Back In Oslo - Camping, Clayton

FRIDAY 22 JULY - TUESDAY 26 JULY

During this week, I bought souvenirs for family and friends. These would conveniently be Christmas gifts, thus killing two birds with one stone. Not that I advocate violence against avians.

One interesting thing happened - I started running extremely low on funds. No! Not in Norway, land of the expensive? Well, I went to an internet cafe, and signed on to MSN Messenger, but Mum and Dad weren't online. I sent them an email, asking them to deposit some money in my account (linked to my debit card), but as it was 10pm or so in Australia by this stage, I wasn't sure when they'd check their mail. Luckily Steve Jackson was online... I asked him via MSN if he could make a local call to my folks. About 60 seconds later, a little box popped up - "'This is your mother speaking' is online"... I was able to explain the situation, so that the very next morning (which would still be tonight in Norway) I would have enough money. At this stage I still had a few gifts left to buy, and I also knew I'd need money for the airport bus on Friday.

WEDNESDAY 27 JULY

I woke up, had a shower, bite to eat, etc etc, put on my Third Day Gomer shirt. (Hey, if you don't have a T-shirt of your #2 fave band for the concert you're going to, may as well show your allegiance to your #1 fave band.)

One bus and one subway and one short walk later, I got to Valle Hovin Stadium. I joined the queue at Gate 1 at almost exactly 1230. Gates opened at 1730, with the first performer Paddy Casey not scheduled on till 1800 or so.

It was an interesting wait. I ate all the food I'd brought with me, and lost my water bottle in one of the many sudden rushes forward as the queue got more packed and edged its way closer to the stadium entrance. The guys next to me had brought an iPod and a speaker to plug into it, and sat there listening to a random mix of all their tracks by U2.

For those of you who didn't know and haven't twigged yet, I had a ticket to see U2 live in Oslo. YEAH!

To cut a really long story short(er)(ish)... got in, got frisked by security, ticket torn, and then half-ran, half-limped to the front of the stadium. I got in the metal barricades of the front section, so I was right up in front of the speaker stacks on the right (my right) side of the stage. 8 towers of speakers, 9 speakers high. Do the quick maths... that's 72 speakers on either side of the stage. Now I bet Alastair wishes he had THAT for his TV and DVD.

Paddy Casey was OK, and then the next support act was Razorlight. They were entertaining, and for some reason had brought several bamboo pot-plants, a hatstand, and a fake grand piano on stage with them. Just as props. And they weren't used for anything special, they were just there. On stage. Odd.

9pm. Sun almost down behind the clouds. Filler music going on speakers. Intermittent claps from the audience in the hope the band will come out soon. Then four guys come up the stairs from backstage, and the Irishman in the sunglasses says "Hello, hello..."

Valle Hovin Stadion, Oslo, 27 July 2005 (9pm till 11pm approx)
Set List (with additional comments by Glenn...)

VERTIGO
They started the night off well, with a UNO, DOS, TRES, CATORCE!

I WILL FOLLOW
A popular oldie with the audience...

THE ELECTRIC CO.
Another oldie! Maybe Bono's celebrating having his hat back...

ELEVATION

NEW YEAR'S DAY

BEAUTIFUL DAY
And it was a beautiful day. A few clouds at times, but no rain! Bono squeezed the following lines into the outro melody... "We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, we hope you will enjoy the show, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, sit back and let the evening go..."

I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
Possibly Norway's biggest ever singalong... someone said they reckon 40000 people in attendance.

ALL I WANT IS YOU
Bono pulled a girl out of the crowd in the last chorus to hug as he sang... after he finished he knelt and kissed her hand before letting her back into the crowd.

CITY OF BLINDING LIGHTS
And yes, lots of blinding lights flashing and moving up and down on the screen behind them (actually a wall made up of hundreds of tiny mini-screens/lights...

MIRACLE DRUG
Bono dedicated "miracle drug" to "all the doctors and nurses... especially the nurses"

SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN
Bono dedicated this song to their friend Jan Paulsen, and also to Bob Hewson

LOVE AND PEACE OR ELSE
The band came forward onto the walkway to do this number, with Larry bringing just a mini-kit out. At the end of the song, Bono took his sticks and bashed away at it Japanese taiko-style, complete with white headband, as Larry and the others returned to the main part of the stage to meld into the opening drumbeats of...

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
Bono's headband had a crescent, followed by the letters O E, a Star of David, the letters I S, and then a cross. He explained in a break in the song that they'd seen it as graffiti, commenting on the middle east... the symbols and letters then lit up on the screen behind, to spell out COEXIST.
He then pointed at each symbol, saying "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed. All sons of Abraham. FATHER ABRAHAM! Father Abraham, where did we go wrong?"

BULLET THE BLUE SKY
At the end of this song, Bono knelt near the drums, and pulled the headband down to make a blindfold. He got up, felt his way forward to the mike, and ad-libbed over the fading notes of the song...
"Please, get up off your knees now." then he held up his hands, singing "These are the hands that built America" (interesting juxtaposition with Bullet), and then still blindfolded, sang a line or two of "When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah..."

MISS SARAJEVO
Dedicated to all victims of London, Turkey, and the Middle East in recent weeks. Bono had to keep glancing down at a lyric sheet taped to the stage when he sang the Pavarotti part... his Italian obviously still needs work :)
Changed lyrics in the final verse as well...
"Is there a time for different colours, for names we find hard to spell?"
"Is there a time for First Communion, a time for synagogue? Is there a time for facing Mecca, to be a beauty queen for God?"

PRIDE

WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME
As always, this song was awesome. African national flags scrolled across the rear screen the whole time, like it did at the Live 8 concert. At the end, the screen went completely red... as it should for Streets.

ONE
Bono said recently he's been talking to a lot of Euro leaders and governments, about aid, etc etc, and told the crowd that Norway's doing the most by far of all European governments, so he said a big TUSEN TAKK to the audience for letting the PM use their money ("for it's your money they're spending")

and then they left the stage... the techies brought new instruments back on... then the encore...

ZOO STATION
Screens, lights, Bono wearing a jacket kind of like a black-and-red version of the Beatles' Sgt Peppers bandmaster costume... this was U2 oldskool 90s style :)

THE FLY
More words flashing on screens, lights, loud music, ACHTUNG BABY rocks on!

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
OK, maybe still haven't found wasn't Norway's biggest singalong... but THIS was.

then it all went dark and they left the stage again... before coming back for...

ALL BECAUSE OF YOU

YAHWEH
played acoustic-style. Edge had a big acoustic guitar, and Larry came off the drums to play keyboard up front. Lots of morphing animations behind them involving crucifixes, stars of davids, crescents, all-seeing eyes, globes, old chinese men, buddha, doves, rain, etc... the lighting guy was having fun that day...

VERTIGO
And they closed the night off the way they started - with a bang.

All lights off, sections of the screen behind lit up in red to spell out "the end" in cursive script.

There is my review. Hope you had half as much fun reading as I had actually being there. :)

Long story short, I no longer have a #2 fave band. Third Day and U2 can enjoy tied first place!

People at my campsite (on a hill overlooking the city) told me they could hear the concert well enough from there (several kilometres away) to identify specific songs...

BEST CONCERT EVER!