bigwave

sorry to hear about this... can you send me a PM with more details? thanks

tickets get released nearer the show date for various reasons, production, returns etc

looks wild that stage set up.

Its almost a week since I started packing for a visit to see the #U2ieTour Belfast shows. A relatively short (but bouncy) ride on a wee plane over the Irish Sea.. Planned a while back, intention initially was to go to Show 2 and be there in good time to take in a bit of the atmosphere after Night 1.. That plan changed, as many plans had changed, in the context of what had happened in Paris less than a week before this. The ‘chaos of Paris’ that was to turn into the ‘peace of Belfast’ still very much an unimagined uncertainty in that interval between the 2 city tour visits. Still shocked, confused, one feeling rose to the surface, a determination to be in that room the next time People Have The Power kicked in signifying we were moments away from the start of the next show. Business as usual. Not because of the Paris attacks. In spite of them. The show really must go on. In parts, Belfast looks and feels a bit like my home city in England. In parts it looks and feels really like no other city I have ever been to.* Growing up hearing about the Troubles via British TV, not really understanding anything other that it seemed like a pretty dangerous place to live in. Not somewhere you would think of going to deliberately, unless you got sent there as a soldier in the Army (which some of my schoolfriends had indeed done). Those daily dangerous times in Belfast are in the past now. A fragile past, still searching for full reconciliation and justice, but as I began to understand as I met and talked to people who live there, a past that there is real desire to move away from. Into a peaceful future. A wet and windswept walk from my friendly & homely B&B to the SSE Arena, through the city centre, across the river, southside to northside… a nervous energy that precedes any U2 show heightened by the realisation that this is about to happen. The #U2ieTour is home on Irish soil. Security understandabley that bit extra switched on. A long queue to get in, but no real hassle. Here. Present. Familiar faces at the e-stage. Hugs. Chat. Anticipation. No photo taking for me tonight. Full focus to try and take every moment in. Use the eyes and ears as the camera lens to snapshot the key moments. Be in the moment. The arena is probably one of the smallest of the tour, but perfectly formed for the production. Any seat a great seat, floor packed but still a bit of elbow room. Friends at the e-stage said to try to see the whole show from there, which I had not done yet, so I took their advice and parked my frame about 4 deep on Larry’s side. A white scarf was worn in solidarity with the #whiteoutbelfast #strongerthanfear fan initiative that had gained real momentum via social media and the local press, and as I looked around I saw many other fans had donned something white too. U2 friends agree with me - a U2 show starts the moment you enter the arena, the nuts and bolts of it, the audience filling up, the crew on view tweaking the setup right until the last moments, its all part of the experience. We all wondered how Bono was going to address the Paris attacks. It wasn’t a matter of if, but how, and when within the show. The haters would be ready to criticise any mistimed quote or reference I am sure. Pretty sure too that was on every fans’ mind also. And the band’s. ‘The most beautiful sound I ever heard’ goes the lyric to The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone). Never more true. The first chords of ‘business as usual’ bite deep after the rousing Bono solo intro whoah-oh-oh’s that get us all straight into singing mode. Invisible wall between performer and audience cracked open before a note is played or a cymbal crashed. Genius. From my chosen GA spot I found myself looking around at the crowd right from the early songs. Checking out how quickly they were getting into it. And truth be told part of me did at times think some awful shit about what went down in Paris. A part of me was very much on guard. So much even I think someone asked me if I was part of Security. Laughs. Insecurity more like it. Whether we liked it on not, intentionally, unintentionally, we were all there as part of an act of defiance against fear. Stronger than it for real. As any trepidations fell away during the opening 4 numbers (including A Gloria-snippeted cracking version of The Electric Co), deep breath to hear how the singer handles the intros… "What’s going on?" he asks. “A lot" he answers himself.. "since the last time we were here”. “You are heroes to us…its great to be back in the HEART of Belfast”. Job 1 done Mr Hewson. Having been to a few shows, its great fun to listen & look out around you as #U2ieTour first-timers who have no idea what is coming react to the start of the more theatrical elements that begin with Iris. Arms point to the screen, ears are shouted into about how thats Bono’s mother up there. When the ladder drops and he disappears into the screen, and then emerges for the first verse of Cedarwood Road… well remember the first time you saw that. Still jaws drop and some actual joyful screams just behind me… we are all transported to the street across from Cedarwood Road, looking over, up to this technicolour wondrous re-creation of a man’s childhood memories. It really is like a en-masse shared dream playing out in 3D in front of your face. I am reminded as Act 1 plays out, of the sections this show has, Part 1 the full on rock club bit, getting the adrenaline flowing, then that screen being used so theatrically helping to deliver the Songs Of Innocence - causing the crowd to respond in a different manner. There is so much going on you want to try to capture as much as you can of course… a real sense of wonder and amazement overcomes. Sam strapping the marching drum on to Larry and the musical drone snapped by the crack of the snare signals the intro to Sunday Bloody Sunday. Fucking electric chills. Heart stopping. The visuals have been changed specifically for Belfast. Oliver Jeffers and the Willie Williams crew have been busy this week its clear… A virtual journey is taken through the re-created, re-imagined gable end wall murals that adorn this city. Both Republican and Loyalist scenes are painted in equal measure on-screen. The odd ones of hope and peace standing out somehow more defiantly than the ones of pride and honour. So we are here in the middle of a rock and roll show when the ear-splitting, eye-searing simulation of Registration 1385-WZ explodes. In the heart of Belfast. (No sign off the feared riot some local politician had predicted by the way). Raised by Wolves had been played live 70 times up until this night. More like rehearsed 70 times for this night. Performance #71 of it nailed to the mast of the Titanic exhibition (just down the road..) This ship ain’t going down though.. The end graphics to Wolves was also changed to highlight some of the many other atrocities that have fallen on Ireland throughout the Troubles,. Atrocities done by both sides, always ending up with many innocent victims. ‘Let Them Not Be Forgotten’ ‘Rest In Peace’ fade out to the COMFORT ME cries and choppy guitar syncopations that deliver ‘Until The End Of The World’, to close out Act 1. Complete sensory overload. I am rooted. Its like being in someone else dream… I say again. But I am as wide awake as I ever have been. Feels a bit like just after the time I helped deliver my own baby boy (not through choice!), in the bathroom of our home, the scariest time in my whole life, followed by the most massive feeling of relief when the paramedics arrived and told me him and his mother were going to be ok… This does not feel like near the end of a Tour. It feels like it just got born. Again. Baby. In the bathtub of Belfast. * An exception to that would be that my visit to the separation wall that still exists between the Falls Road and the Shankhill Road did look a lot like the separation wall that exists around the city of Bethlehem and endlessly stretches through the rest of Israel / Palestine

