U2 rocks Montreal
Published Monday July 11th, 2011
Roughly 160,000 fans attend concerts by legendary group, two weeks before Moncton show
by Eric Lewis
Times & Transcript staff
MONTREAL – Bono joked part way through U2′s set on Saturday night that once the Irish rockers’ tour wraps up, the band would need to find new jobs.
AFP/Getty Images Singer Bono of the Irish band U2 performs Friday night in Montreal. The band will wrap up their world tour with a show at the Magnetic Hill Concert Site in Moncton July 30.
“This is the only thing we know how to do,” he claimed to a roar from the 80,000 or so fans in the crowd.
He said he’d play the clown in a circus and when telling the audience that his cohort, guitarist The Edge, could do anything, Edge smiled and mimicked throwing knives Bono’s way.
And it was a circus of sorts in Montreal this weekend. One wouldn’t think the sprawling city, with the hundreds of major concerts it hosts each year, would make a big deal about a concert coming to town – even one featuring arguably the biggest band in the world.
In Moncton on July 30, U2 will complete its 360 world tour, presented by Live Nation and Donald K. Donald Events. Here in the Hub City, concerts featuring the biggest names in music don’t come by every day, but last week in Montreal, the city’s world-class jazz festival featured hundreds of artists. Katy Perry played the Bell Centre arena, with Taylor Swift playing there this Thursday and Paul McCartney doing two nights at the end of the month. The upcoming Osheaga festival features everyone from Elvis Costello to Eminem. So, Montreal music fans are no strangers to top-billed talent.
Despite that, everywhere you went on Friday, as the city was about to host two nights of outdoor U2 concerts with 80,000 or so people attending each night, there were signs that the band currently touring on the highest grossing series of concerts in history was in town.
Maybe it was the wait. After all, these shows had been scheduled to take place last year but were delayed when Bono hurt his back.
Whatever the reason, Montreal’s love for U2 was evident. Seemingly every store – whether it sold music, clothes, shoes or hand-made soaps – played hits by the Irish rock stars. On St. Catherines Street, a band of U2 impostors created a bit of a frenzy as people crowded around the faux Bono and The Edge (who even had a security detail), clamouring for photos.
“No, it is them,” one woman insisted. “I just got my picture taken with them. They even have the accents.”
The Metro, Montreal’s busy and remarkably efficient subway system, was overwhelmed by the 80,000 or so music fans trying to get to the Hippodrome, a former horse racing track, Friday evening. The show went off without a hitch, despite some delays in getting all the people into the concert grounds.
“It was awesome,” said Moncton resident Adam Ritchie, who was spotted at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport leaving the city yesterday. “It was a really amazing show. The stage is unreal.”
Adam and brother Trevor picked up their tickets to the Montreal show last year before the concerts were postponed. They decided to go to the Montreal show this time out, knowing Moncton’s show is only two weeks away. It was a weekend getaway, and they had no intention of attending the Moncton date as well, until they checked out Friday’s show.
“I think there’s been a change of plans,” Adam admitted, saying it’s well worth seeing the show again.
“You have to go,” Trevor said. “It’s just that good. Best show I’ve ever seen. The stage is unbelievable.”
Not everyone was going to the big shows this weekend, of course. One chatty cab driver said he hardly knew what a U2 was, before adding that he didn’t really follow English or French media and watched mostly Arabic television.
But it felt like everyone was at the concert site Saturday afternoon, as thousands poured into the Hippodrome site to take part in the Fan Jam activities. Designed to attract fans to drift into the concert site throughout the day so public transit wouldn’t be bombarded all at once, the Fan Jam grounds sat a few hundred metres from U2′s massive 150-foot (46-metre) tall in-the-round claw stage, which resembled an enemy ship on Star Trek and towered over everything in sight.
Fan Jam featured dozens of food and drink tents, along with booths where radio stations offered the chance to play video games and participate in other activities for prizes. It was like a giant fair, and it was packed. Unlike in the Maritimes, where there are usually wet and dry areas separating alcohol from everything else, in Quebec and many other provinces, there are no such barriers.
Around 6 p.m., thousands started pouring into the concert site, which had grand stands for 40,000 and standing area for another 40,000.
Shortly before 8 p.m., indie rock band Interpol took the stage to an appreciative crowd. The band played for about 45 minutes, rarely stopping to say much between tunes.
Once the band left the stage, a few dozen people streamed onto the stage and quickly starting preparing for the headliners.
It was about 9:30 p.m. when David Bowie’s Space Oddity started playing and the crowd roared a little louder. When the massive, 54-tonne round video screen showed Larry Mullen Jr. (drums), Adam Clayton (bass), The Edge (guitar) and Bono (vocals) walking to the stage, on a mission, the crowd erupted.
“I had chills when the guys were walking out on stage,” says Mandy MacDonald of Moncton radio station C103′s Breakfast Club. “Chills, and OK, I had a tear in my eye too. It was just mind-blowing.”
The band kicked into Even Better Than The Real Thing and the show was on. For more than 90 minutes, U2 knocked out energetic rockers like Get On Your Boots and Vertigo and melancholic numbers like Where the Streets Have No Name and Pete Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
The first monster hit came three songs in when the funky Mysterious Ways began, eliciting a roar from the crowd.
A beautiful version of Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of featured only Edge on acoustic guitar and Bono on vocals (with considerable backup from the crowd) and was a welcome respite from the enormous wall of sound the four-piece band put out.
There were those once-in-a-lifetime moments too, like when Bono picked a young boy out of his guardian’s arms and helped him on stage. The little tyke danced with Bono and even mouthed the words to Elevation.
One member of the crowd said the little guy had no idea he’d just had the best moment of his life.
It was those moments where the enormity of the stage and production could be forgotten. The stage was so immense and sprawling, the neat, round video screen – which could stretch from 4,300 square feet to 14,000 square feet – so eye-catching, that it was easy to forget at times that a band was playing on stage. But the band always managed to pull you back in.
U2′s political leanings were represented throughout the night as well. Before the band closed with Walk On, images of Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi were displayed, with Bono telling the crowd about the years she spent in prison simply for believing in democracy.
As Walk On ended, Bono thanked the crowd and hundreds of fans quickly started pouring out of the site, trying to catch the first Metro ride out of that end of the city, content to hear the strains of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, Where The Streets Have No Name and With Or Without You in the encore from a distance. Many stayed behind; they couldn’t care less about the traffic and wanted to see their heroes wrap up the show.
“This U2 show was by far the best of the three that I have seen,” Nathan Knight of Moncton radio station K94.5 said yesterday before leaving for home. “I know so many people that were sort-of fans that were sold after they went to a U2 show. I think that’s why their fanbase keeps growing and growing and growing.”
Fans can expect to hear the big hits in Moncton, but U2 can throw a curveball as well, which Jason Babineau, a music fan from Moncton, discovered. Babineau checked off his seventh and eighth U2 shows in Montreal this past weekend. Number nine will be in Moncton on July 30. He didn’t expect to hear Out Of Control, the band’s very first single, originally released in 1979, but he did, as Bono introduced it with, “This is our first single. Hope you like it.”
“The hits are there, but for the old fans, they’re still changing the setlist a bit each night,” Babineau explained.
Despite going out of his way to see the band eight times (three shows on the current tour) already, Babineau says the Moncton show has him most anxious.
“Just because it’s home,” he explains, before speculating that the band might pull out some more surprises where it’s the final show of a whirlwind tour of 110 shows in 30 countries on five continents.
“You would think they would want to go out with a bang.”
Commenting on the palpable excitement in Montreal this weekend, Donald K. Donald president Andre Hudon said, “This U2 show has taken over Montreal these last two weeks. There’s a major buzz in the city about this, and it’s something that we rarely see, especially in large metropolitan cities.”
Hudon said, “I’ve done a lot of big shows, but I’m amazed at how big this thing is. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever undertaken.”
Tickets for the July 30 U2 show in Moncton, also featuring Arcade Fire and Carney, are still on sale. Reserved grandstand seats are $99.50 and $199.50, while general admission tickets are $65 each. All tickets include taxes but are subject to applicable service charges.
You can purchase all tickets online at www.Ticketmaster.ca and www.Livenation.com with some general admission tickets available at Needs Convenience Stores across Atlantic Canada, the Moncton Coliseum Box Office or by phone at 1-888-720-5600.
* With files from Postmedia News
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