Tonight, I debut my first of two U2 shirts. All-in-all, I have seen U2 three times. The first two times were on the POPMART Tour of 1997, as featured on this shirt. The first was at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the University of Utah campus on May 3rd. The second was on November 21st, in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Superdome. I'm glad that I had both experiences to see them, for two reasons. Reason number one was that we were "lucky" enough to secure floor seats, and I ended up standing right behind one of the members of the University of Utah basketball team... he being close to 7" tall. If it weren't for the fact that the Popmart Tour boasted one of the largest video screens, if not THE tallest video screen, to have been featured in a Rock concert, we'd have been screwed. With the Superdome, we had great seats, but with only 35-40,000 tickets sold (more than what Rice Stadium held back in those days), the stadium was still half empty. Yes, that is how big that stadium is.
Another significant bit of trivia about the New Orleans show, is that it was the same day that Michael Hutchence of INXS died. We saw the story on the evening news just prior to leaving for the show, and Bono gave Michael a touching tribute during the show.
In addition to that difference, the New Orleans show also featured an altered playlist from the Salt Lake show, which was the fourth date on the tour. The N.O. show featured less songs from the album POP, and more of the classic material. It was a far superior set, including a tasty acoustic version of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday", performed by The Edge.
Also, you may notice that the shirt is fairly faded. Well... you'd be faded if YOU were 14 years old. Well, IF you were a shirt.
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