Dancing with the Devil in pale moonlight - 29.07.01. Berlin
My name is LeMon. Bassist of the Hungarian U2 tribute band Station, student at the Hungarian University of Craft and Design and a full-time webdesigner. If I want to be honest I have to admit, that every single thing that happened to me during U2's Elevation European leg, was planned.
The story goes back a long time, somewhere at Cleopatra's tragic love story. This is when I started to plan that at least I'd give Bono a bonecrackin' hug. It's not really important since when I've started to listen and love the band's music, the point is that I usually express my obsession in a quite unusual and funny way. Since I didn't want to just go with the flow, I planned to get in contact with the band, but like a real close one. When would that be the easiest? Take one wild guess!! During one of the concerts, of course! I've never had the nerves, neither had I the patience to wait and scream outside a hotel while waiting for them to come out. No way! Waiting in line would be more than enough.
My planning started about a half a year before the European leg. We, me and my friend Szabolcs, tried to collect things that were truly unique, funny and would grab a lot of attention.
It happened this year that my above mentioned bastid friend created a WANTED poster for my birthday of Bono and me, copied them and hung them everywhere in town. I was quite shocked when I forst spotted one of these yellow piece of paper on my way home form University. These papers later became part of the process of grabbing attention and make the show unforgettable. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to make the cardboard figures of the band. The idea was to make real life sized ones, but not the usual ones, but the "South Park" ones that I made up. Maybe next time :)
We also planned to hand out signs on cardboard the crowd with the lyrics from "The Fly" that could have been held up. Would have been a lot of work too. Then, of course the basic accessory!! The banner. But a developed one, since we had too many ideas what to put on it. It became a big book, so everything we came up with made it into it.
DEVIL inside - that will make sense later on.
I'm the BIGGEST U2 fan in the WORLD - If U2 say they're the GREATEST, why couldn't I the biggest fan.
Don't skip the FLY - my favourite U2 song, didn't want them to skip it.
Don't skip the SWEETEST THING - I like this song too, was curious how it'd sound live.
Let's SWAP shades - I love Bono's shades, his are more expensive than mine.
WED me and my girlfriend - plan # 1 to get on stage, unfortunately it didn't work out. It'll be cleared up later why...
I've got your WALLET - just because, we're insane :)
Let me play DESIRE - plan # 2 to get on stage, but Bono had another surprise in store for me.
You STOLE my BOAT - based on my favourite story from the book U2 Until The End Of The World. Bono like s to steal boats, that's it. They relly liked this one.
Bono is a ticket SCULPER - That appeared on a few t-shirts so we didn't use it.
Bono is a bastard and U2 - CENSORED!! :)
It took a lot of time to make this book, and still I just didn't feel that would be the perfect pass to access all areas. Something was missing. Something simple, but effective. Then, the power of the Devil came to my mind. That already helped me once to seduce my English teacher on a carnival. MacPhisto has always created sensation, both in a good and a bad way. So, I thought it was time to bring widen my closet. Making the suit wasn't the easiest. The taylor I asked to make it, she couldn't really do anything with the golden material. If she only knew where that suit was to be really soon. I didn't even know why I reached so far. There was a good friend of mine, Réka, I've known her for 6 years and since she's always been in the textile industry, I asked her to help me. In return I offered her a concert ticket to Vienna, Austria. Meanwhile I got myself a red shirt, sprayed my old boots golden and made the horns of red velvet. (ADAM IS GODDAMN HOT!! - ed.) I also widened MacPhisto's clothing with those sharp vampire teeth. I thought they looked cool. :)
My plan was perfect, only one thing was missing. The concert ticket. And then came the presale on the Internet, but tickets were sold out really quickly, no luck for me. And in Hungary no tickets were available to any of the gigs. There were weeks when I thought I'd give up, coz it's not like I'm not gonna sing with Bono on stage, but I'll never even get to any of the shows.
Then to my biggest surprise I managed to get tickets to the Paris show by getting to the website 30 minutes before the official presale. As it later turned out I paid three for two tickets in the big rush, they really screwed something. :) Then with the same luck I managed to get tickets to the Berlin show and VIP passes to Vienna. I couldn't believe it. Anyway, I still owe a few people some money, but I got my and my friends' ticket to U2 Heaven.
