360° and you too

Monday morning was wet and cold. Cold as one usually would expect in October, but not late August as the temperature did not manage to climb above 11 degrees. This fact per se would not have been a problem, but given we had plans for the evening outdoors,we were worried about the rain as well as the chilly temperatures. At least the rain stopped during the afternoon and made us hopeful for a great night out in the nearby Ernst Happel Stadium. Grandma Heidi as well as Renate and Werner took care of our little sunshine in the evening and thus enabling us to be part of a the biggest crowd ever in Vienna's largest arena: We were two of the 75.000 people seeing and hearing U2 in their first concert in Austria since 5 years.

For two hours U2 excited more people than ever in the Prater

Due to the fact that Sandra and Flo were lucky enough to get hold of two separate seating tickets but not being able to take two days off from work we inherited the tickets and were able to see Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen live on stage for the first time. Our seats provided us with a great view overlooking the crowd and were absolutely rain-secure as they were at the very top of the stadium just below the roof. Thanks to the huge 360°-videowall above the impressive stage we could see well anyhow and the mood up there was great as well -neither of us was sitting during the whole concert. The gig was a great music show where the band fas clearly the centre-piece rather than dance acts etc like we have seen at Madonna's concert two years ago. Not only that Bono hit the tunes at all times - even when obviously his technicians deafened him with too high volume in his earplug - but also the band came across as very sympathetic, the highly respected charity projects were not thrown at the crowd but delivered in a very decent way and on top of all that the gig itself offered a great mixture of old classics, new stuff and great atmosphere.

Overall the concert was a very memorable event in which we only would have wished the weather to be nicer (and maybe standing tickets) and with Jakob having behaved nicely the door seems open now for more evening events to attend together again in the future.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus