U2 rocks Adelaide

Posted by stuart as

The owner of this little corner of the internet was one of the 60,000-odd (strangely middle-aged) bodies crammed into Football Park in Adelaide last night to be reminded once again that there is little in the world which compares to a good old fashioned rock concert.

U2 had brought its full stadium show back to Australia, after cutting their tour short in March due to an illness in the family of lead guitarist The Edge.

This was a concert for the ages, combining the hard rock that carried U2 to the mantle of the worlds biggest rock act in the eighties, and the (not unexpected) plea from front man and actiist Bono for the world to not “become a monster to slay a monster“, whilst urging the three significant religions of the world, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism to coexist.

But most of all, this was a rock concert of the highest order. Rather than “phoning it in”, as so many huge international acts seem to do on coming to Australia at the end of long and arduous international tours, Bono engaged the audience with a freshness and warmth that had every audience member feeling as though they were being presented with thair own private audience with the great man.

For this old stager, who counts AC-DC, Bruce Springsteen and Dire Straits among his favourites, this was a trip down memory lane. Giant video screens had the audience reminiscing of the extravagances of the Pop Mart tour, whilst the haunting version of Sunday Bloody Sunday left nary a dry eye in the house.

This was two hours of emotional highs, leaving this author feeling like he had been beaten senseless with rock, but it was all ok in the end, as we were pulled into the embrace of possibly the worlds greatest showman.

ten out of ten.