The original plan was that I'd go with Ancsa, my girlfriend, to Paris, with Dino, Andris and Réka to Vienna and with Szabolcs to Berlin. Little changes were made, that, like I went to Paris with my parents and my sister and Ancsa came with me to Vienna, but that's not important. The point is that the Paris gig was the most awesome and incredible show I've ever seen. I've seen the band live for the very first time, and when they stepped on stage my heart missed a beat. We were outside the heart on the left, but right at the ramp. I met three really nice people earlier on while lining up, one of them was Anna Cudel who was a really big help for me later on. So, there we were, in the front, with my arms around my sister, protecting her from 15 thousand people pushing and screaming. My whole body ached the next day. The gig itself was fantastic. Bono was in a good mood and he was in front of us a lot. The most amazing was probably Where The Streets Have No Name, Bono spotted the banner and pointing at us he said: "I see you in blue... "or something like that. Then, during Mysterious Ways two kiddos got on stage. I was really mad, they didn't even move or anything. As it later turned out they were two of Bono's kids, Jordan and Eve. (sorry Bono, no offense :) ). What I thought was great is that they were so friendly. When I first saw them, they were my heroes, I thought they were some kind of Gods, but then they all go closer and closer to us, fans, the whole thing became so intimate. And the other thing was that this feeling touched everyone. We were like a big family in there, sitting on each other's neck, holding each other's hands. And that feeling is so typically a U2 feeling. It's there at every gig, it's like a giant orgy!!
Before I go on with my story, I'd like to thank the French U2 Achtung Club for that wonderful pre-party they held in Club Locomotive, next to Moulin Rouge, and also that 2 S-O-Bs that robber our car close to the French boarder. Those two pricks robbed us at day!!time at a parking lot of a mall. They took everything they could move. Baggage with passports, money, my camera with all the pics I took of U2 the previous night, my Discman, my Elevation single, everything!! They may rot in hell!!!
The gig in Vienna was also great. There were a lot of people, but we had fun. Because of the pre-party we couldn't get close to the stage this time, so we could barely see anything. That was something I reckoned would happen, so compensating, we stuffed ourselves to death at the VIP party.
The setlist was completely different than in Paris, that was a score. If my memory serves right I heard six different songs live. We lit the lighters during Kite, lost our minds during Out Of Control and of course romantic moments during With Or Without You. Yes, Bono!! We don't stay in fancy hotels... so we slept outside in the park in supermarket trolleys :) We looked like zombies the next day. We left for Berlin on the same day with Szabolcs. We had a 15-hour long train trip ahead of us with lots of smelly faggots :) :) :)
To be continued...
Szabolcs (Szabolcs: pronounced subolch) - So we got back from Vienna only to the very fact dawning upon our insomniac heads, that we're bound to catch the 17:45 train to Vienna again, or else be left out of Berlin's greatest real musical summer attraction of this year of 2001, the so called U2-gig at Waldbühne amphitheatre.
Thus, we threw all our remaining cash, passports (in LeMon's case, a brand new one), and clean underwear into our suitcases, a pack of caffeine pills into ourselves, and got to the station, and on the train just on time. The journey - lasting thirteen hours - seemed endless, despite the fact of taking place at night, so we could sleep a few hours. Berlin caught us in a dizzy, nonetheless hyper- realistic state of mind, on a cold and Corbijnian Zoo-Bahnhof - grey morning.
Our old friend, fellow musician and U2 fan, Shane "Bloody Eirash Basterd" O'Connell picked us up and journeyed us across the obscure, neon- lit labyrinth of the Berlin underground system, to his flat at Witzleben (English: a joke of a life). This was our place to stay, though the spirits of it seemed to like us more than it was helpful to us, as it proved later that day. We packed out and rushed to the venue, thirty minutes from there, to find a relatively small crowd gathered around, sporting all kinds of tribal costumes, and carrying hecto-litres of mineral water, being useful to human existence in the forty -degrees Celsius heat steaming with the ecstatic anticipation of fans, and the July sun scorching the horseshit patterned pavement. Soaking with sweat, we decided to go home, and get dressed, and do our makeup for the show, as we figured it makes more sense to arrive early, so as to get a better place in the line, since we were eager on making it into the Heart.
