First night in Sydney

  

'Bad' with snippets of 'Need You Tonight' & 'Never Tear Us Apart' in Sydney tonight...

Amazing opening night  in front of 70,000 at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. And some special guests in the house tonight including Oprah who gets a special shout out in Beautiful Day ('Oprah Winfrey right in front of me') and Bob Geldof, whose 'Do They Know It's Christmas' finds its seasonal  way into opening 'Stuck In A Moment'

'Stuck' was dedicated to Michael Hutchence and his spirit was with us in a couple of INXS moments during a soaring version of Bad which featured snatches of Need You Tonight and Never Tear Us Apart - the whole stadium adding backing vocals.Michele Bennett (Michael´s former girlfriend and producer of U2`s Lovetown tour documentary)  was in Sydney too...

Cool to have the twitterati out in force  tweeting the show live which means we can check the local references in the set up of Magnificent ('Glebe, Bondi, Paddington...Sydney.') and what a super loud and up show it was. Nowhere more so than for Vertigo,  as neilfws - re,motely -  tweeted: 'I can hear U2 quite well. They’re about 10 km away at Homebush.'

A young girl called  Jana joined the band onstage for In A Little While: 'Are you a singer? ' Bono asked her. 'You should be a singer!'

For Scarlet and Walk On thanks went out to people who put their energy into the campaign to release Aung San Suu Kyy. 'For a long time U2 fans have tried to help her and she wanted to pass on her thanks to this audience for all their support.' And not forgetting  political prisoners who remain behind bars: 'When they're out we will truly rejoice.'

Thanks also before One: ' Special people here tonight, those that signed up for the ONE Campaign, Bob Geldof, your being here means a lot to us, he's like my big brother,  Denis O'Brien, Eleanor Webster from Make Poverty History, all of those of you in the RedZones, thank you.  Let's do this magic trick U2 audiences do to put a spell on the band, turn on your phones and turn this place into the Milky Way.'

And so the 360 spaceship entered orbit again amongst a thousand other shining planets and we knew this  was another night we'd never forget. Last word to  mrslisaking on twitter: 'Well I reckon that rivaled Zoo TV for me or my fave Lovetown show in 89. They were ON FIRE! '

Setlist 

1. Return Of The Stingray Guitar
2. Beautiful Day / Blackbird
3. I Will Follow
4. Get On Your Boots
5. Magnificent
6. Mysterious Ways
7. Elevation
8. Until The End Of The World
9. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
10. Do They Know It’s Christmas / Stuck In A Moment
11. Bad / Need You Tonight / Never Tear Us Apart
12. In A Little While
13. Miss Sarajevo
14. City Of Blinding Lights
15. Vertigo
16. Crazy Tonight / Relax / Two Tribes
17. Sunday Bloody Sunday
18. Scarlet
19. Walk On
20. One
21. Amazing Grace / Where The Streets Have No Name
22. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
23. With Or Without You
14. Moment of Surrender

Photo gallery