Rome show in the Olympic Stadium caps a great week in Italy.
Music is a universal language, which is just as well as Bono spent much of tonight's show speaking Italian. And as Electric Co illustrated, music is a language this band have been speaking fluently for so long.
'Something we wrote together when Edge was 17 and I was 18.' as Bono explained.
People had travelled from across Europe for tonight's show, with the local papers full of their stories - many had started queuing the morning of the day before the show. And as in Milan the Olympic Stadium was peppered with home-made banners testifying of 100% commitment to you know who: an Irish flag with 'U2' on it was raised high in the air from the pit throughout the show.
And for much of the night, much to the delight of 70,000 Romans, Bono seemed at home in Italian, the band very much at home in Italy. 'Thank you for buying our tickets and standing in line. Thank you for giving us a great life.'
'Only to be with you...' we all sang, as the lighters came out and balloons started floating through the night air.
'Another marrying song', is how All I Want Is You was introduced, the same way Elevation had been described earlier, while a shining version of Miracle Drug was very personally dedicated to 'someone very special who's here tonight, someone who communicates every other way - with his hands his feet his eyes. Your eyes say so much.'
As Bono leant back to back on Larry, hammering the floor drum during Love and Peace, the band seemed more than delighted to be in Rome to complete a great Italian journey this week. With the tour more than half way over, new songs finding their way into the set and DVD shoots out of the way, it felt like a party tonight, like the tour can only get more exciting.
'As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart'
'CoeXisT' is increasingly common amongst the banners, with lots of fans making this a centrepiece of their signs, doubtless responding to events in London of late. When the word was writ-large on the screen, it was with acute poignancy in light of the day's events in Egypt.
'Father Abraham
See what happened today
See what happened today
No more
No more..'
Seemed like all hands in the house were clapping in time, every voice echoing the 'No more' - Edge's vocal riding over the top. Seemed like in uncertain times, a U2 show is a good a place as any to be. Bullet featured snatches of Johnny Comes Marching Home and Please before a huge ovation greeted Miss Sarajevo with Edge's gentle piano introduction.
'This song we want to dedicate to all the families... all the lives destroyed and broken by what happened today in Egypt. We would like to turn this song into a prayer.'
When Adam strode down to the b-stage for Streets, he found time to chat to fans who could barely believe their good fortune.
'Italy this is your moment,' explained Bono. 'Take out your phones light up the world...'
The campaign to fight poverty in Africa is not about left or right but 'We really need your help for Africa.'
'Italy,' he continued 'Is the most generous country to our band, Most generous people... that's why I cannot understand why Italy is giving the least.'
If Bono wanted his audience to redouble their efforts to persuade their government to find more funds to fight poverty, he had a friend in high places to lean on.
'Somebody you know gave me these,' he explained, pulling out a rosary given
him by Pope John Paul II in 1999, on an earlier visit to Rome. 'A beautiful man. And in return... the holy father put on my fly shades and made a wicked face like this!'
'I'd like to thank John Paul for all the work he did on drop the debt.'
Here's what they played at the Olympic Stadium in Rome:
Vertigo
I Will Follow
Electric Co.
Elevation
New Year's Day
Beautiful Day
Still Haven't Found
All I Want is You
City of Blinding Lights
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own
Love and Peace
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride in the Name of Love
Where the Streets Have No Name
One
Zoo Station
The Fly
With or Without You
All Because of You
Yahweh
Vertigo
