U2 @ Croke Park - They came, they claw, they conquered

Having stuck my hands over my ears and sung loudly when Olaf Tyaransen was in HP Towers last week talking about his Nou Camp jolly, my only advance knowledge of tonight’s proceedings is that they’ll be unfolding on the biggest fuck-off stage ever seen in Ireland.
Due to Hill 16-related production difficulties, what Croker’s actually getting is the 230° Tour, but any sense of being short-changed goes out the window with my first glimpse of The Claw.
A cross between a hyperactive Transformer and a War Of The Worlds tripod, the only thing it doesn’t do during U2’s 23-song set is get up and go for a walk.
It seems entirely appropriate then that the band’s dry-ice-swathed arrival on stage is heralded by David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, which is also a nod to the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing.
Underlining their confidence in the new record, the first four songs out of the trap are ‘Breathe’, ‘No Line On The Horizon’, ‘Get On Your Boots’ and current single ‘Magnificent’, which judging by the roar of approval from the pitch, has already achieved fan favourite status.

From there on in, the show’s an unreserved triumph, with none of the opening night nerves or hesitancy which was evident when the Vertigo tour pitched up in Dublin four summers ago.

The first visual set-piece comes when the metal walkways swing round and three-quarters of the world’s biggest rock band cross from The Claw’s inner circle to its outer ring where Bono, ever the pop tart, stands hands outstretched milking the applause.

After teasing with a few bars of the other Fab Four’s ‘Here Comes The Sun’, U2 launch into versions of ‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘Elevation’, which have Croker pogoing like it’s 1977. There are further reminders of their punk origins when ‘Vertigo’ detours through The Ramones’ ‘Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio?’ and ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ segues into The Clash’s ‘Rock The Casbah’.

U2 can always be relied on to throw a few curveballs, and tonight’s no exception with ‘Stuck In A Moment’ stripped down to its component parts; ‘I’ll Go Crazy’ re-invented as a techno monster; and a straight from the front-bar of O’Donoghue’s version of ‘The Auld Triangle’, which is touchingly dedicated to Ronnie Drew.

They’re not the only surprises, with ‘The Unforgettable Fire’ getting its first live airing since 1989 and a similarly rare outing for Achtung Baby’s ‘Until The End Of The World’.

Having initially kept the between-song banter to a minimum, Bono follows this trad interlude with a history lesson wrapped up in a dissertation on what it is to be Irish.

“Look at yourselves,” he urges. “Smart, sexy… in our own way! Undefeatable. Undefeatable. Hill 16 right behind us. It’s well known that out of the rubble of a revolution in 1916 they built a beautiful stadium and, more importantly, they built a great country. And there’s nothing we can’t do if we believe in ourselves.”

Which is one of the longest and most impassioned intros ‘One’ is ever likely to get.

Another point is forcibly made during ‘Walk On’ when 60 people take to the catwalk wearing Aung San Suu Kyi masks. U2 have taken flak in the past for their grand gestures, but this tribute to the imprisoned Burmese opposition leader is a genuine highlight.

By now the sun’s gone down, allowing The Claw to reveal the full extent of its 500,000 pixel video screen, which following a very funky speech by U2’s soul brother Archbishop Desmond Tutu glows bright red for ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’.

It’s a huge production, but not without its intimate moments thanks to Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry spending much of the set cheek by jowl on a podium that’d happily fit into a theatre venue.
Not wanting to waste valuable time, the band spend mere seconds off-stage before returning for encore versions of ‘Ultraviolet’, ‘With Or Without You’ and ‘Moment Of Surrender’, which send The Claw into sensory overload.

Rarely have the begrudgers been so comprehensively fucked.