U2 Comes to Philadelphia

So, last night, I got to see U2 in concert. It's really kind of a long story how it came to be that I went to see them...but, I'll spare you all the details of the backstory. Basically my friends, Keith & Michelle, had originally bought four tickets to the sold-out concert. As of last week, 2 tickets were still not spoken for. When they asked me at that time if I'd be interested in going, well, of course I was, but decided not to because I'm trying to save some money. Flash forward to yesterday afternoon (the day of the concert)...I'm in the grocery store with my Dad, shopping for my Gram. I get a call from Keith on my cell, explaining how they still had 1 ticket (his sister had taken the other) and asking if I was interested. My response: "You know what?...Yes, I'll go!" I started jumping up and down in the store (even though I got funny looks from my Dad and other shoppers). Yeah, money might be an issue right now, but how many times does U2 come to town?...especially since, I've never seen them live before.

Anyway, it was an excellent night...The concert lasted just a shade over 2 hours. We were on our feet the whole time (except for during the slow songs when we sat because the people around us were too). It's amazing because you don't realize how many of their songs you know until you see them in concert. I've heard people complain that U2 doesn't change up their setlist enough from night to night. That well may be true, but for someone who has never seen them live and has no previous U2 show to compare to, then it's just awesome.

The crowd immediately around us was pretty subdued (we were almost in the nosebleeds)...not too many annoying people except for the guy in front of Michelle and me...we decided he must be learning to count on his fingers or something because he held his hands up for long periods of time, constantly switching the number of fingers he was showing. The occasional fist pump...ok...but if you have to have your arms up through an entire song, it gets very annoying for the people behind you (especially because I'm not that tall and so his hand was pretty much right in front of my face).

Here is the setlist (from U2.com) :

Main Set: City of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, Elevation, Electric Co., The Ocean, I Still Haven’t Found What I'm Looking For, 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 (in the Name of Love), Where the Streets Have No Name, One

Encore 1: The First Time, Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Fast Cars, With or Without You

Encore 2: All Because of You, Yahweh, 40