ROCK giants U2 proved they are still going strong after four decades together and 31 years to the day that they brought their Unforgettable Fire tour to The Barrowlands.
The rock legends arrived in Glasgow for two shows on November 6 and 7, 1984, with a set list that kicked off on both occasions with 11 O’Clock Tick Tock and I Will Follow before closing with New Year’s Day and Pride In The Name Of Love.
This time the frontman Bono, guitarist - or as Bono put it - "on guitars and a whole load of sh** even he doesn't understand" - The Edge, bass player Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr were bringing their iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE 2015 tour to the SSE Hydro in Glasgow – itself proving hugely popular – just shy of 40 years after forming the legendary Irish group in Dublin.
And having previously played a raft of live dates in the city stretching back to the Boy tour in January, 1981, when they played 14 songs to students at Strathclyde University, and a Glasgow Tiffany’s show for the October tour that October, it was perhaps appropriate that they decided to take fans on a trip down memory lane with a raft of hits spanning their incredible career.
Bono, 55, belted out songs that still sounded as fresh as ever including the opening The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone) followed by The Electric Co from their debut album Boy and a snippet of Saints Are Coming before the blistering Vertigo.
Then came a rousing I Will Follow as the band pulled out all the stops for the gig that was proving a home away from home.
Playing just a few hundred feet from the SECC where they brought the Joshua Tree and Zoo TV tours in 1987 and 1993 respectively, he told the crowd: "Its been a while. Thank you it's quite a welcome. We're so close to home. Thank you for your patience, thank you for sticking with us and giving us a great life. These streets are so familiar to us and they could even be our streets."
The band created a funeral march onstage during Sunday Bloody Sunday and recreated the existing section of the Berlin Wall using a caged screen inside which they performed a batch of songs before escaping for Mysterious Ways.
And one stunning female fan, Jacqueline Chandler, from Fife, got pulled onstage by Bono to dance with him during the song, enjoying a dance with him.
Earlier, launching into Iris (Hold Me Close), dedicated to his late mother and breaking into David Essex's Seventies pop hit Hold Me Close, he added: "I started this journey when my mother died when I was 14 years old. She's left me an artist."
And the thousands packed into the SSE Hydro could but agree.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/
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