Vertigo

Oct 20 2005
Washington, DC, US / MCI Center
with Damien Marley
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'We wrote this about 25 years ago, even then we had ideas way above our station. We're out of control.' And so was the second show in Washington DC. It's a good night in Washington for the second show, it feels very rock'n'roll and the band are out of control from the off.

'Sometimes you don¹t know where the show is going to take you,' explains Bono, after thanking Damien Marley for coming out on the road with U2, following a well-received opening set tonight. 'You can play the same songs but you still don't know where the show is going to take you. 'I pray that tonight's show takes us somewhere we've never been before, that we discover something new..'

Prayers answered even as Adam and Larry are opening up Still Haven't Found
and  Bono is reminding people that 'we've got a long way to go - stick around!' (Not that anyone is going anywhere...)

Beautiful Day closes with Many Rivers to Cross, including a snippet of White Cliffs of Dover, before blending into Miracle Drug and a reflection on the band's first landing in Washington DC so many years ago.

'So we first arrived in this city in a white van with our gear in the back
to play our second ever US show.
This city has been so very good to us.
Years later I arrived as an activist, humbling thing for me to discover just
how hard a lot of people work...'


It's Bono who is working hard in Sometimes You Can¹t Make It On Your Own,
straining for the top notes, holding every one in the venue with every note. Then it's all eyes on Larry, coming front and centre for Love and Peace or Else, Adam joining him to lay down the groove.

A huge cheer erupts as Larry wanders back to his kit, acknowledged with a wave and smile before the familiar tribal crack of Sunday Bloody Sunday.
'To see a country as small as our country in Ireland  be torn apart by terrorism...' muses the singer. 'Ideas are not more valuable than people.
It's heart breaking to see a family fall apart, it¹s the worst thing..'

The theme is maintained for the introduction of the CoeXisT logo on his headband, describing the religious icons or Star of David, Crescent of Islam and Christian Cross as 'family symbols.'

No More No More.

Miss Sarajevo bears witness to the birthday of Luciana Pavarotti, born seventy years ago this month and serenaded by one and all tonight. And then we're into another 'cellphones moment', an invitation to people to direct their political energies, via their 'dangerous digital devices', towards changing history for the good of the poorest countries.
 
'Lets turn this place into a Christmas tree tonight
Look what's under the tree
Washington DC
What we can do together
What we can do with a cell phone..'

Time alone will tell and time tonight allows for a soaring interpretation of Walk On, an ecstatic rendition of Wild Horses, an anthemic version of With or Without You and a pumped up All Because of You. It really would have been enough, but Bad was yet to come...

All Because Of You
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