happening now - Stocky & Fitzroy crew U2 night in Belfast : https://www.periscope.tv/w/1rmGPWbpzXVKN

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still a bit lost for words about being at these shows. hoping this might help : Unpacking#U2ieTour Belfast tonight 7pm / Fitzroy with @Stoxo & The Fitzroy players & singers : http://zootopia.u2.com/articles.html/_/zoonews/unpacking-the-u2ietour-belfast-sunday-22nd-n-r42

Tonight, Sunday November 22nd at 7pm in Fitzroy Church In Belfast (77 University Street BT7 1HL) there will be an unpacking of the #U2ieTour Belfast concerts that took place earlier this week - the first time the band has played in the city for 18 years. Fitzroy players and singers (Christopher Wilson, Dave Thompson, Jonny Fitch, Chris Fry, Shannon Clements/Peter Greer and Andy Patterson) will perform songs from the current tour set and Steve Stockman (Walk On - The Spiritual Journey of U2) will unpack the songs, visuals and the emotional, political and spiritual soul of the setlist. Steve told us : "Fitzroy is renowned, across the world, for its evenings on Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springteen, Bob Dylan, Christy Moore etc. They recently built their entire morning service around the hymns and songs of Van Morrison, the day before his Cyprus Avenue concerts. They have done U2 before but this evening will be a very specific look at these Belfast shows. New voices and new thoughts will be added to the mix. We are thrilled to have Angela Pancella (atu2.com) with u2 to compare and contrast the North American and Belfast shows!" "Local context was all over the Belfast shows. The political murals, the naming of the most bloody events and, of course, Raised By Wolves and Sunday Bloody Sunday. Even the debris pages that fall from the roof every night during Until The End Of The World was a pointed political comment right on the cutting edge of this week’s news". If you cannot be there they hope to broadcast the event live on Periscope - http://periscope.tv/fitzroypc Steve and Janice Stockman meet Bono just before the first U2 Belfast Show in 18 years This post has been promoted to an article

1. Care to share any evidence of that? Or is it just your opinion? Based on? 2. Who you talking about? Everyone? A group of people? 1 person?

fair play to jo still going strong on the meerkat, great audio https://meerkatapp.co/madfl3a/b5115365-fe83-40f5-bd88-4ae7f97771e8