U2 "Get On Your Boots" live audio [with video SLIDESHOW] from the Somerville Theatre -March 11, 2009

Rock legends serve up Magnificent treat

By Jed Gottlieb | Thursday, March 12, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Music News

U2 rocked Somerville!

Its not an exclamation any of us ever expected to hear, but last night the surreal became real as the iconic Irish rockers assaulted the tiny Somerville Theatre with the force of an atomic bomb.

This is a vaudeville theater, its not for shy people like myself, a beaming Bono told the crowd of about 800 lucky radio winners and VIPs - some of whom came from across the country to be there. Then, spotting a copy of U2s first EP from 1979 bobbing up and down in the audience, he added that the band hadnt played a theater this small since way back then.

The final stop on U2s 3 Nights Live promo tour, the show featured a filmed 30-minute Q and A session and an absurdly awesome five-song set: Get on Your Boots, Magnificent, Breathe and Ill Go Crazy If I Dont Go Crazy Tonight, all from new album No Line on the Horizon, and Vertigo.

Bono, seemingly not feeling the audience was giving 100 percent, immediately egged the first dozen rows to leap over their seats and crush to the front. The mass of people cheering at the edge of the stage spiked the energy and even up in the balcony fans were screaming along to lyrics theyd just learned.

Thanks for sticking with us all these years, Bono said. It took us 30 years for us to figure this (expletive) out.

Approaching 50, the guys dont look as pretty up close as they did on the glossy, high-def stadium Jumbotrons of the Zoo TV Tour, but the punk-rock energy that launched the band is intact. Even in the ancient theater, even while debuting material never played live, the sound was crystal clear, the quartet was tight and Bonos voice was a brilliant bell heard up into the rafters.

If they can do this in front of a couple hundred people, the Sept. 20 Gillette Stadium stop will be epic.

While the Q and A was light, funny and intimate, the crowd left wanting way more. Broadcast live on local radio and across the country, Canada and Australia, the show kept strictly to the pre-set, one-hour time frame. And no amount of stomping, clapping or chanting of one more song! changed that.

But as short as it was, it had the vibe of a once-in-a-lifetime event. U2 playing its smallest Hub venue in almost three decades (anyone remember the Paradise, Dec. 13, 1980?) just hours after learning No Line on the Horizon hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. New York got a weeklong residency on Late Show with David Letterman, but Boston got to be close enough to the band to actually get vertigo.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/music/general/view.bg?articleid=115...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• U2
• Bono
• Somerville Theatre
• Boston MA
• U2 3 Nights Live

[ClicketyCat]

great pics, great song.

[drvertigo]

I don't give a shit what people say I fucking love this song. Kicks ass live

[2koolway4u]

very fucking cool

[lemonheartfly]

"turn down those lights"