U2 Elevation 2001
Minneapolis, Target Centre May 1st 2001
A Bluffers Guide to U2 in Minneapolis in 2001
* Edge was wearing a Timber Wolf t-shirt - hompage to the local basketball team.
* Special guests included Wim Wenders, Steve Lillywhite, members of Soul Asylum and The Jayhawks
* The songs they played are all listed left, under Set List.
* The local press were wowed: 'Joyful U2 concert runs emotional gamut' raved the Minnepolis Star Tribune, which reported that 'Every way you look at it, it was a beautiful night.'
The St Paul Pioneer Press claimed 'U2 leaves Target Center topless' with the writer suggesting the band blew the roof off the venue.
* On Sunday Bloody Sunday you can barely hear Bono's voice, such is the roar of the audience who are singing along. As usual, he takes an Irish flag from a fan, he slowly drags it over the floor of stage, folds it up and put it on top of the amp in front of piano.
* Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of is dedicated to 'our friend Michael Hutchence'.
* Desire is for 'Any punk rock or any other new band out of the twin cities, this is for you...'
* 'When we started out we were thinking we could be something,' explains Bono, introducing In A Little While. 'There was a group out of New York who inspired us called The Ramones. We got to know Joey a little bit over the last few years, he loved this song and I think it was the last song he heard.
'Joey turned this song about a hangover into a gospel tune that's how fucking cool he is...'
At the point of the heart catwalk, Bono singsl Slow Down My Beating Heart and taps Edge's heard with his microphone.
* 'Wim, you are an extraordinary man,' says Bono introducing Stay and talking to guest Wim Wenders, the man whose films stretch from Paris, Texas, to Million Dollar Hotel. 'This song is for you always. This was written for a Wim Wenders movie, we wrote it in Berlin, I donít know when, a while ago.
'I felt like Frank Sinatra then, I don't know what happened...'
* 'How are you doing, doing alright? Feels kind of amazing up here, it's rocking in this house.
'I'm going to do something that's very difficult for a singer to do, I'd like to introduce you to the rest of the band old school style. We never did this before on tours, we thought it was uncool and it is.
'On the drums, the man who gave us or first and only ever job, the one who started the band and might finish it, Larry Mullen Jnr, come on down.
'The first manager of the band, by far the poshest member and the man whose instrument holds mysterious powers over the opposite sex. The jazz man, musical conscience Lord Adam Clayton.
'Stage right, really don't know what to say about this one, more children than Abraham, looking fine, he could be flying the space shuttle but he's here tonight in his Timber Wolf t-shirt, The Edge.'
* Bad, says the singer, is 'about ordinary addictions'. How long to sing this song ?
* Mysterious Ways begins unsurprisingly but then, somewhere in all the dancing, Bono climbs into the audience and is completely mobbed. Maybe it was the person whose life had been saved. Maybe there is more than one.
* It was a great night with u2 in Minneapolis. The fans carried sign, as they do, and this is what some of them said: One Dream;Testimonial: Bono Saved My Life!; 40; Happy Birthday Bono; 20th show of the tour, 20 years since 1st Avenue; 40 For Encore; All the way from Baile Atha Cliath; Dance with Me.
