October 27th, 2009 by soullldiva

I have to tell ya, it was pretty amazing to see one of the best bands of our time live at the Rose Bowl.  Yes, I went ga-ga over the Black Eyed Peas, but U2 is definately something special.  They give a rock-solid show and really know how to pull out all the stops in the production itself.

The “star” of the stage setup was absolutely the 360 degree video screen (aha! the 360 Tour) that sat just under the monster scaffolding which came down in 4 legs around the stage.  When I got to the stadium, I asked my friends “what is that thing?”  It was black and made up of hexagon-shaped pieces all put together like a puzzle. “I think that’s the video screen,” my friend answered.  I’d never seen any video screen like that before.  But remember, this is U2.

What IS that?

When the opening act was over, we watched, facinated as the roadies uncovered more bridges, steps, and brought on new equipment.  They even flew guys up in the rafters of the scaffolding to independently run spotlights–three in each leg of the stage.

See 'em sittin' in the seats?

We had heard that David Bowie’s “Space Odyssey” would be the signal that the show was starting.  When it came on the speakers, the crowd screamed.  The stadium blacked out.  An image of an analog clock came on the video screen. And the show started.

Of course, any tour is simply to promote the release of an album (usually), and U2 is promoting their latest, No Line on the Horizon. I’m not familiar with this album, so unfortunately, it took me about three songs to warm up to the Irish boys. Once they whipped out “Mysterious Ways”, I was movin and groovin and havin a great time.

I return to the video screen: our seats were essentially the backside of the stage, and while they did visit the back regularly (everything wireless, awesome), I watched 99% of the show on the screen and didn’t mind it in the least.  The video quality was amazing to see, and very film-like in quality. They even did some segments in black and white, which I liked.

Black and white, very interesting

But then the screen REALLY came to life.  First it came down from it’s original position.  Then, the individual pieces split and it created a cone-like shape and put on a great light show with some video thrown in.

But it didn’t stop there.  The screen came together again, but instead of folding back up, came down and was probably literally 5 feet above the band’s heads. It also revealed the brightly lit “antennae” in the center.

They launched into the infectious “Vertigo”, which in my estimation was the most exciting song of the show.

Well, after that I said “I can leave now happy.”  And we did, because we didn’t want to be stuck shuffling with the other 99,000 people for three hours trying to get out of the Rose Bowl (yes, we’re old fogies).

What a fantastic show.