'Something is about to give, I can feel it coming...'

For U2's second show in Manchester half of the Manchester United football team show up, doubtless guests of Larry's good friend Roy Keane. Ryan Giggs, Dennis Irwin, Mikhael Silvestre, Wes Brown, Jaap Stam, Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Ray van der Ghouw and Ole Gunner Solschjaer are all here. As is Shaun Ryder, once of The Happy Mondays.

'Some songs,' explains Bono, 'You think you write them for yourself and then you find out you wrote them with somebody else's eyes, for somebody else's mouth. 'I thought I was writing this song for my children but I was writing it for my old man, this is Kite, this is from him to me and to you.'

For New York the singer paces in circles on the stage, picks up the mic stand and brandishes it like a spear, moves on to the catwalk and walks along the edge as if on a tightrope. This is a tight, even tense performance which is soon completely Out of Control.

'Get up now, what have we got, first single, long time ago, we're a band from Dublin...'

'On the bass Adam Clayton, on the drums Larry Mullen Jnr, on guitar 17 years old, the Edge...' raps Bono, with a head full of memories. 'Whispered in my ear, full of faith in my soul, I believe you, you gotta believe in yourself, you gotta believe in something else, out of control...'

Sunday Bloody Sunday arrives and Wake Up Dead Man and straight into Stuck In A Moment, with no introductions tonight.

The Sweetest Thing includes a snatch of Van Morrison's Into The Mystic and Bono and Edge embrace at the point of the heart for Staring At The Sun. 'That's good, tonight is really going off,' says Bono. Thank you.' All I Want is You becomes Mysterious Ways with the vocalist twirling a glass of water round in his fingers and throwing it into heart at start of song, then, with Edge at the top of the catwalk, Bono is dancing with the images on the screen on the stage. Bob Marley's 'Could You Be Loved' finds a home in Pride (In The Name Of Love) before Charlton Heston makes his nightly appeal - and then Bullet The Blue sky puts a different argument.

'Alright, thanks a lot,' says Bono at the end of With Or Without You, 'Spirit in the house.' He talks about Africa and the HIV/AIDS crisis which the western countries are failing to address and sings One.