This photo is from the 11/14 show in Miami, but it describes perfectly what Portland’s concert was for me. This was the last arena show on this tour. This was a show where at least 40 of my closest friends flew in for the show from all over the US. After serving as your resident gig blogger for the tour, this was the show where my pad of paper and pen were put away - as well as my camera. This gig was a very personal one for me in so many ways, but mostly it was about letting go. As with many fans, I had scheduled 2005 around the tour - and now it’s about getting back to some sort of day-to-day normalcy. It’s not just the U2 crew and the band who need to detox from touring…but there are fans out there such as myself who need to do the same!

Sure, the setlist wasn’t anything spectacular (nothing new was added.) In reality, two songs that were supposed to be on the setlist, Stuck in a Moment and All Because of You, were dropped entirely. It wasn’t about the setlist for Portland actually. It was about the camaraderie of being in a 20,000 seat arena where you know that over 75% of those in attendance flew from all corners of the world to see the *last* arena show on the Vertigo tour. In all of my blog reports, I have mentioned about how loud the arena was and how the crowd was or wasn’t into it. For this concert, the roof and half of the sky was ripped off of its atmosphere. I swear, people in Seattle could have heard us in Portland. And yes, as U2.com reported - the ellipse was quite full. I don’t think we could have fit another person in it.

We had a GA area that was glowing red, there were signs all over the arena (approx. 2,000 on the floor and well over that in the stands) that simply said “THANK YOU,” and people were patient enough to wait until Elevation to hold them up. The transformation of the arena at that very moment was not only overwhelming, but it appeared to have completely taken Bono by surprise. It was awesome to see him speechless for at least a good few seconds as he was taking in the very simple public display of affection.

We all knew that this tour wasn’t really supposed to happen, and we also knew that the band had bent over backwards for us to try to make the situation right at the start of the year. We knew that they were trying their best to make many different groups of people “happy.” There are not very many opportunities for the fan community to pull together to make a public statement to the band, and it was something very special to have been able to do this on behalf of those who saw the show before us to extend their thanks to the band as well. It was awesome to see the band’s reaction to thousands of the signs simply saying “Thank You.” That was *the* highlight of the show for me.

I will need to piece together all of my ramblings from my travels since the Brooklyn Bridge promo gig for a more formal article for the site, but I wanted to put a finishing touch on my tour reporting on the blog.

As U2.com so simply put it - U2 does have the best fans in the world. It was all of you who made this tour a fantastic one, and it has been a pleasure being able to share my quirky thoughts with you all.

To all of you lucky enough to see them on the 4th leg - have a great time, and I look forward to hearing all of your stories on the shows.

Now I’m off to try to do some U2-tour-detox…good thing there’s new material from Robbie Williams for me to catch up on! (Yes, it is true - I am a huge Robbie fan as well! Heck - he played bingo with Bono…he’s got to be cool).