U2's Elevation stop - Detroit, MI 30 May 2001
Jun 06 '01
The Bottom Line The Elevation tour is great, but only outstanding when seen in a decent arena.
When U2 announced their schedule for their Elevation tour, I couldn't have been happier. I had half a sinking feeling that their Detroit date would be during the two weeks I'd be in Ireland. Oh, the irony of being in Ireland when only my favourite Irish band was in the US.
Thankfully, that was not the case. I arrived home on the morning of the 30th of May, just hours before U2 was to take the stage at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Still buzzed from the decent Irish Cadbury's chocolate and too much free Bailey's, having the chance to see U2 a second time of the year. Nothing could be better, right?
Wrong.
While I'd never personally been to the Palace, it was known as a venue that hosted the likes of the Backstreet Boys, Madonna, Brittany Spears, in addition to hosting Detroit Pistons NBA basketball games. The sound at the venue was rumored to be lacking, but, being that the band was U2, I knew the sound couldn't be horrible in a venue built in 1988.
Despite the fact that every single year since 1988 the Palace of Auburn Hills has hosted concerts and sporting events for it's slightly over 20,000 capacity size, they still did not seem to "get" parking.
The free for all parking situation resulted in us missing the opening act - PJ Harvey. Thankfully, we'd left early for the show and did not miss any of U2's set, as many thousands of people did.
As with all Elevation tour dates, seats ranged from $45 to $130. Unlike the Cleveland show we attended in early May, for this show, we purchase the mid-level $85 tickets. Such seats would have likely been more than acceptable at any other venue, but thanks to the Palace's poor acoustics, we found out a little too late that it would have been quite worth it to purchase $130 "Gold Circle" seats.
The stage setup was the same as all other Elevation tour shows - a red heart shaped catwalk which held a traditional stage and room for around 200 fans who had been willing to line up since the early morning hours. Tall video screens were behind the stage, which rose up during parts of the show for graphics. The Detroit show also added an element that had been lacking at the Cleveland show - coloured stage lights were used greatly during this show, which added a surrealistic glow to the stage and audience on the floor of the arena.
The set list was a change from the Cleveland show, affording many new surprises:
Elevation
Beautiful Day
Until the End of the World
Discotheque/Staring at the Sun
Mysterious Ways
In My Life/Stuck in a Moment
Kite
Gone
New York
I Will Follow
Sunday Bloody Sunday/Get Up Stand Up
In A Little While
Desire/Gloria
Stay
Bad/40
Where the Streets Have No Name
Pride
Encore
Bullet the Blue Sky/Young Americans
With of Without You
The Fly
2nd Encore
One
Walk On/Hallelujah
From the moment the band went on stage and started up Elevation, I was extremely happy to have attended the Cleveland show. The sound at the Palace was absolutely dreadful. While the sound did clear up, Bono's vocals were still muddied throughout most of the show, to the point where some lyrics were undecipherable. Adam Clayton's bass levels were also extremely low, being drowned out by the treble of Edge's guitar. No doubt the concrete echo made the sound in the mid to upper levels worse.
A portion of my disappointment in the fact that the band was just not up to their usual energetic selves. Bono had previously spent a large portion of his time on the heart-shaped catwalk. For the Detroit show, he spent much of his time on the traditional stage, doing little more than standing around. Larry Mullen, the drummer, who had previously smiled through much of the earlier Cleveland show, simply frowned and looked exhausted throughout the Detroit show.
Unlike the Cleveland show (and reports of the Elevation tour in other cities) the crowd lacked energy. No mass sing-along to well known songs, not even much singing when prompted by Bono. Because of the many times we smelled pot smoke, I'm wondering if half of the fans were just too stoned to even realize they were at a U2 show.
The only time the crowd seemed to display any energy (besides rushing for the exits as the last song was being played) was cheering for the Charlton Heston video. The crowd, apparently not understanding the video was anti gun, became silent when Heston's "There are no bad guns, only bad people" line tied in with the video of the young toddler picking up a gun. The video's lead in to Bullet the Blue Sky caused several people to leave, and created a general quiet apathy I didn't think possible for over 20,000 people.
Despite the numerous negatives about the Detroit Elevation show, the band, for the first time in years, played a full acoustical version of Desire at the tip of the heart catwalk. While not one of my favourite songs, seeing all four members play the song as it was originally designed was thrilling.
The addition of Gone (from the album Pop) was also quite welcome, with Bono's voice and Edge's guitar and backup vocals creating a live musical masterpiece.
Although due to the poor sound, Bono's voice sounded quite good during his solo performance of In My Life. (Better known as the theme song of the NBC show Providence) The high notes Bono managed to hit during Bad were also quite impressive.
Overall, the Detroit stop in U2's Elevation tour was good, but the quality (or lack of) of the Palace made the show a letdown, especially considering the quality of shows in the recent past. If the tour comes to a so-so venue in your area, buy the Gold Circle tickets, or be prepared for a sub par sound quality.
To quote Bono at the end of the show - "Detroit, Ohio!"
Yeah. Glad to know I moved to Ohio.
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Epinions.com ID:
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Member: Courtney
Location: Detroit, MI
Reviews written: 88
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