From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Drizzle Turns To Dazzle For U2 Gig Richard Jinman

Just when a cloudburst was threatening to turn PopMart Sydney into Friday Soggy Friday, someone hit the button.

As $10.4 million of video screen blinked into dazzling day-glow life it seemed to suck the moisture out of the air at the Football Stadium.

This then, is PopMart. A dizzying parade of giant grainy images pasted on a screen so large it makes the Berlin Wall look like a picket fence. The bands arrive through the audience like boxers for a prize fight. Bono wears the familiar muscle T-shirt and purple robe, and The Edge’s black stetson is defiantly in place.

The band moves seamlessly from the dance-rock attack of Mofo to more familiar songs such as I Will Follow and Sunday Bloody Sunday.

High points come early.

On the spine tingling introduction to I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For you can hear the guitar picks on the strings. When Bono breaks into a verse of Stand by Me at its conclusion, 40,000 voices sing with him.

One supermodel, two Hollywood actors and some of the biggest names on the local music scene. The guest list at the concert was almost as impressive as the giant video screen and 12-metre lemon-cum-mirror-ball.

As clouds rolled towards the city yesterday the glitterati preparing to roll up to the stadium. Model Helena Christensen, actors Keanu Reeves and Samuel L. Jackson and members of Savage Garden, INXS and Midnight Oil were all invited to see the Dublin band’s latest stab at state-of-the-art stadium rock.

The bad weather was never an issue, organisers said. PopMart, which costs $373,000 a day to stage, opens for business, rain or shine.

While the A-list guests watched the action from the shelter of the giant mixing desk, the sell-out 40,000-strong audience was happy to brave the elements.

Some had travelled considerable distances to hear U2 perform its final Australian concert.

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