Revived and invigorated from Saturday night’s show with The Seeger Sessions Revival we jumped on the Dart train to get a number before the first roll call early on Sunday morning. When we got to the assembly spot we saw that the line was longer than on Friday. We got number 881 and 882 and lined up in rows of hundreds.
The next (and last) roll call would be at 1pm so we walked towards the centre of Ballsbridge for something to eat and drink. We bumped into our friends Ann-Sofie and Jennifer. They had lower numbers than us and were going for an upfront spot later.
The last roll call went relatively smooth and they started to let people in earlier than on Friday. I also noticed that there were definitely more people queueing, probably because it was a weekend. As we had reached the area that was covered by the tent we heard distant fragments of the sound check. We heard My Love Will Not Let You Down, Death to My Hometown and Darkness On the Edge of town.
My Love Will Not Let You Down was the starter in Barcelona 2 (and I love it), but Death to My Hometown and Darkness On the Edge of Town would be new for us. I was beginning to feel the excitement in my body even though that there’s no guarantee that a song that is sound checked will be played the same night.
“Our” spot just in front of the soundboard tent was taken as we entered the pit (we saw you, Mukul), so we moved a little to the right, still with the rails against our backs. Later Anne and Nigel, our neighbours from the last show joined us and we talked away and they offered us beer and biscuits. They are such nice people.
At around 7:10pm the show started. You could see, already from when the band entered the stage, that they were in a good mood. Garry pretended to walk to the wrong side of the stage and was chased away by Nils. During the show there was a lot of goofing around and we got our sought after songs that were soundchecked: My Love Will Not Let You Down opened the set followed by Death to My Hometown. Darkness was played as sixth song, after Prove it. What a jackpot!
There were clearly more people in the pit than on the first concert. The security people confirmed that and told us that there were 6000 people in the pit on Friday while there were 8000 on Sunday. Thanks to Aiken promotions and the Irish and international volunteers for making the queueing experience so easy.
What I found really interesting and enjoyable about both Barcelona and Dublin was that the audience was quite multigenerational – there were people (like us) in their 50s and 60s, but there were plenty of people in their 20s and 30s too. That made it feel like a much more spirited and animated experience.
Next show (for us): 13.05.2023 Paris
Setlist:
- “My Love Will Not Let You Down”
- “Death to my Hometown”
- “No Surrender”
- “Ghosts”
- “Prove It All Night”
- “Darkness On the Edge of Town”
- “Letter To You”
- “The Promised Land”
- “Out in the Street”
- “Kitty’s Back”
- “Nightshift”
- “Mary’s Place”
- “Pay Me My Money Down”
- “The E Street Shuffle”
- “Last Man Standing”
- “Backstreets”
- “Because the Night”
- “She’s the One”
- “Wrecking Ball” (YouTube)
- “The Rising”
- “Badlands”
Encores:
- “Born in the U.S.A.”
- “Born to Run”
- “Glory Days”
- “Bobby Jean”
- “Dancing in the Dark”
- “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
- “I’ll See You in My Dreams”
Stray Bullet 
I saw you too Anna but I wanted to stay right in front of the soundboard. It was truly an amazing show and very different in feel to the show on Friday (which I wrongly thought could not have been surpassed). See you in Paris – perhaps we can watch together (I will try to bring in beer and biscuits!)
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See you in Paris! I’m happy and honoured that you found time to read this. Who would have thought 🫣😬
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Love all your blogposts Anna!
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Thanks! ☺️ I’m so happy that someone reads them.
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I read them all when you post on insta! Just recently got the app so I can actually comment and like them now and not just on the desktop😂
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