U2 - 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin, Germany.

05 - November - 2009.

Attendance: 10.000

Disc 1 (32:20)

01. - Intro -

02. One

03. Magnificent

04. Sunday Bloody Sunday / Get Up, Stand Up

05. Beautiful Day / Blackbird

06. Vertigo

07. Moment of Surrender

Recording Equipment - History

Core Sound Stealthy Cardioids (right channel only!) + Sony TCD-D7 (@ 48 khz) > Terratec EW 2496 > Soundforge 9.0 (right channel doubled to double mono) > CDWave Editor > FLAC

Taper: Stadtfelder

Additional notes (by the taper): On October 28th it was announced that U2 will play a free concert in Berlin in front of 10.000 people. The concert was announced to start at 6.30 pm for a length of 20 minutes. Tickets were given away by an internet ticket agency for free. Some fans got tickets for "section A" and the majority for "section B".

At the day of the concert we found out that "section A" meant "front of stage" and "section B" was the big place behind "section B". The front of stage area was still nearly empty at 6 pm. For this reason it was filled up with people who looked bank clerks and so called "very important people". Some were dressed in their office clothes with high heels and naked feet (it was only five degrees Celsius)! Families with small children were let in the front of stage area, too.

The venue was not taper friendly because the only "dead center" was in the front of stage area under the p.a. stack (there were 13 boxes on the left and 13 ones on the left). I did not have a front of stage ticket and recorded from the second row of the "section B".

Sound: The p.a. system was not good. The bass did not roll off very well and the high ends caused some pain in my ears. It was too quiet, too (I did not use ear plugs which I normally do). Crowd noise: Yes, there are some annoying cheers and clappings but it is not forbidden to sing on and clap during a U2 concert.

Comments

Free concert at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The concert was part of the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards. Tickets were given for free, as mentioned above by 'Stadtfelder'. Note Jay-Z joined the band onstage to rap during Sunday Bloody Sunday.

This item features good sound quality, music and vocals are well audible but come through somewhat distant, and the output is pretty muffled with a bit of saturation. It was recorded in mono, as the taper pointed out.