At home we got ready, LeMon put his MacPhisto outfit and makeup on, and I painted my Michael Stipe/glam-rock version of it on my face. Thus looking like establishing supporters of Christopher Street Parade, we stepped on it, and rushed out the front door.
Everything went wrong as I shut it:
| LeMon: | What about the keys, lock the door, please! |
| Me: | What KEYS? I thought Shane gave them to you, didn't he?! |
| LeMon: | True, but I put them down inside! |
| Me: | And I never had them! |
| Together: | OHH FFFUUUUCCCKKKK!!!! |
| LeMon: | You Daft Prick! Asshole! Idiot! |
| Me: | You never told me to gather them, assface! |
| LeMon: | Wasn't it obvious, fucker?! |
(Actually I really asked Szabolcs to put the keys, cos I don't have any pocket on my golden suit. Don't believe him :) - LeMon :)
And so it went for another few rounds. Eventually it turned out, I forgot my ticket, and money back inside, along with the set of keys. The bitter (to me hilariously funny) irony of the situation lay in the fact, that Shane gave them to us with the explicit warning not to lose the keys, we could do anything but that, cause those were the only ones to his flat. And since there was no handle, only a doorknob, we were stuck outside for good. What to do now? I decided to fetch Shane, for he could possibly help. LeMon tried to call him at the venue, without success. I ran around the house in search of a janitor, who might possess a spare set of keys. No one at home, everyone was on holidays. After twenty minutes, I found a resident, and after explaining my surreal looks, found out there was nobody around in care of maintenance, though he gave me the number of a guy, but soon it seemed hopeless, as he regretfully informed me of the lack of spare keys.
It started to rain heavy.
I told LeMon to wait there till Shane's back with me. Considering he fancied a gold lamé suit and white facial makeup, with red-plush devil horns, he said OK. I made my way outside.
It started raining ice heavy.
I made my way to the S-Bahn station in the driving ice-rain, soaking wet in the time you could say "hailstorm". As usually, I chose to look at our major league screwing up from its humorous side, that - being in Germany- being somewhat experimental. I got to Waldbühne, met Shane, who by then knew what had happened. He swallowed his anger, and -to all my respect- started thinking of a quick solution. He figured that his flatmate's ex-girlfriend might have spare sets of keys at her place, nearby ours. So we went there, hoping she was at home. She wasn't. The clock stood at 5p.m. Shane called his flatmate abroad, to find some information. While talking, the girl and her mother got home, only to find two strangers- one of them looking like a gay-pride activist-asking for keys to a flat I suppose she wanted to forget. She told us they didn't have any keys, but showed the way to a locksmith's store, saying there's an emergency phone number on the window. We left for that number, Shane- all upset- cursing the girl, and her mother. (He turned out to be like that, when things weren't going his way, afterwards.
Finally we got to the store, put down the number, went back to our place, called the locksmith, and fetched some döner for them to eat. In forty-five minutes the guy arrived greeting LeMon with "Guten Tag, Herr Dracula!", and asking DM200 for the job. As the lock wasn't locked from the outside, he could easily open it up, by drilling a small hole into the door and fumbling around with a short piece of wire for a second. We gave him the 200 Marks.
Finally we could leave for the concert, assuming a place inside somewhere around the main entrance. As soon as we got a place in the queue- after I've tried to hand out some home-made Bono-WANTED posters without much positive feedback- it started to rain, for the sake of diversity. Shane mentioned to our horror - it later proved to be a great relief- that this venue was open-air. After spending about an hour and a half waiting for the gates to be opened- during which we could hear the band rehearse "Bad" a couple of times- they started to let us in. At that holy moment, the rain stopped.
