The opening night of a U2 tour can be fraught with peril. But in the Camp Nou in Barcelona tonight they exorcised the demons of previous tours and started on a winning note. Report: Olaf Tyaransen

It’s been a beautiful day in Barcelona (hardly surprising for sweltering June), but will it be a beautiful night? The near 90,000 U2 fans gathered here in Camp Nou certainly hope so. As, of course, do the band themselves! But nothing is guaranteed. This, after all, is the opening night of a U2 world tour. Anything can happen and it usually does...

From their not so humble perspectives, there’s a lot more than just money riding on this tour. With the likes of The Killers, Coldplay and Kings Of Leon snapping all too eagerly at their Cuban heels, and Bono, Edge, Larry and Adam now well into their middle years, this is as much about pride, about being the biggest, About being the best. Still.

Fair fucks to them for still caring. It’s no accident that U2 have chosen Europe’s biggest football stadium to launch their first major tour in over four years (and, seeing as the Elevation and Vertigo tours were mostly played in arenas, their first proper stadium tour this century). And it’s interesting to note that, to this writer’s eyes, at least one in five of the audience probably weren’t even alive when The Joshua Tree was first released back in 1987.

Of course, opening nights of U2 tours don’t exactly have a flawless history. It’s just over a decade ago that, in one of contemporary rock & roll’s most celebrated Spinal Tap-ish moments, Bono and the boys found themselves trapped inside a giant lemon in Las Vegas, on the very first night of Popmart. They learnt their lesson then, and have apparently been feverishly rehearsing this show for a full fortnight (last night they did a full live run-through for an audience of 500 special needs kids). But the best laid plans of mice and superstars...

Sitting not quite slap bang in the centre of the field, the much heralded 360 stage looks... well, bizarre. It’s not a lemon, but it’s coloured a strange lime green. The aliens have landed (and Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ is played more than once throughout the build-up to tonight’s performance). Designed and built by longtime U2 associates Willy Williams and Mark Fisher, the massive 164 foot-tall structure (twice the size of the stadium set used for the Stones’ A Bigger Bang tour, fact fiends) requires 120 trucks to transport. It’s been nicknamed “The Claw”, but it actually looks more like a giant sized Star Wars stormtroooper doing a yoga stretching exercise. Or position number 91 from the Kama Sutra.

But more of that later. Unlike almost all of their contemporaries, U2 have continued to challenge themselves almost as much as they’ve challenged their audience. They’ll take on all comers – as their support acts, that is. There are numerous potential heirs to their rock ‘n’ roll throne, none of whom have ever been shy about admitting it, and their choice of one of the main contenders, Snow Patrol, as tonight’s second string says a lot about their lack of fear.

Opening with ‘Take Back The City’, the Patrol, who’ve been touring A 100 Million Suns for months now, and are consequently tighter than ever, play a safe and steady run through of some of their biggest hits (‘Chasing Cars’, ‘Chocolate’, ‘You’re All I Have’ etc). Unfortunately, it’s no easy task with the stadium still filling up and bright sunshine diluting the light show. Still, Gary Lightbody is a natural born charmer and well up to the task of winning people over. “You know what our job is?” he asks, midway through ‘Shut Your Eyes’. “Our job is to warm you up! So please do us the honour of singing along with us!” The crowd duly oblige. It’s a genuine moment of connection.

However, this isn’t Snow Patrol’s audience and well he knows it. The biggest cheer of all comes when he dedicates ‘Run’ “to the world’s greatest rock band – U2!”

The legendry headliners are due on stage at 10pm and the atmosphere is absolutely electric as the Mexican-waving audience cheer wildly through several false starts. Suddenly the lights go out and the stadium is plunged into darkness (so that wasn’t sunlight?), thousands of flashes punctuating the blackness. Here we go...

Larry Mullen walks on first, striding proudly up the walkway, and takes his seat behind the kit. He bangs into ‘Breathe’, Edge and Adam appear as if from nowhere, and suddenly a leathery Bono’s leathering out the lyrics (possibly he wanted to get the most vocally demanding song out of the way first). It’s a spectacular and impressive, if relatively conventional, opening.

Bono straps on a guitar, mutters something totally unintelligible in Spanish, and then it’s straight into ‘No Line on the Horizon’ as the entire stage lights up like a Chinese lantern. Curiously, it blinks like a malfunctioning one, between the maddest of visuals, during the sexy, rhythmic ‘Get On Your Boots’.

Appropriately enough, it’s during ‘Magnificent’, classic U2 updated in the most exhilarating way, that the stage set starts really showing what it can do – rotating bridges, flashing lights, mad visuals all co-ordinating in a display of technical wizardry the likes of which we have never seen before in the context of live rock’n’roll. Words fail, but suffice to say it’s all very Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind...

“We wanted to build our space station in the capital of surrealism – Barcelona!” Bono explains, before draping himself in an Irish tricolour and launching into ‘Beautiful Day’ (the crowd reciprocate by humorously chanting, “Ole! Ole! Ole!”).

Michael Jackson has been dead for less than a week, so it’s hardly surprising that he’s acknowledged tonight (strangely, he’s one of the few artists that U2 haven’t really connected/collaborated with over the years, though they did knock Thriller off the UK No 1 spot with their War album way back in 1983). “We wrote this song for Billie Holiday, but we’re gonna play it tonight for Michael Jackson,” Bono explains, as Edge hits the distinctive intro to ‘Angel of Harlem’. Towards the end, he segues into samples of ‘Man in the Mirror’ and ‘Don’t Stop If You Get Enough’.

Then things get really surreal. During the Zoo TV tour, Bono used to call the White House, Downing Street and other political power centres. Tonight, he sets his sights a little higher. Actually, a lot fucking higher! “It’s almost 40 years to the month that Neil Armstrong stood on the moon,” he explains, before he calls the International Space Station on video phone. For a surreal few minutes, Bono and the band actually interview some of the astronauts currently orbiting the earth (Adam asks if they’ve seen any flying saucers today; Larry asks if the world is really round?). It’s a bizarre, and somewhat nerdy, interlude – and presumably not one they’ll be repeating every night of this tour. Appropriately, this is followed by ‘Unknown Caller’, one of the most dramatic and impressive tracks on No Line On The Horizon – which goes down a treat live too.

The real highlights of the show aren’t gimmicky, though. They play ‘Unforgettable Fire’ live for the first time in 20 years (or so Bono explains): it’s brilliant and you wonder why on earth they left it so long. The audience doing the “Uno!... Dos!... Tres!... Catorce!” before a scorching ‘Vertigo’ is also something special, as is the manic remixed version of ‘Crazy Tonight’ (with Larry on bongos) – a real crowd pleaser if ever there was one.

It’s undoubtedly their intention to bombard the senses, but at times there’s almost too much going on. On occasion, the band members are standing what looks like 100 metres apart, the screens are showing the most incredible images, and the stage set is rotating, gyrating and generally doing amazing things. There’s a massive ‘wow!’ factor – but you are left feeling that wherever you’re looking, you’re maybe missing something better.

The ‘wows!’ keep coming – but the set ends with a succession of golden oldies that takes the crowd on an emotional roller coaster ride. At least fifty people wearing Aung San Suu Kyi masks walk around the stage during ‘Walk On’, and Bishop Desmond Tutu delivers an impassioned pre-recorded speech before ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’. The best moments, however, come when it’s just band and audience, especially when they’re becoming ‘One’. They actually fuck up the closing number at one point – or that’s the way I heard it – but are almost all the more loveable for that moment of surrender...

Ultimately? While it wasn’t quite the perfect performance, U2 360 is shaping up to be a near perfect circle (rocking and) rolling onwards. They’ll refine the show as the tour goes on. The future needs a big kiss and I’ve a feeling it’ll be getting it from these boys when they’ve bedded everything in fully. . . Even now, this show is using its tongue.

I’ve a hunch you’d need to see 360 several times to fully appreciate the potential of its luminescence, brilliance and innovativeness. On the opening day of the season they ground out a great result. Barcelona was a winning start – and from here on the season can only get better.

They still have it, they’re still having it. Roll on Croke Park.

Updated setlist -
1. Breathe
2. No Line On The Horizon
3. Get On Your Boots
4. Magnificent
5. Beautiful Day
6. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For / Movin' On Up (snippet)
7. Angel Of Harlem / Man In The Mirror (snippet) / Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (snippet)
8. In A Little While
9. Unknown Caller
10. The Unforgettable Fire
11. City Of Blinding Lights
12. Vertigo
13. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
14. Sunday Bloody Sunday
15. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
16. MLK
17. Walk On / You'll Never Walk Alone (snippet)
Encore(s):
18. Where The Streets Have No Name
19. One
20. Ultra Violet (Light My Way)
21. With Or Without You
22. Moment of Surrender