Tuesday, April 26, 2005

God bless the Irish.

U2 and the Kings of Leon played Key Arena last night, which was amazing. Marshall and I joined MJ and his friend from high school for dinner beforehand and the show itself. I’ve seen U2 once before, but this was an amazing show, which was cool since Marshall's never seen them live before. Indie Rocker loves the Kings, but I’ve not really heard much of their stuff. Their performance was quite good and the lead singer reminds me of Jack White. That’s not a bad thing. Plus, their last song was made even better. The lead singer was saying how much the band loves Seattle and how they love being there. He then proceeded to announce that they had a friend coming to join them onstage. The friend? Eddie Vedder. Awesome.

After that particularly cool song, they took off and the stage got set up for U2. We were kind of up in the rafters, but for Key Arena, it’s not that far up and there really aren’t any bad seats. The stage was really cool-looking, and Marshall and I were really interested to see what it was going to do. There was an oval catwalk that extended around part of the audience and halfway across the floor, while the stage proper was circular and laid out at one end of the oval, farthest away from us. There were a bunch of screens above the stage and some sets to the left and right.

Once the lights went down, the crowd just went nuts once the band got onstage. Their first few songs, aside from “Vertigo” were mostly new ones that I didn’t really know. I must get that new album before we go see them again in December. Either way, they kicked into so many amazing songs that it was hard to keep track of them. I was ecstatic to hear “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” as it is my all-time favorite U2 song and they didn’t play it last time I saw them. So really, I can die happy now. They played all sorts of great stuff, from “Where the Streets Have No Name” to “Zoo Station,” “Mysterious Ways,” “One,” “Running to Stand Still,” “Bullet the Blue Sky,” “Beautiful Day,” “Pride,” “New Year’s Day” and a few others. Apparently they played “40” on Sunday night and I’m horribly jealous. Oh well. It still kicked serious ass and I’m definitely glad that we went.

Even if Marshall and I got home at 3am and I can’t really talk today. It was worth it!

Quote of the Day: “One man come on a barbed wire fence/one man he resist/one man come on an empty beach/one man betrayed with a kiss/in the name of love/one more in the name of love/in the name of love/one more in the name of love.” Pride (In the Name of Love), U2.

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