The site was a beautiful, crater-in-a-forest-like amphitheatre, almost filled with the fans who'd already got inside at the main entrance. Now we were sure we wouldn't make it into the heart. LeMon went his separate ways, searching for his French friends, while we met Shane's French friends, among others. After standing around in the chock full outer ring of the field portion of the arena, I decided to sit somewhere, not close to the band, but at least being able to listen to, and enjoy the music. I then saw LeMon walking into the heart. I was still close enough, to -by waving- catch his attention, and let him send his wristband (with which he got inside) out. He managed to do so, and I, happy possessor of an orange, mildly destroyed wristband, could finally take my final place for the show, after having put the damn thing on, right in front of a security guard, who quite a bit amused, told me they would provide me a new one, since this one's faintly worn down. The support act, German rap trio, Die Söhne Mannheims were washed away by the hailstorm, to everyone's greatest satisfaction. Instead, German stand-up comedian, Michael Mittelmeier jumped in, to warm the twenty thousand strong, international crowd up, earning a pleasantly warm welcome, including me. Strange, but as soon as I got inside the half full Heart, people started accepting, and were even asking for my WANTED posters, so in two minutes all hundred copies were gone.
LeMon's back - We split when we got to the arena, but the girl I met in Paris, Anna found me. Her and her boyfriend made it into the heart, but she spotted me. I was glittering amongst thousands of people. She was my big help, because she helped me to get into the heart. She sent out her wristband with her boyfriend, so I could use it to get in. I didn't want other people to see what I was doing so I suffered a lot until I managed to get it on. Meanwhile, I got comments, like "Hi, are you MacPhisto?" I was like, no, Pete the Chop, arsehole! Lovely, innit? Someone mentioned that they were talking about me on the radio "there's a bloke in a golden suit running around". Kicks arse, hope Bono heard it too. The funniest was when people came to me and said "Hiya vampire” or "Hey, the Rocky Horror Picture Show is tomorrow” I was like, sick my duck! By the way, I probably distracted the security guy's attention with my outfit so he didn't really check my wristband which was quite messed up by that time. Finally I was in, in the heart, in the middle of the world. It was an awesome feeling, the catwalks, like two caring arms around us, hundreds of fans. Luckily, Anna and his boyfriend got a good spot in the front on the right side of the stage, so I could get close as well. I lost szabolcs and Shane, no news of them. They didn't answer the phone, neither did I see any of them. Then I spotted Szabolcs' frustrated face. How could I get him in here? But here comes a helping hand again. One of Shane's friends would take the already messed up wristband. SO that makes it three getting into the heart with the SAME wristband.Unfortunately, Shane's left outside, but he got a spot at the tip of the heart. (SPARKY RULES!! -ed.)
The first tunes, the already known intro. Those who know what it means got the goosebumps right away. And here they come again, on stage, the world's greatest rock ,' roll band (and the sexiest man ever, Lord Adam Clayton. - ed.) ELEVATION The energy reaches its top, the feeling we all know. He spottd me!! He looks at me like this is the first time he sees a white man ever. He's staring at me. I catch Adam's eyes too. OK, go on, you can read my signs. Adam really likes them, he goes back and forth reading. He's smiling all the time, he's unbelievable. UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD Bono starts walking on the catwalk. Oh My God!! He's coming to me! Which one should I show him? "I am the biggest U2 fan in the world!" Bono looks at me: "I know..." OK? That's done! He's looking at Szabolcs too. KITE Bono: "Where's the Moon? Ah, there it is!" STUCK IN A MOMENT Bono: "Sorry 'bout the weather! Oh, there's a cloud!" There was only, one single fleecy one by