Donal On the Road: Nice, France

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 earlier this week. He’s sending in occasional updates from the road. This is the first.

Pictures July 14th here
Pictures July 15th here

ARRIVAL IN NICE

Arrived in Nice Tuesday morning at 10am, there to greet us on the tarmac was the U2 360 plane. Nice to see it sitting there as we taxied up to the ternminal bulding. Did some exploring of Nice after we found our accommodation, thankfully we were in a very central location in the old town. It’s a very beautiful city.

EZE SUR MER VISIT

In the afternoon, we checked the trains to Eze Sur Mer. It is only 15 minutes by train from the main train station in Nice. Why not?, we thought. When you go on the train, you miss on some of the best views, but there was still some spectacular scenery along the way out there. You can also take a bus — it takes a lot longer, but you do get better views as the bus can take you up to Eze itself which is located way up high. The little beach is stoney, as per the video for “Electrical Storm,” but is is really a magnificent setting. There are very high cliffs all around the beach and some very nice houses. We think we spotted Bono’s & Edge’s houses, but we were not 100% sure. We didn’t walk up outside the house or anything like that. We just don’t do the stalking thing! We walked along the beach and dipped our toes into the Mediterranean. Chilled out for a while before getting the train back to Nice.

NICE PRE-GIG NIGHT

Later that evening, we met up with John — aka “Dangerous & Honest” from the forum. It was great to meet up with someone who knows a lot about U2. We had some beers in Wayne’s bar in the old town. Had a few laughs and a few beers.

GIG QUEUE

We got to the GA queue at 11am. There were no more than 200 people there at that stage and everyone was French. That was the first thing that struck me. Usually at U2 gigs, I encounter all different nationalities, but not here. I walked around the crowd several times and I heard no one at all speaking English. The queueing system was nonexistent. Everyone was just sitting down opposite a line of barriers; there was no corralling or anything like that and no informal numbering. People came in after us and moved up ahead; it was all very relaxed. What was very convienient was there was a bar and a shop selling sandwiches and baguettes, etc. We had our own fruit and food but it was handy to have it available.

We got to speak to the guy sitting next to us, a French guy. As we were talking to him, I got a call from John, he was almost at the queue. About half an hour later, there was no sign of him. He rang to say he was at the bar; so was I, but I couldn’t see him. Then he mentioned he was at the “Entrance Sud” (southern entrance). I asked the French guy where we were, and he said we were at “Entrance Nord” (northern entrance). At this stage it was around 2pm and we were at the wrong entrance. I had not noticed a sign on the way down to where we were but having said that I failed to check the ticket before arriving. Well, it still was not that late, the place where we were now had around 350 people, so I reckoned the other entrance would have similar numbers. Boy, was I wrong! We walked the mile or so over to the southern entrance, and there must have been 2 to 3 thousand in the queue. Well, it wasn’t really a queue, more a mass of people squashed in together. We hooked up with John, and it was so squashed we could not even go and buy a drink or go to the toilet. We were stuck like this for almost 3 hours, and then the queue started to move and it got dangerously squashed. At this stage we knew inner circle was not going to happen so we had Plan B & C.

INSIDE THE VENUE

We got in around 6pm and went straight to the designated “Plan A” spots — front centre or on Edge’s side. No luck. There was already a huge crowd at those spots, and with the unbearable heat hitting over 30 degrees centigrade, we felt after the exhausting queueing we had already been through it wasn’t an option. We settled on Adam’s side, 3 rows from the rail. The first noticeable thing that struck me was the size of the “Red Zone.” It was significantly bigger that I was expecting. We were very close to the rail, but the depth of the Red Zone was around 30 feet and at least twice as big as we thought it should have been. It runs almost the whole way down from front centre on both sides. So we were further away than we would have liked but with Berlin, Amsterdam and Dublin to come, it was not the end of the world.

The Claw is unbelievably impressive, and one can look at it in wonder for quite a long time. We have all seen the photos, but it is definitely different when you are actually there.

GIG SUPPORT

Snow Patrol belted out their well-known hits and got a good response from the crowd. Best job a support act could do. Again, I was reminded at this point that we are in a crowd that was at least 98% French.

U2 GIG

The setlist is well known at this stage but the way the gig went is not.

“Magnificent” was dedicated to Steve Lillywhite, “Beautiful Day” was followed by a snippet of “Here Comes The Sun” (The Beatles) and was dedicated to “Jools”. He thanked the local people of Nice, the Mayor and neighbouring “Prince Regest” (Prince Albert of Monaco), “people we have borrowed money from” and taxi drivers, “beaucoup de barman” (lots of barmen!). He then briefly spoke of the economic problems and said that we were all much bigger than these problems. He then broke directly into “I Still Haven’t Found…”, followed by a snippet of “Stand By Me”.

The accoustic set followed: “Desire” with snippets of “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”, he then said, from “one Michael to another” and broke into “Stuck”.

“City of Blinding Lights” was dramatically emphasized when the Claw’s cylindrical video screen stretched itself downwards to just above stage level. “Vertigo” had very effective white screen effects. “Crazy Remix” followed — I thought the vocals were a bit lost in the music. After “Pride” there was a mini-speech about Aung San Suu Kyi, and then Bono broke into “MLK”. He thanked the Red Zone ticket buyers — their tickets are going towards AIDS support — and made a special point of mentioning Robert De Niro and his wife Grace for their work in this regard. “Walk On” followed and around 40 concert attendees (I assume Red Zone people) came out onto the front of the catwalk wearing the distributed masks.

Bono then said I want to introduce you to “my real boss” and Bishop Desomond Tutu came on the screens as the band went off stage. Before the Tutu speech finished, the opening sounds of “Streets” started. They moved onto “One” and Bono thanked Jimmy iovine afterward.

During “With Or Without You” there were some couples in the Red Zone who had heaps of room and were slow dancing.

CONCLUSION

First of all, it was mainly a non-English speaking crowd, and many of them did not know about half the songs played. It seems the crowd were not familiar with songs before Bomb.

There was a very relaxed atmosphere and no pushing of any description where we were. We did not get the spot we wanted, but I was still happy with the gig. The claw is unbelievable. The closer “Moment of Surrender” is poor and just doesen’t work well as a finisher. Within the setlist are great highlights such as “The Unforgettable Fire”, “Ultraviolet” and “City Of Blinding Lights”.

The Red Zone depth, length, and size was a bit disappointing, especially the fact that real fans were excluded from the outer walkway barrier. The “Slow Dancing” couples inside there is something which I have never seen or heard of and it’s not good for a rock gig!!

Overall, a great gig, a good “dip of the toe” into U2′s 360 tour. I hope to rectify the achievement of prime spots for the next one. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that inner circle is the best spot for a flexible concert experience. Failing this, outside centre is the other good spot. Adam and Edge do walk around a bit, but 90% of the action is centre or on the stage.

360 delivered. There is an overall great view no matter where you are. The concept works. For this U2 fan it’s good, but inner circle or centre outside is the only way to go!

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