If you've seen the setlists from this leg of the tour, it's easy to see that the Charlotte show's setlist was unremarkable, to say the least. I was disappointed that some of the more interesting songs from the first leg and this leg disappeared. Months ago, as setlists appeared online, we saw such songs as "Electric Co." and "An Cat Dubh>Into The Heart" and "Running To Stand Still" and "Bad," etc. And this recent leg revealed "Instant Karma" and various other treats. The Charlotte show was devoid of such rarities.

The show comes to a grinding halt during "Miss Sarajevo," during the Bono-soapbox portion of the concert. Thankfully, Bono wasn't overly political. U2's fans, theoretically, come from all walks, although looking around at the fans last night reveals that 95% of the fans are balding middle-aged folks like myself (35-54 is the largest demo there, by far). And among this set, not everyone is a bleeding-heart liberal. Obviously, no one booed or anything like that: on the contrary, there were cheers for the soapboxing. However, such cheers weren't nearly as raucous as they were when I first saw them 20 years ago, when we were all teenagers with no jobs or families. Bono himself alluded to the fact that it wasn't a left-thing or a right-thing but for everybody; he even thanked Jesse Helms and also thanked Teresa Earnhardt of NASCAR's D.E.I. (this is "NASCAR Valley," as it were). Bono's exhortation against the NRA received lukewarm applause.

Anyway, I digress. My point was that "Miss Sarajevo" is weak and has no place in the setlist. The rest of the songs were great, and I'm sure others will chime in with "it was soooo awesome" style reviews, so I'll leave that to them.

One other minor quibble: the sound wasn't very good at all. The boys were turned up so loud as to distort and sometimes have feedback. But the entire concert was distorted due to high volume. That was extremely disappointing.

All in all, a great show and worth every penny. FWIW, a stocky dude with lots of tats and a kilt was handing out wristbands to the ellipse back near the soundboard, near the rear staff-only exit. He was giving them away to families w/kids first.

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