September 14, 1984 - Melbourne, Victoria, Australia - Sports And Entertainment Centre

Fan Review:

By Duncan

This was one of the first concerts I went to. Aged 19 and a U2 nut, I hardly slept for two weeks beforehand.

The venue was a converted swimming pool - with some of the worst acoustics on the planet. The fact that U2 were pretty loud didn't help. Most of the time it was just a wall of noise and sometimes I couldn't even tell what song they were playing. The piano part on October sounded like something was broken. This was from about 10 rows back, dead centre. Others I've spoken too had better sound further back.

That said, it was still an incredible concert! U2 gave it everything, despite being just one small show of many they were doing almost every night. Only a great band could pull of a show with lousy sound like that.

The floor had reserved seating but when U2 came on everybody just pushed for the stage. I spent the whole show sandwiched in an aisle but it was the closest I ever got to a U2 concert.

Thankfully they played a different venue - the tennis centre - on their return to Melbourne for Lovetown, and the sound rocked. If I had to choose, Lovetown was the best tour - small enough, good sound, different shows every night.

This show was the first show to go on sale, but ended up being the second night in Melbourne (Bono mentioned 'we were told you were the first people to buy tickets' at some point, but that was all I could understand thanks to the terrible sound).

I also remember my ears ringing for a few hours after.