U2 IE Tour Pros and Cons

As the band plays Montreal tonight, let’s examine some of the highs and lows/pros and cons of the U2 Innocence and Experience Tour thus far. If you disagree, that’s cool but for the love of Bono, please don’t tweet that I’m a “hater” or some silly thing. We all love this band, and we’re just having some fun here. So here we go.

Pro: Being able to watch every single show on Periscope or Meerkat, so you can follow the band around the world for free and be totally plugged into them every night alongside other fans.

Con: Being able to watch every single show on Periscope or Meerkat, so you can know exactly what to expect and find the entire thing annoyingly predictable by the time you see it in person.

Pro: The giant screen, where we see Bono’s sweet looking son playing him at age 18, “writing a song for Allison Stewart.”

Con: The fact that Bono doesn’t realize we’ve heard his joke about “still trying” to impress her going on a dozen times (oh, Bono).

Pro: The new coda to One, which is the favorite “There is no them, there’s only us” lyric from Invisible. It plays beautifully, and maybe the “here me calling” coda was getting a little stale.

Con: The horrifying absence of the best U2 coda of all time, “We’ll shine like stars in the summer night” on With or Without You. This must be corrected!

Pro: The periodic return of Elevation and Stuck in a Moment.

Con: The fact that those songs aren’t exactly rare.

Pro: The beautiful reel-to-reel footage of Bono’s mother during Iris.

Con: He just won’t give up on making the crowd do the “free yourself to be yourself” chant, no matter how flat it falls – and it fell so, so flat in the city of blindingly fake U2 fans, AKA Los Angeles.

What do you see as the highs and lows or pros and cons of the tour so far? Tweet them to me @U2RadioBrook.