A relaxed show, full of the unexpected, to say goodbye to Amsterdam.
'Thank you for bringing us back to Amsterdam,' smiled Bono, before I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. 'Where everyone is welcome, Big men small men, Hells angels, Real angels, Gorgeous girls... Gorgeous girls.'
It was one of those nights, from the moment Bono and Edge shared a joke going into Beautiful Day, with Edge changing the guitar solo in New Year's Day for the first time in twenty years. Why would Edge do that, asked Bono.
Actually, admits Edge, it was a mistake!
It wasn't long after this that Bono pulled on stage an extremely healthy looking Dutch man, muscles rippling under the stage lights who - would you believe it - actually picked Bono up and spun him around. Well, as the singer says, everyone is welcome and tonight, after what feels like a week in Holland, everyone feels welcome.
The orange and white and green balloons rebounding across the heads of the
audience underline the party atmosphere - one row of balloons near the front (pink, yellow, orange) testify that 'Bono is Great' - in Dutch.
'You're dangerous..' and they are and before you know it - sha la, sha la la - we're rocking to Wild Horses.
Lots of special moments for this final show in Holland from the surreal to the moving. Witness Bono grabbing a helium-filled Mickey Mouse balloon and releasing him into the top of this searingly hot arena where he must stay until they finally open the roof again.
'It means a million welcomes,' says Bono, translating his Gaelic. 'There's a lot of Irish people in this country because we love it here.'
Miracle Drug is dedicated to Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn and also to London while Sometimes..., where the opera in Bono is more powerful than ever, goes out to Robert Paschal Hanvey, father of Gavin Friday, who passed away a couple of days ago.
Adam and Larry dominate the vision at the opening of Love and Peace, straddling the end of each walkway as they drive the song along. This song has becoming a kind of turning point in each show, taking it up a gear and leavening the atmosphere with something darker before Sunday Bloody Sunday and Bullet The Blue Sky.
'CoeXisT - that's what I always thought the Netherlands was all about And its why we love you.'
And then a surprise: another song born in a moment of all-too-recent conflict, the first time the band have played Miss Sarajevo since PopMart in 1997. (Unless you know different...) And if the opera in Bono was big for Sometimes... it's even bigger now that he has to stand in for Luciano Pavarotti.
The lighters are out for this one and they are joined by the mobile phones for Africa in Where The Streets Have No Name. 'Pull out your phones and light up the world...'
One closes out with a snatch of Unchained Melody but there is another important dedication to come, this one for late Dutch rock star Herman Brood. Brood was one of a kind, and the band play Original of the Species, one of the most lauded tracks from the latest album which hasn't yet found a regular home in the live show.
Great performance, huge response. And just when you were taking a deep breath for Yahweh was to segue into the second version of Vertigo, along comes '40' - the first time U2 have closed a European show with this song for about twenty years!
Thanks Holland.
