Face Of Cheam

Never seen U2 before so that was the main attraction of the thirty pound ticket up in the gods. A supposedley legendary band, I came away a bit mystified as to why. Yes, they have some good tunes, with Sunday Bloody Sunday maintaing it's classic status. Some of the modern stuff too, such as Stuck In A Moment, Vertigo and Beautiful Day have their moments, yet some of their other new stuff such as Magnificent was appalling. As a live band, they are obviously reliant on the big show hence the claw around the stage costing £3million apparently to build. There were also some good points in their sets with a couple of lines from various covers sung in between songs which was nice, though I think I would have preferred a full cover version instead of ten seconds, and obviously the light show was good. However, when you look at their history and musical style to begin with were they really much better that the Alarm or Simple Minds? I don't think so, it's just that Americans (a country that did make them) seem to like the Irish whereas the welsh and Scots are not as fashionable there. Still I least I can now tick off a historic, if not great, band off my list of acts I've seen.

Set - Breathe, No Line On The Horizon, Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, London Calling (snippet) / , London Bridge Is Falling Down (snippet) / , Beautiful Day / Blackbird (snippet), Elevation, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet), Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Unknown Caller, The Unforgettable Fire, City Of Blinding Lights, Vertigo / Acquiesce (snippet), I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight / Two Tribes (snippet) / Reverend Black Grape (snippet), Sunday Bloody Sunday / Rock The Casbah (snippet), Pride (In The Name Of Love), MLK, Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet), Where The Streets Have No Name / All You Need Is Love (snippet) / Acquiesce (snippet), One, Mysterious Ways / Norwegian Wood (snippet)
encores: Ultra Violet (Light My Way), With Or Without You, Moment of Surrender

As part of her V festival warm up, Natalie announced this show in the tiny Kilburn venue. I got there at nine and got a really close place on the left. Surprisingly Torn was played as the third song. A lot of the set was new but all sounded different. The ones she introduced as being written with Chris Martin (coldplay) sounded like Natalie, melodic and heartbroken lyrics. However the other new stuff sounded like someone thinking she was actually Kylie Minogue rather than a credible artist. Just over an hour the encore featured Wishing I Was There, Shiver and culminating in Big Mistake making the admittance price of £16 seem a bargain.

So this is my third day without a job, and besides an interview on Tuesday I've been so bored! Still I have this laptop so in theory I can now update this blog daily. Probably won't though. Still have a few things to do in the next few days together with an elongated weekend in Dorset so that's something to look forward to. however if nothing develops from Tuesday morning I think I need to get more proactive in finding things to do (ie a job) as there's only so much Buffy you can watch during the day. Still the evenings are pretty packed next week when I get back with the lovely Natalie Imbruglia, up close in the sweaty and tiny luminairre and U2 in the not so small Wembley. And the football season starts on Saturday as we play Millwall on Sky. Apparently you can watch any Premier league match on the net if you know the dodgy site to go to. I doubt that applies to league one though which is annoying!