Satellite of Love Over New York City

31 Jul 2015

'This is the act of surrender, and we surrender to you this evening in Madison Square Garden. And you are the reason we're here. You brought us here. So we surrender.'

Were you at the show in New York City last night? Post your comments and add your photos here. Meantime, here's a few reminders of what went down.

'Did you know that yesterday was John Lennon Day in New York City? Myself and The Edge spent the afternoon on Ellis Island, with Lady Liberty behind us... and Yoko Ono in front of us.
'We were there for Amnesty International and I told the assembled gathering that The Beatles were in fact… Irish! Not just John, all of The Beatles were Irish… and I’m sticking by that today. OK? I tried it in Liverpool, it didn’t go so well, but in New York it’s gonna go great!'
Iris went out to all mothers but in particular to Julia, mother of John Lennon.

The innovation of ‘The Fly’ before Invisible, switching with The Wanderer, has some fans returning to the tour specifically to see it. 'Even though I saw the first two shows in Vancouver,' tweeted @MartinKendell 'I want to fly to NYC just so I can see The Fly intermission segment!”

U2 Brother, in his discoball helmet, was under the lights again for Mysterious Ways and stayed to capture Elevation on Meerkat. Mark's tribute band Acrobat were on stage in Toronto to play 'Desire'  and tonight he did another fine job.  On the 'e' stage Bono also paid tribute to Alyssa - the woman who called 911 after his bike crash in Central Park last year - and to 'Engine 44 'The Fighting Irish' that picked me up off the ground.'
Tonight those same firefighters offered Bono a Jameson which he gratefully accepted and invited him to dinner at the firehouse. As one of them put it: 'We patched you up so you could perform in front of millions of people every year. We'll always take care of you. Fighting 44, hoorah!'

Beautiful surprise after that with Edge and Bono honouring Laurie Anderson who was with us and remembering the great Lou Reed. 
'It's 30 years ago last week that our band played Live Aid in London at Wembley Arena. On that occasion, we sent a signal to somebody we loved... in his apartment here in New York. Lou Reed, like everybody else, was watching television and Lou Reed found this message that we sent via satellite and we became friends. He was the poet laureate of New York City, can we agree? And we have the privilege of having his partner here, Laurie Anderson who's another extraordinary, gifted friend of ours. So we want to play for her, and all of you, a song of his that speaks of that moment when friendships begin in those random, extraordinary moments. So let's see if we can call up the spirit of Lou....'

Twenty two years after its last full performance by the band (10th December 1993), Satellite Of Love joins the ever expanding #U2ieTour song  list, and, just like in those ZOOTV days, the poet laureate of New York City appears on the screens with synced vocals for the duet. 'The ever-present Lou Reed.'

Beautiful Day namechecked Rolling Stone and Jann Wenner as well as 'Jessica Chastain right in front of you' and with a snippet of The Ramones I Remember You, also  became  ' a message born in Queens, from Joey.'

And then when you think there can’t be any more surprises, over the gentle refrain of the intro to Mother & Child Reunion, this: 'There's somebody here tonight who is extraordinary in all kinds of ways and we've been using his song to tell the piece of the HIV puzzle that hurts the most, the transmission from a mother to her unborn child of the virus HIV. We had to find the most extraordinary song. Paul Simon is in the house tonight.'

And with that Paul Simon himself walks on to the stage, Bono passing him the microphone..

'No I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away, oh, little darling of mine....'

Were you at the seventh show in New York City? Add your own reviews and post your photos here

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