that time. IN A LITTLE WHILE Bono pulls up a girl wrapped in a Ramones t-shirt. She's up there for quite a long time. DESIRE Bono starts sliding on the stage. "Careful Adam, it's slippery!" Heeey! I'm here, let me go up there!! Feck it! WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME It's all dark by now, the lights lit the crowd in a wonderful way MYSTERIOUS WAYS, and then THE FLY!! Whooops, this is the intro of the Fly. Thanks for not skipping it. Bono are you staring at me? He's coming to my direction. He crouched down, reaching his hand out for me, just as I imagined! This is not happening! Is this what I think it is? Wait! Damn security doesn't know what it's all about, they don't let me through. Fecfk, the crowd is pushing, everyone wants that hand. Wait!! Bono!! An arm grabs me! Thank you Szabolcs! He pushes me right into Bono's arms. Jaysus, he's pulling really hard. Careful, you'll rip my trousers. I'm on stage, placing my horns back on place and finally I can look around. Amazing! Bono's half kingdom at my feet, like 20 thousand people. Everyone's in a colourful light parade and everyone's looking. I wave at them in a Macphisto-ish way. There's Szabolcs. But Bono's here too and I still haven't even looked at him. He grabs me, grabs me hard. Cool boy, I don't bite! Now, I turn to him and look at him. My new best buddy! We're the same height! :) "You walk out into the Waldbuhne, the lights go down and everything changes! Light and motion, light and motion, you turn the light on emotion." He’s waving, he says something but all I understand is "everything changes" Does he mean me? Is that a problem that I dressed up? Whatever it takes, even if he embarrasses me in front of all these people. I don't care! It was worth it. He's staring at me, right into my eyes. Through my eyes, into my brain. He's just staring with those "Spanish Eyes"! So, what did you learn? :) I look back at him! We start spinning slowly. I'm dancing with Bono on stage! "Love, we shine like a burning star, fallin' from the sky, tonight!" My left leg's shaking. Is this too fast for me? "One more time!" Let me sing!! "Love, love, love! We shine like a burning star, fallin' from the sky, tonight!" Sorry, I was singing the background vocal. Why didn't you go on? Was it any good? Why are you staring at me? "Thank you!" For you?? Anything! Anytime! What a show! Edge's flashing like thunderbolt. Bono's jumping up and down in front of me! I'm jumping up and down too. We must look like two feckin' eejits. It feels great. Maybe it's the anger and bitterness of 21 years that has surfaced and set free, but it's all gone now. I came clean!
What are you doing buddy? Don't go away! Oh God, why do I start going off the stage! But something or someone is pulling me down. It's my damn self-conscious! I sit down for a while, until I can hand my camera to the smiling security. I haven't taken a single picture. Oh, it feels so good up here! Edge sings the background vocal in the chorus. I sounded great, didn't I? Anytime Edge!! OK, I'm off the stage. You hold me there? See ye Bono, bye bye U2! I'll see you again soon! So many nice people down here too, everyone smiling. I smile back. They offer me some water, a cigarette. They're nice. So, Szabolcs! We did it!! Thanks to everyone! Did anyone taped it?
Szabolcs's Concert Review
Veteran Elevation tour followers started cheering, releasing their anxious, nervous excitement in the form of Mexican waves. The well-known songs turned the venue into one blight bowl of witches, steaming and boiling with infectious U2 fever, spreading up 'til the highest seats, launching people up on their tired feet, making each of us dance in a way, that would make even dervishes look like a toddler just out of the pram. At last came Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, making everyone go apes. It's not easy to depict the state of common excitement as the Influx remix of Elevation came floating in, it was somewhat of a feeling to make blue whales die of a heart-attack.
The band walks in waving and smiling. it's crazy, they're here, and so are we, and this is not TV.
ELEVATION WOOO-HOOOO-OOH!!!
