From both fans and critics alike, the response to U2's performance Friday night at U.S. Bank Stadium was nothing short of fawning and rapturous. The hi-fi stage production was truly mesmerizing. The songs were presented in a thematic, meaningful way. The band was firing on all cylinders. If ever there was a concert where people had nothing to complain about it, this was it.
Of course, people still found something to complain about.
The acoustics at U.S. Bank Stadium were once again a sticking point for many fans after the show. A lot of the 50,000-plus attendees took to Twitter after the big gig to voice their frustration with the way it sounded. Some fans swore they would never attend a music event there again.
Truth be told, where I was seated in section F3 – lower level, midfield – the acoustics were quite good for U2. When I said as much on Twitter, however, many people responded by essentially accusing me of being whack. That's not entirely a new thing, but it seemed worth exploring further in this case. So I sent out another tweet surveying attendees on what the acoustics were like in their sections.
"Great show, but horrendous sound," Ken Hawkinson @kahawk wrote me. "No one in the building could understand a word Bono said."
"First and last concert there," declared Rob Clinite @Oranjespur, who said not even an all-original R.E.M. reunion would get him back in the building (a truly damning dis from a U2 fan).
This was still only the fifth concert at the new $1 billion football palace, which was partially sold to tax payers as a viable concert venue. Friday's show came with the heightened expectation that if anyone could make the place sound good, it's U2, who have been playing stadiums for decades and have top-of-the-line sound techs and equipment -- a fact reiterated their last time in town at an excellent-sounding TCF Bank Stadium show in 2011.
Generally, many fans agreed the sound in USBS was especially bad during the opening act Beck but got better for U2 (which could be blamed on empty seats and Beck's less-experienced crew). Most of the fans who had the general-admission, standing-room-only floor tickets were very happy with the way things sounded down there (and those tickets were under $100!).
Beyond that, though, the complaints were all across the board and all around the venue. Some fans in the upper levels actually said they were pleasantly surprised the acoustics were not as bad as they thought they would be. But they were definitely in the minority.
Here's a sampling of the responses below.
