Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • G6

GROUNDZERO G6 Frida Ma 25, 2018 NCOLN JOU ST MUSIC Some further reflections from CenturyLink Center Omaha Section 122, Row 13, Seat 1 at Saturday concert: As has been the ase with U2 concerts over at least the past couple decades, the staging of the tour is astounding, significantly raising the bar for arena shows by rock bands. A large pair of translucent screens dominates the setup, running 80 feet down the length of the arena floor with a main stage on one end and a small round at the opposite end. Between them, a long runway where the band performed and Bono prowled when he walking between the giant screens in what the tour calls bar appearing to be inside the animation projected on them. not seen anything quite like that setup, which, by essentially cutting the arena in half, meant there were few bad seats in the house and changed the nature of watching the show from the usual it on a big screen above the to something more involving and entertaining. As I wrot in my after-show review, show was far from a greatest hits affair.

In fact, U2 play a single song from Joshua not the Streets Have No Still Found What Looking Or Without or the Blue in the show that ran just under hours. The Omaha show departed slightly from the handful of concerts that preceded it on the tour. It was trimmed by a couple of songs from the earlier shows not that the deletions were noticeable. Gov Pete Ricketts was spotted at the show (not by me, but by very reliable sources) and was, at least at one point, up near the edge of the center runway. I wonder what Ricketts thought when the show took a political turn in its second half, with a pointed (if unstated) critique of President Trump.

name was never mentioned. But images of men wearing Make America Great Again caps were flashed on the screen along with KKK and neo- Nazi demonstrators followed by a Bono comment through a bullhorn that is not Bono also made pleas for compromise, conciliation and solving the gun problem in light of the school shootings at Santa Fe, Texas a day earlier. Lincoln as in consideration for the U2 concert. But the show went to Omaha. Bono likely revealed the reason why during some comments to the crowd: He said he has friends in Omaha, mentioning and praising Susan Buffett, the daughter of Warren Buffett with whom he works on The Sherwood Foundation and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation.

seen U2 at least a half dozen times, but not since they played Omaha in 2005. show may well have been the best of that lot, save for the Zoo TV tour that I caught at Cyclone Stadium in Ames, Iowa. That remains the best stadium show ever seen, topping shows by the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney among others. In fact, U2 was so good and the show so brilliantly staged, see it again tomorrow which really is saying something. Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or On Twitter Staging for U2 concert in Omaha FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star file photo U2 (from left, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen The Edge and Bono) performs on Saturday at CenturyLink Center.

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