After reading the other reviews, I can identify with many of the comments, polarised though they are.
Yes, the organisation was woeful and atrocious. There were only 45,000 people to get into the stadium and it took hours! At the Sydney Olympics, the night Cathy Freeman ran, there were tens of thousands more and we suffered virtually no queuing. I was concerned that I hardly saw any ANZ Stadium staff monitoring the queues. I missed KW but then I was hoping I wouldn’t have to sit through this tirade so it didn’t matter.

It was disappointing that some fans in the stands who stood up got ‘torchlighted’ by the security staff – are we all getting so old and crabby that we can’t tolerate people who stand up to have a boogie at a great show?!?! So I had to contain myself and jiggle and dance in my seat! That was cool – I didn’t miss a beat!

As for actual show – I did agree that there was some element missing in the crowd – perhaps it was that fans were tired and annoyed by the disorganisation and were a bit deflated in spirits. I sat on the floor during the ‘Popmart’ show and it was much more energised. However, the boys performed amazingly, as always. While the show didn’t have the intensity of the three 1989 ‘Lovetown’ shows, due to this being an outside venue, it was nevertheless fantastic. I put it on a par with ‘Zoo TV’ in ’93, especially with the use of multimedia, lights and technology, though we had no phone call to Allan Border this time (maybe he could have called Warney?!?!). There did seem to be a couple of little technological glitches but nothing to spoil the fans’ enjoyment – this would just be nitpicking.

From a purely vocal point of view, Bono’s voice has stood the test of time; it has matured and become even more sonorous. The falsetto in Miss Sarajevo is testimony to this. It was great to hear the old favourites such as ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’, ‘Angel of Harlem’ and ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ (so reminiscent of ‘Rattle and Hum’) but the new stuff was pure U2 classic – ‘City of Blinding Lights’ sent chills up my spine while ‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘Elevation’ accurately summarised how I felt. I was particularly touched with Bono’s tribute to Robert Forster and the late Grant McLennen with the Go-Betweens ‘Streets of our Town’, a song which epitomises our lovely, little Bris Vegas. And I’m proud to say that I cried in the speech before ‘One’ and booed to all visual and vocal references of little Johnny Howard.

Every time I see the band I ask myself, “Will this be the last time I see U2?” I hope not and I hope that it’s not another 9 years until they return. And I sincerely hope it’s at a different stadium!!!!

Remember, we’re talking about Waste Management and that affects the whole damn planet!

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