U2 Dublin - June 25, 2005

Here is part two of my previous post about our trip to Ireland. We went to see U2 play their second of three shows at Croke Park, and it was an amazing experience to see the band in their hometown. Croke Park is normally a venue that hosts football, rugby, hurling, or gaelic football. Because of the variety of sports, it is a very large venue (+80,000 people) and the field (or pitch as they say) is more square than rectangular. On the way to Croke with our friends Victoria and John, we passed by several pubs where the crowd was spilling out onto the street and everyone was singing to U2 at the top of their lungs. So, naturally, we stopped off at one of them. Everywhere we went during our stay in Dublin, we would see people in U2 shirts, overhear people talking about U2 on the DART, or would hear U2 playing in some shop or pub. I have never been anywhere that had as much hype for any event as Dublin did before the U2 shows.

Of course I loved the show. It was really cool to see them in Europe, as the stage design was completely different than the first leg in North America. It was outdoors, there were two satellite stages instead of an oval, and the LED screen was huge. The best way to describe it is 2 parts Vertigo (first Leg), 1 part Popmart, and a dash of Zoo TV. It combined the themes and emotion of the indoor tour with some pretty amazing visuals. The animation for Yahweh was particularly cool (check it out here). Much of the setlist was similar to Denver 1, however, we heard "Out of Control", "All I Want Is You", and "I Still Haven't Found..." for the first time this tour. Also, they played "Party Girl", which I had never heard them perform. Picked a Canadian fan out of the crowd to play acoustic guitar for it.

It wasn't my favorite show of this tour, but it was still a good one. The pictures below were taken with a disposable camera, so they aren't the best quality.