Once again, special thanks to special Vertigo Tour correspondent Simon Vigrow for his report!
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Setlist: City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo, Elevation, I Will Follow, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For-In A Little While, Beautiful Day-Sgt. Pepper’s/Blackbird, Window In The Skies, Walk On (Bono & Edge), Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own, Bad-40, Sunday Bloody Sunday-Rock The Casbah, Bullet The Blue Sky-Johnny Came Marching Home/The Hands That Built America, Miss Sarajevo, Pride, Where The Streets Have No Name, One
Encore 1: The Fly, Mysterious Ways, With Or Without You
Encore 2: The Saints Are Coming, Angel Of Harlem, One Tree Hill

As I hopped on the bullet train to Tokyo I wondered how U2 would be received. It had been about 8 years since they last played Japan and though they are famous, the band aren’t the household name here that they are in other countries.

Believe it or not, getting tickets wasn’t that hard. Tickets were distributed by a company called Ticket Pia. Ticket Pia members got first crack at tickets, becoming a member is free and takes about five minutes. At midnight on the day tickets went on sale, I went to the Ticket Pia website and entered the number of tickets I wanted and for which shows. A few days later, I received a postcard telling me to go back to the website one week from then. A week later, I followed the instructions and entered a code printed on the postcard to find out whether I had gotten what I had requested. Sure enough, I got arena (floor) seats for the show. I went to a convenience store the next day where the friendly staff printed out my tickets. From that point on, non-Ticket Pia members could buy tickets. It was also just as easy to get tickets for the April show that ended up being cancelled.

The Saitama Super Arena is not in Tokyo. Saitama is a suburb, it took about forty minutes to get there from central Tokyo. I got there about five o’clock, doors opened at six and the show started at seven-thirty. The arena is probably the smallest venue on this leg of the tour. The Super Arena website claims it can accomodate 30 000 people for a concert but I don’t think there were that many people there. (Editor’s note: it’s like saying Foxboro Stadium - or Gillette Stadium - is in Boston, MA…it’s about 40 minutes outside of Boston when there’s good traffic. And, that U2’s Elevation Tour started in Miami when it was Sunrise, Fl. Thanks for the clarification, Simon!)

Outside there were many people milling around and I noticed two large lines. I was surprised to discover one of the queues was for tour merchandise. It was being sold outside at some stalls and a lot of people were waiting. Fortunately, it wasn’t too chilly and it wasn’t raining. I thought having only one point of purchase for twenty thousand people or so was not such a good idea. One or two more sales areas would have shortened the line. There were seven different shirts for sale, most costing 4000 yen but the lone long sleeved shirt cost 5000 yen. One shirt had just the Japan dates listed on the back, another all of the 2006 shows. There was a Vertigo baseball cap going for 3500 yen and a key ring for 1500 yen was the cheapest souvenir. Tour programs were 2500 yen. At the bottom of the third page it reads ‘Vertigo Japan Tour 2006′ and the interviews inside are in Japanese. I didn’t see any in English available. The box office was next to the merchandise stalls, tickets were still available a few hours before the show.

I joined the long line for arena ticket holders. Once the doors opened, the line moved very slowly as ticket holders were allowed in according to the number on their tickets. Numbers one to one hundred were let in first and so on. I was number 2737 so it took a while. I got inside and checked if merchandise was being sold but there was none to be found. The floor section was divided into A and B blocks, the former being closer to the stage while the latter made up the rear half of the floors. There was no oval ramp from the stage, just two catwalks extending from both Edge’s and Adam’s side of the stage. I managed to stake a place near the end of Edge’s catwalk.

Seven-thirty came and went and I could feel the excitement mounting in the building. I looked up and around and couldn’t spot any empty seats. Finally, the stage techs didn’t seem to be doing anything and there was no more on stage activity. The Arcade Fire’s Wake Up came through the speakers and half way through the song the lights went out. The audience erupted and we were on our way.

The lights and visuals were really powerful standing so close to the stage, I did feel a little dizzy during the first two numbers. Bono referred to Tokyo as the city of blinding lights and during the intro to Vertigo he counted to three in Japanese before switching back to Spanish. The band stormed through the first four songs and was matched by the energy coming back from the crowd. The pace dropped for I Still Havent Found… and Bono thanked the crowd for waiting for the band and for giving them a great life. There was a bit of a language gap at times and some of Bono’s comments met with a muted response over the course of the night.

After Beautiful Day, Bono thanked the crowd in Japanese and said he had a real first. He switched back to English and said for the first time anywhere they were going to play a new song and they rolled out Window In The Skies. There was no piano, Edge played the piano parts on guitar. I noticed Adam had a music stand next to the drums with some notes on it and didn’t take his eyes off it during the song. During a vocal break, Bono shouted ‘Middle eight’ just to keep everyone on track. It sounded flawless and blended smoothly into the set. I was impressed that with only a few tour dates remaining, they would slide a new song into the show.

For the acoustic Walk On, Edge and Bono made good use of the catwalk in front of me. It was unbelievable to be so close. Naturally, it was mayhem around me. Everyone was screaming and jostling to snap photos on cameras and cell phones. Bono also came back during Sometimes You Can’t Make It… He was just in front of me as he sang soaring ‘Can you hear me when I siiiing’ line. It was dreamlike.

The visuals on the backdrop were tailored for the Japanese audience. During Sunday Bloody Sunday, ‘Co-Exist’ came on the screens in both English and Japanese. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was in Japanese along with the Make Poverty History text message information.

Some highlights: Edge’s angry solo during Bullet The Blue Sky, Bono’s powerful take on Pavarotti’s part of Miss Sarajevo from the end of Adam’s catwalk, Bono strolling through the crowd at the front of the stage during Bad.

The band seemed energized by the crowd’s enthusiasm and the intensity level notched upwards as the show progressed. Where The Streets Have No Name worked its usual magic and Bono shouted ‘This is crazy’ when it came to an end. The main set finished with One and Bono asking everyone to take out their cellphones. He thanked the Japanese Prime Minister for meeting with him earlier in the day and spoke about ending extreme poverty.

The first encore kicked off with a ferocious version of The Fly. They finished the song clustered around Larry’s kit and it struck me all visuals and lighting tricks aside, how powerful the band were. Bono pulled a lucky lady onto Adam’s catwalk to serenade during With Or Without You. He gave her his policeman’s hat and got down on one knee to sing to her. You could feel the jealousy, some of it was mine.

The band reappeared for the final encore and seemed relaxed and playful. There were plenty of onstage smiles during the sing-along that was Angel Of Harlem. Edge was at the end of his catwalk and Bono at the end of the other when someone in the crowd offered Bono a harmonica. He took it and honked away into it. Across the crowd, Bono and Edge shared a laugh. Adam made his sole appearance on Edge’s catwalk around this time and they too exchanged broad smiles. ‘That’s like a jukebox, that one’ was how Bono described it when it was done. The crowd seemed a bit wrongfooted by One Tree Hill as a set closer, perhaps as it was one of the lesser known songs of the night.

It was a great show but I was surprised at how few songs they played off of How To Dismantle…and a few more surprises such as One Tree Hill would have been nice. U2 appeared on Japanese TV on December 1st and Bono said they had had the best shows of their lives this week in Japan. More Bono hyperbole? At least he didn’t say Edge was on fire.