Donal on the Road: Dublin, Day 2

Donal Murphy, one of @U2′s forum moderators, is on his own sort of “U2 tour” these days, which started with a visit to Nice for U2′s concert there, then continued through Berlin and Amsterdam and now into Dublin. He’s sending in occasional updates from the road. This is the seventh and final update.

Pictures here

DUBLIN - SATURDAY JULY 25TH

Morning: What a memorable night Dublin #1 was. It was really superb.

Had a relatively late lie in - 8.30am! Joe was off back to Cork. We had breakfast before he left, after which I went in to meet my “U2 widow” wife! She had flown up from Cork for a seated show at Croke Park #2.

We met up and after a while headed down to the Guinness Storehouse. It’s a little touristy, but she had not seen it. It was packed, as usual. You can get the Luas Tram down to it (direction Tallaght) — it’s one stop after the Heuston station stop. Within a half mile of the place, you can smell the hops, malt or whatever it is — it’s a great smell.

The self-guided tour goes through the brewing process from start to finish, and then you get down to the real business - the tasting. En route to the rooftop bar is my favourite section - advertising. Guinness TV adverts are legendary in their quality, music, etc. You can watch the ads from the ’50s right up to present day. Onwards to the “Gravity” bar which should probably have been called the “Vertigo” bar. It’s only about 6 or 7 floors up, but it has fantastic views across the city. A beautiful creamy pint of the black stuff awaits you there, and is included in your ticket price. There’s always something nice about drinking a pint of Guinness, but it felt nicer in the brewery itself.

Lunchtime: I had pre-arranged a group lunch in one of my favourite Dublin Italian restaurants. Twelve of us met up for a long leisurely lunch at 2pm. Three Italians were amongst us - Stefania, Alessandro (both at Dublin #1 last night) and Raffaella (at Milan #1), and they provided welcome advice on our ordering. Also here were Rob & Fiona who would be joining us at our seats at Croke Park later. Rob was with me on my 2005 U.S. journey to see U2, and lived to tell the tale. My longtime friend Hugh, also an accomplice on the U.S. 2005 trip, was there — he offererd some unique insight from a kind-of-casual U2 fan. He had been standing at the gig the previous night and said no matter whether you were into U2, this was a great show. We ate & drank well, and finished up around 4.30. It was exactly what I needed, nice food and a long relaxing lunch, and good craic.

We hopped in a taxi, and went straight over to “Fagans Pub” on Drumcondra Road. This lovely watering hole is about a 10 minute walk to Croke Park and a very popular drinking spot for pre-match/gigs at Croker. Declan & my work colleague Maria were there, and we joined the locals across the road from the pub with our drinks on the banks of the royal canal. It was lovely and relaxing and had a nice pre-event atmosphere. Soon after, Rob & Fiona were there. We were missing the first support act but it was so nice that no one cared.

The Gig: We headed down and caught the last 20 minutes of the Kaiser Chiefs, who looked like they were giving it good to the crowd. The lead singer dived in and did a little body surfing. Having consumed a quantity of liquids, I was amazed to find it only took 5 minutes to go to the toilet, versus the 45 minutes or so it would have taken me yesterday in the inner circle. Said hello to Dave Fanning as I passed him on the way back. The seats we were in are worthy of comment. There were dozens of people around us with laminates indicating some VIP-type pass. Our 4 seats were fanclub seats and it is great to see that the seats were really good. If the band were out the very front they were just to our right, when on stage, they were to our left. Completely unabstructed, section 334 lower Hogan stand, twenty rows back, they were perfect.

It was a different perspective, and while I wasn’t that comfortable with the VIP thing and the fact that there were precious real U2 fans around, we all just enjoyed the show and took in for the first time the full pitch crowd reactions.

We got the standard setlist we had seen around Europe, and I don’t think this was as good as Dublin #1 but it’s hard to judge as being in such a good spot yesterday, my perspective might be clouded by the atmosphere in there. Bono was very careful about his girl selection to bring onstage. She said something to him, and he replied that he lived in Killiney. From what I saw, she asked a completely different question, but he fobbed it off quite well. Bono did not run a full lap of the outer ramp like he did last night, but maybe this was because there was a small amount of rain during the gig - up came the umbrellas.

“Unknown Caller” was back tonight. I still love this live. The words on the screen don’t bother me. It’s a real hand-in-the-air track and works well. I still don’t think “Moment Of Surrender” is a good finisher (there’s no doubt it’s a good song) and now that I have been at 5 gigs, I still think it’s not the best one to finish up on. I was a bit dubious also about the steering wheel microphone thing for “Ultraviolet,” but now I love it. Bono swings with it and leans in over the crowd. It works well for me. Tonight, Bono did the usual few song fluffs, but it bothered no one. He still has difficulties with “The Unforgettable Fire,” but it’s not an issue. These minor imperfections pale in comparison to the show itself. He spoke about different things, and said at the start, “We had a great night last night, let’s top it tonight and on Monday lets top oursleves.” They were all enjoying it here — this comes through in the performances.

END OF THE ROAD FOR ME

So, 5 gigs later, and some great travels around Europe, 3 nights in Dublin, what’s the summary of all this?

GA queues are great. You meet some really interesting people. It’s tiring, but worthwhile. It’s the best concert experience of all.

I can go without going to the toilet for up 8 hours!

I did a week in the U.S. in 2005 — this week in Europe was much better. Three cities in Europe were all very different, three cities in the U.S. were reasonably similar.

I have a very understanding wife (but I knew this already).

I will remember the small things - for example, a guy from the U.S. in the queue for Dublin #1 could not get over the weather we have here. We got showers lasting a few minutes then sunshine. The temperature went up a few degrees and then down every half hour. He hadn’t seen this before — he thought it was funny (which it is).

Decathlon is a sports shop. If you are in the queue for Amsterdam, they have a shop very close to the GA entrance and have an excellent fold-up rain coats for 5 Euro — perfect for the GA endurance test.

U2 have a tour, it’s called the 360 tour, and that’s a perfect description of it. When you are standing in the inner circle you are constantly looking to see where they are. That’s, of course, because they are around the other side of the stage, or at the back of the stage. They have perhaps too many of the classics in there. I have heard SBS, WOWY, and Pride too many times, but they still really rock live. U2 are still in top form. I felt they are giving more energy on this tour — they spend a lot of time on the outer ramp, and this works well. They are far from the point of finishing up on touring, but it is hard to see how they can top this show for the “show” value, but I probably said the same after PopMart and they did, so what do I know?

It’s been a great trip, but after all the coming and going, the final pleasure of traveling is coming home, and that’s just where I want to be right now.

Last 4 posts by @U2

• Donal on the Road: Dublin, Day 1 - July 25th, 2009
• Donal On the Road: Amsterdam - July 21st, 2009
• Donal On the Road: Berlin & Amsterdam - July 20th, 2009
• Donal On the Road: Berlin, Germany (part 2) - July 19th, 2009