doesn’t rock out. He studies the performance. With a beer in hand.) Bono’s wife Ali and brother Norman were also spotted rubbing shoulders with the celebrities and peon fans at the show.

Meanwhile, back at the mix desk were Lenny Kravitz, Josh Brolin, and “a lot of models” whose tickets apparently did not scan Lucky Vertigo. Awww!

The show was similar to the previous evening’s performance with one difference — the dedications. Bono dedicated “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” to his brother, whom he referred to as “Normal” and credited as being the co-writer of the song; “MLK” was dedicated to JFK; and “Stuck in a Moment” was performed in recognition of the anniversary of Michael Hutchence’s death.

As with the previous night, show opener Patti Smith joined U2 to perform a long version of “Instant Karma.” At one point, Bono and Smith left the stage as The Edge began a spotlight guitar performance. It seemed the audience were expected to finish up the song with The Edge, but when that didn’t happen, Edge left the stage (still playing) and returned with the singers to close the song.

Although “Yahweh” and “40″ were listed on the setlist, they were not performed.

NYC 4: “We’ll shine like stars…”

Welcome to moodswing central. Fans attending multiple shows in New York got to see plenty of different sides to U2′s lead singer.

From run-of-the-mill Bono on the 7th, to pissed off Bono on the 8th, to distracted and going-through-the-motions Bono on the 10th and absolutely determined to kick ass Bono on the 11th. We can’t possibly predict which of the ‘nice bunch of guys’ exactly will be fronting U2 on the 14th. You let us know.

Maybe it wasn’t The Edge’s smoothest show of the tour, but this time Bono didn’t snark. (His ‘I really enjoyed that, The Edge.’ earlier in the week came out a little cutting.) The man was too busy enjoying himself on stage. All smiles, all fun and happy banter.

During Sunday Bloody Sunday, he picked a little girl off the shoulders of her father in front row, and made her sing ‘no more’. Later, he gave her his COEXIST bandana as a memento. At another point during the show, a German fan was the lucky recipient of Bono’s pricey specs.

But the moment we were sure this was a special one came when Bono finally pulled out the fan-favourite ‘shine like stars in the summer night’-verse of With or without you, for the first time since God knows when. Trainspotters world wide wet themselves for sheer ecstasy.

The chorus of ’40′ echoed through the ‘Gardens’ (as Bono kept calling the MSG) for the longest time. Then the lights came on and for your U2log.com editor-in-chief at least, it was the end of Vertigo 2005. Thank you, Madison Square Garden, thank you, New York.

U2 treat Toronto to a Pop-selection

Boom. Cha. While we await full reports from our troops on the ground, we’re going to tease you with this short and simple statement: They played Discotheque!

Set: City of Blinding Lights / Vertigo / Elevation / Electric Co. / The Ocean / Beautiful Day / Miracle Drug / Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own / Love and Peace or Else / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Bullet the Blue Sky / Miss Sarajevo / Pride / Where the Streets Have No Name / One / Discotheque / The Fly / With or Without You / All Because of You / Fast Cars / Yahweh / 40

Daniel Lanois plays guitar on One, Eddie Vedder joins them near the end for a few bars of Ol’ man river. The ‘Pop Muzik’ intro starts the encore and the screen shows PopMart imagery.

2 Down, 2 To Go in T.O.

The belly dancer makes a return in Toronto as does Daniel Lanois’ joining in on ‘Bad’ – not sure what the connection is there. The ‘new’ songs (Fast Cars, In a Little While) that were played at the first Toronto concert are dropped and it looks like a return to the standard Vertigo setlist.

Will U2 be in an experimental mood for the 3rd concert – or wait until the 4th show to relax and let loose?

Thanks to flickr user andreakw for the photo

• Slideshow at Universal Music Canada’s web site

U2′s Larry Mullen writes open letter to U2.com members

Larry Mullen has written an open letter to U2.com members, which arrived in our mailbox today just in time for our morning coffee break:

This letter was also published on U2.com.

Thanks, Larry. It’s good to get a statement from a bandmember and truly encouraging to hear you’re looking into this matter personally. Fair play to ya. Don’t be too hard on fans who question, rather than follow blindly. They’re the ones that are prepared to show up even when the going gets tough. Those who love the most, hurt the most, you must know that. Good health to yourself, too and we’ll be seeing you on the road.

Vertigo Artwork

U2wanderer have got the final artwork for the European commercial “Vertigo” singles, which includes the interesting revelation that “Are You Gonna Wait Forever?” is produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno — an ATYCLB outtake, then?