...although it was supposed to be a "Beautiful Day"!

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In honour of this significant event, U2 was scheduled to perform a free concert in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Tickets were available through an Internet lottery, and my girlfriend managed to nab two. I was pretty excited.

This "concert" was only supposed to last 20 minutes, but I thought to myself: "They would never set up all their stuff for just 20 minutes. And they have a special relationship to Berlin. And Bono would never disappoint the fans, he loves his fans! They'll play until someone forces them to leave. We'll be there for hours!"

Boy, was I wrong.

They played for 20 minuted, and then they disappeared. No encore, nuthin'. They didn't even stick around to listen to the applause. It was a slap in the face.

And the icing on this horrendous "crap-cake": When they did "Sunday bloody Sunday", they brought out a miserable little "Gangsta" to rap a bit! Just imagine: The edge playing in the background, Bono humming, and some oaf mumbling, punctuated by an occasional "Yeah" or "That's right". It was a fiasco!

Irony...yes. U2 started sucking when they went Mainstream, kinda like when the Rolling Stones had the NERVE to charge 1000 dollars for a decent ticket to their U.S. tour opener in Fenway Park...who the HELL do they think they are?? I lost all respect for the Stones.

i applaud they're uncanny ability to serve politics and social issues on a platter of music on such a grand scale (200 tractor trailers to ship their current show/stage). i recently watched the rebroadcast of the rose bowl show and while i found the show to be quite spectacular it was hardly moving and emotional the way the press has portrayed it. bono has said they are trying to be intimate on a large scale but i wasnt moved the way i was by their elevation tour. perhaps those at their shows leave feeling differently?

It seems to me that you broke your own heart. You were aware that the "concert" was intended to only last twenty minutes so you were presented with the truth and reality from the very beginning and when that truth became reality you felt slighted. I don't see where anyone misdled, cheated or deceived you save perhaps you, yourself when faced with reality your not having the ability to process that reality into a concept that that was reconciled with your wishful thinking and erroneous beliefs. They said twenty minutes, you got twenty minutes. Next.

Larens

Yeah they were only obligated to play for twenty minutes but it was supposed to be free so why put up an artificial wall to keep other fans, who weren't able to get tickets, from seeing the show? I think that was kinda $hitty of them. I mean c'mon, it was only for twenty minutes.

i know. i thought the same thing. 200 trucks was the total quoted in issue 1089 of rolling stone. snippets of that article are available here: http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1089
120 trucks is the total quoted here as well as other tour info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2_360%C2%B0_Tour

They were probably so annoyed with the way it was handled, they just completed their obligation and got the hell out of there. I'm sure it sounded like a good idea when first offerred up...

heh... rolling stones... i've got a story about them... Apparently their concert was cancelled somewhere, and they stopped in my town because there's a little airport here... They went to a restaurant across the street from the airport... And i'm willing to bet they'd be able to remember the terrible service in that restaurant if someone asked them about it :P

At least i think it was the stones... some popular bell-bottom wearing british band, i wasn't there when it happened...

So pretty much... the stones got their gig cancelled and ended up in a little town of 34,334, and had no idea what to do. Does that make you happy now that you don't respect them?

I guess that makes the people inside the wall west berliners, and the people outside of the wall east berliners...