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show attendees: 1

iambic
United Arab Emirates

Here you can find and post reviews of this show. We encourage everyone that either attended or listened to this show to write a review. Currently we have 7 reviews for you to read.

review by LikeASong

3 years ago

Performance

"Oh eh... And this is Gloria". That is one straightforward way to kick a concert off for sure, haha. Gloria is executed very well but didn't really hit as much as it does on some other concerts. Adam really learned to make his bass solo shine on the following tour in my opinion. Threw A Brick and A Day Without Me are always a highlight for me, I adore those songs (specially ADWM). A crowd REALLY singing along to Threw A Brick's "No one is blinder" is quite rare to find and I was very glad that this one did. Edge didn't really nail his guitar parts on A Day Without Me but I really enjoyed the rendition anyway. A girl in the audience doing Bono's "Oh!!" scream after the slow bridge made my day

After the initial run of three old tracks -which the audience really liked-, Seconds and Surrender were a not-so-welcome introduction to the new songs - remember that the War album had hit the stores only 3 weeks before this show took place! Seconds had a bluesy guitar intro that was kinda nice (but probably due to pure improvisation/trying not to fuck up). Edge was a bit rough on the vocals, I don't know if he was impersonating Tom Waits or what, sounds a bit ridiculous even! Four songs in and all Bono has spoken to the audience is song titles, that must be a record for him lol ...

As much as it's a quite complicated song to play on guitar (and slide guitar!), I still haven't found a bad performance of Surrender. Edge was always spot on and ready for it. If I had to guess I'd say it was one of his favorite songs from War. It's also a complicated song vocal-wise and I didn't think Bono would do such a good job with it. Overall, the first real highlight of the night for me. Fantastic performance!

New Year's Day was their biggest song by then and you can tell they really wanted to make the most of it during the tour (bar that Japanese TV performance). Even though the beggining is really different to what we're used to and in general the song sounded much emptier than usual, but that's common in these early 1983 performances. Edge was still getting used to the guitar-piano-guitar-piano switching (which is damn hard, I can swear) and the song suffered a bit. The solo and ending were nifty though, but it's a shame they had already cut the "maybe the time is right" bridge and the final "so we're told" verse. Man, they do some strange choices sometimes. Oh well.

Steve Wickham's violin was superb and really took SBS to a different level. The five musicians on stage performed really well on that song. Larry was reeeeeeeeally smashing these drums wasn't he? He even broke or lost a drumstick during the "wipe your tears away" part, haha. Impressive performance overall. The Cry/Electric Co. was usual business... Aka completely killer. One of Edge's finest moments in the whole decade for sure. Two chords and the truth!! Not much more to say, almost a flawless performance (only a small guitar mistake at some point and a somewhat shortened outtro, which is a shame).

"A song called I Fu... I Fall Down". I can almost HEAR Bono's smile after his own joke. He messed the second verse up and had to improvise some words which were better than some of the official lyrics on some October and TUF songs, lol. In general I'd say this is where the band started sounding a bit tired. As Tim noted, six shows in a row, wow that's something. I don't think they've ever done anything similar after 1983. I find it really amusing that Bono wasn't completely hoarse after six nights of singing straight (and considering the wild vocal range most of these early songs are in). Also, the piano had the wrong delay setting for October and it was hilarious to hear Edge trying to play without getting lost, hahaha. And Bono realizing that and coming in early trying to minimize the damage... Wow.

Tomorrow is one of my favorite songs from the 80s in general. I think it paints images and feelings like very few others can. The live renditions always catch me off guard though, so different to the album version. Not necesarily worse or better, but definitely so different. Steve's violin comes across much more clearly than on SBS and it adds to the general eerie feeling of the song. It's a shame the interaction/banter after the song is cut halfway and we can't really tell where this Andy history came from. I'd say he was someone Bono rescued from the first rows or something? Oh anyway. I've spoken openly about my indifference towards Two Hearts Beat As One in the past, but this performance was actually quite good. Edge was really giving his best, and so was Adam.

Twilight on the other hand... What a song. So dark, specially considering they were what, 19, 20 years when they wrote it? So intense. Bono going off at the techs ("turn of this stupid smoke!!!") actually put him in the right mindset to absolutely LOSE it in the middle part of the song. I'm surprised he didn't break his voice with those screams, wow, listen to that. I actually replayed this song after it ended, something I very very rarely do when listening to bootlegs. So so so good!!

I guess Bono was taking the piss with his intro to Out Of Control, but saying it in a straight voice made it quite awkward haha! OOC was excellent as usual. The "All I want is you, all I want is you" chant in the middle eight was certainly disconcerting. Not sure if it's some song or what, but the audience jumped on board and sung it too. What the hell?!

Party Girl used to be fun and shambles as usual, but this time it's... Different. It's the absolute WTF-highlight (?) of this show so I won't spoil the party. Go listen! Bono even tells the story of when they wrote the song in the studio. Hilarious, random, bizarre and funny.

And not much to say about the closing trio. 11 O'Clock, I Will Follow, 40 - worth admission alone if you ask me. There's an uncredited snippet of Drowning Man into 11 O'Clock (top 10 snippets ever for me!) and I was so glad to hear it. The ending of 11 was super powerful and the segue into I Will Follow was brutal and the crowd really went off there. There's something electric about the opening riff of IWF, it's amazing that it's managed to stay fresh and electric for over 41 years now! "Hammersmith Palaaaiisss, tell me... I will folloooooooooooow!!!". This is one of the best "your eyes" middle eights I've ever listened to, Bono was absolutely on fire and he probably didn't want to go home... But all things must come to an end and so does this bootleg with a nice version of ''40'', before it became a classic thanks to the UABRS video and album. It's always nice and funny to hear Larry going ballistic on such an otherwise quiet and spiritual piece. The crowd were really up to par with their clapping, impressive. And well, that was quite a weird ending with a delay-looped snare drum, hahaha.

Sound

It's a good recording for sure but there are better recordings out there from this era. I can't understand where the 4,5 stars rating comes from. There aren't many glitches but there's a noticeable background noise, and an annoying stereo swinging during the first half of Tomorrow. Other than that, vocals come across really good (both Bono's and Edge's), but they overshadow the rest of the instruments, specially the guitar and the bass. If Bono was a bit less loud and there was quite some more Adam and Edge in the mix I'd agree with the 4,5 stars rating. But nope.
Recording: "Master Tape Transfer 2017" - 4.5 stars

Audience

They fed off the band and kinda went the same path: quite passionate at the beggining, somewhat bored/tired in the middle part and then passionate again at the end of the gig. All in all a really good crowd specially given that U2 weren't that big in early '83! They knew and enjoyed most of the old songs, and still enjoyed the new ones (given that they had been released only 3 weeks earlier!).

Overall

All in all it's quite an enjoyable bootleg with the band in their 83 usual passion and a very nice crowd. Killer versions of Twilight, Out Of Control, Tomorrow and 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. It might not get the same recognition as other 1st leg shows like Glasgow with its superb broadcast or Dundee or Edinburgh, but it's up there among the best of the leg for sure. Thoroughly enjoyable.

all reviews

show	performance	audience	sound	overall
patou2
LikeASong
iTim
MattG
germcevoy
EridescoFly
2UToo