June 1, 1983 - San Francisco, California, USA - Civic Auditorium

Fan Review:

By Mark Stevens

While I began following U2's career in October of 1981, with the release of "October",this was the transformative concert that made me a U2 fan for life. When Edge's wireless guitar rig broke down on "Out of Control", the very first song, Bono took over, stopped the band, and they had the unmitigated nerve to re-start the show in front of 5,000 people. Most bands would be pretty rattled by that, but these guys just EXPLODED into one of the most memorable shows I've ever seen by anyone (I've seen a total of 15 U2 shows and over 250 concerts as of this writing in February of 2005). The energy was phenominal, and this show has become something of a legend in Bay Area U2 circles, only matched by the second elevation show at san jose arena. This was also the first and last time I ever heard "An Cat Dubh" "threw a brick through a window" and "a day without me" live. From this auditorium in 1983 the venues got bigger, but I'll never forget the charge we in the audience got-it's lasted 22 years!