Waldbühne explodes, leaving the small pieces of debris falling back, after making a four minute long journey in orbit, only to reunite into a happy mass of dancing, jumping people, all singing BEAUTIFUL DAY in perfect time. Since we found our place right in front of Adam- about two and a half metres from him- standing right off the lip of the stage, all the energy of both the band and the crowd focused and twirled shrieking around us, people inside the Heart. UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD was the first old song, with Bono - at the end- impersonating Judas, kissing Edge - playing Jesus and his guitar, and bullfighting him, then deliberately tripping and kicking the strings of Edge's beautiful Gibson guitar. NEW YEAR'S DAY got everyone clapping. Big time U2 oldie, but LeMon was still eager to learn as much as possible from Sparky Clayton, stealing a glimpse off his fingers playing one of his best basslines. KITE, a bit too soft for my taste in the original version, impressed me a lot live. Bono repeated the last verse acoustically at its end. GONE, one of my favourites off POP, blew me head off. Classic live track, great, pulsing rhythm part, splendid. NEW YORK, probably the most interesting song off the latest record came floating on with its eerie intro, fitting well into the U2 canon, blasting out with some altered, new riffs a'la The Edge, and introduced by Bono: "Berlin is the new New York!" I WILL FOLLOW Guess the audience reaction! SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY Just the same, really powerful, with a snippet of Bob Marley's Get Up! Stand Up! at the middle eight, after Bono introduces the song to be his prayer that night, for the next day in Northern Ireland the people were to decide, whether they wanted to go on in peace, or go back to violence. Right after S. B. S. our singer started on a more light-hearted tune, John Lennon's IN MY LIFE, doing a short acoustic version, his voice not in top form, not that anyone had noticed it during the entire show, not even me- bit of a badass critic of live music I love-due to his uncanny ability to communicate with the crowd. This just reminds me, there are quite a few similarities between major league concerts and political rallies- the gig taking place in Berlin, just about five hundred metres away from Hitler's Olympic Stadium-and I felt a bit cautious about letting go of self-control while still in the crowd. I tried to keep a safe distance from all the Mexican waves and singing along to the well-known lines of 40. Paranoia. But you see, music can change people, turn them into PARTY ANIMALS, and I am one of these guys. STUCK IN A MOMENT followed, letting people sing along to the Christmas carol like melody. Then came Bono's first close encounter with the audience. After "Stuck" he says: "I just wanna show you somebody here, just check this." and he pulls up a brown haired, young girl, to the screaming and cheering of twenty-thousand people-"So this is a Ramones T-shirt, and the Ramones were the reason why we started this band, and we owe so very much to the Ramones. And I want you to know, that Joey Ramone became a little bit of a friend before he died a few months back, and this next song was the last song that he heard in this world. And actually he made a much better song… I don't know how. It was a song written about a hangover now it's… I don't know, some sort of gospel song. This is a cool T-shirt, I love you."- with these words he turns to the girl, and kisses her lips. Thundering crowd noise. And the band starts a dizzy version of IN A LITTLE WHILE. During the song Bono strolls down the catwalk with the rather emotionalized girl, and Edge, watching it from the corner of his eye, joins them at the tip of the Heart, where our Don Juan gently helps the fan leave their company. Bono then introduces the fellow U2-s, rather the same way as in other cities. After these minutes of more subtle music, he gathers the very German Larry Müller Jr. to help them out with some snare drum Bo Didley rhythm for an acoustic DESIRE right on the spot. He dedicates it to all bands starting out, it being about "…blind ambition, it helps…". At the end he plays some harmonica, you know it's always funny seeing him play any instrument. He then introduces Sam O'Sullivan, who gets a warm welcome. It's time for some nineties memories, as Mr Hewson starts: " So it would be wrong not to mention that we had ten years ago a very special time in Berlin… in the Hansa Studios. This was the period when our good friends The Americans reckoned we got all weird…uhm, on them. This is true. But you know if… you're four young men from the north side of Dublin… you know you need to get a little weird sometimes. We heard they were making some… you know we heard the weird and extraordinary and uplifting records, that were being made in Hansa Studios and we thought well, we should go and become students there/laughs/. So we came to your city to study your rather odd behaviour… 'cause Berliners are just not straight folk right?!/big laughs/ We like that, we like that very much, and… this is a song we started there. We gave it , it was inspired by a Wim Wenders film, Faraway So Close." And Edge starts a beautiful version of STAY, with only an acoustic guitar accompanying Bono's singing. Following this as the sun sets behind the trees, and stars come out, a song I treasure as my all time favourite U2 tune. BAD. I sing along, and it's perfect /not my vocal ability to reproduce the "Wide awake part" though/, but it's not easy hearing Bono's voice of all the fans'. This makes all the miserable fuck-ups previously occurring, forgotten. A most familiar cloud of synthesizer sounds brings along one of the loudest cheering, that greet WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME, and it's as one would anticipate. Bono says before the band launch into the song: "What can I give back to God, for all His blessings?!" I only stood facing the crowd as I'd been paralysed by the perfect harmony as the band and the audience wailed together under the sunny floodlights. It was a party in deed. We needed party music. The guys delivered some immediately, making way for MYSTERIOUS WAYS! I danced myself to the brink of consciousness, almost fainting during the solo. At the climax Bono sang: "Jehovah move with it! Jah move with it!" What we were there for started to come true: As the beautiful, calm intro for THE FLY raised its head, Bono, looking at LeMon, walked over to where we stood, stopped at the beginning of the ramp and reached out to LeMon-MacPhisto and did nothing. Everyone around us started pushing towards Bono, so in panic that he might change his mind, I started dragging the others back, by their arms, so LeMon could push himself forward. The security people, unaware what was going on- coz they faced the stampeding fans, did not want to let him through at first, but then we managed to help him grab Bono's hand /I actually lifted him like a baby/. He then pulled him onstage. He must have been amused by this skinny young guy, looking a bit like Marylin Manson with false vampire teeth in his mouth, and make-up pouring down his face. He hugged him half armed by the shoulder, squeezed him so as to prevent him from jumping around- LeMon, quite professional as a performer being a musician not likely to do that, all the less so because his legs were shaking like two vibrators. Bono shouted: " We got into the Waldbühne, the lights go down, everything changes… light and motion, light and motion, you turn the light on the motion, and Love we shine like a burning star…" they sang into one mike, face to face, two times. LeMon sang the higher part of Edge, who remembering he used to do this at earlier dates of the tour, sang it during the first two choruses, going "Love, love, love" a couple of times. Bono didn't forget about the origin of the song, shouting "Achtung Baby!" before the solo. The main set thus ended, but there was a lot-lot more still to come. Of course, at the end of the song, Bono didn't left out his fly-on-a-wall joke. Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go... BULLET THE BLUE SKY Powerful, fierce, angry, LOUD!!! At the end Bono attacked John Lennon for his "alleged" support of the IRA, shouting: "John! HEY JOHN !!! PULL THE TRIGGER ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGGER!!! YOUR BIGGER THAN JESUS ON A BUMPER STICKER!!!" and "War is over we don't need your help, America's making war with itself …" and "What's my name, MARK CHAPMAN!!! WHO'S THAT MAN, MARK CHAPMAN!!!" It chilled the blood, and froze the summer air. A tender but average WITH OR WITHOUT YOU followed. In the break the fans sang "How long to sing this song" Bono, thanking "Und das ist gut so!"/that's right so/. He introduces ONE, and, as usually he starts talking on a world-wide scale, about a matter that's bugging him: " Ich kenne nur fünf worter auf Deutsch: und das ist gut so…/laughs/ Thank you for giving us a great life actually… Thank you for following us down the Jubilee2000 road in the Drop the Debt Campaign. The richest countries have squeezed enough out of the poorest countries. I was in Genova last week, and it was a shock, it was a war zone, and I was ashamed, I was ashamed to see politicians hiding behind a wall, high wall. And I am angry… violence is never right, ever right! Whether it's the protestors or the police, the violence is never right. All we could be: Angry. Because we're right to be angry as the world… shrinks, and more, and more, and more people are left with f… nothing. And that is violence. Malaria… we can cure Malaria, it's just money, it's just money… That is violence." Edge leads the crowd into a solemn version WAKE UP DEAD MAN, that makes me sing loud Hallelujahs at its end. Saying: "To Road Movies… Happy birthday Wim Wenders…Walk on! WALK ON!!!" he leads the band into the final song, thanking the almighty for that night, and everything He blessed them with. It's my favourite song off All That You Can't Leave Behind, and it's plain breathtaking in it's euphoric beauty, and pain. No clichés like tears, or hugs, or this was the best concert of my life, although that is true, it was good. Afterwards German radio Fritz made a short interview with me, for they couldn't find LeMon /he was buying a T-shirt/. From then on it's history, and everyone, including Bono may eat LeMon's shlong, to use his own words.