Having flown over from Shanghai to see the concert, expectations were set high and U2 did not disappoint.

I was particularly chuffed about seeing them alongside Japanese fans, who are always fun to play with. A few expats were being particularly obnoxious and annoying, as seems to be expected, including one utter moron from the UK and his mate who decided they would push through an impossibly packed section of the crowd seconds before showtime. Thankfully, the mass crowd surge once the band members arrived on stage allowed us to muscle our way past one of said morons and locate ourselves about 5 or 6 rows from the front, midway between Bono and Edge's set spots.

The crowd surged and swayed as one for the opening track, "City of Blinding Lights", and went completely nuts during "Vertigo".

Highlights were "Pride" (delivered with gusto), "Angel of Harlem" (took the crowd to another place), "Where the Streets Have No Name" (ditto), "Bullet the Blue Sky" (seemed to befuddle our Japanese friends, but I went nuts, and rightly so - this is a killer track live), "Bad" (over 20 years old and still moves me), "With or Without You" (the best live rendition I've heard), "The Fly" (suitably euphoric) and Miss Sarajevo (Bono's operatic adventure in Italian was special, to say the least).

The only disappointment was the absence of "New Year's Day", "Desire" and "One Tree Hill", but you can't have it all, I suppose.

The sound mix was excellent - one of the cleanest sound mixes I've heard at a concert. It was easily the best sound mix I've heard in an arena/stadium concert.

There were two odd moments - from what I recall - during "Where The Streets Have No Name" and "Angel of Harlem", with Bono noting during one: "okay, that was a fuckup". Neither mattered.

"The Saints are Coming" went absolutely off live, and the Japanese crowd got into it in a big way. The crowd wasn't as familiar with "Window in the Skies", but it didn't matter after the house erupted for the second performance of "Vertigo" to close proceedings.

A thoroughly memorable and punchy performance from the greatest rock band of our generation.

Bring on the next tour...

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