“'It's been a long romance with this wild and extraordinary country but tonight I think we should go all the way...'
And they did, with another blistering 24-song set including a series of second-night surprises including New Year's Day, Angel of Harlem ('This goes out to the Queen B' - Beyonce, who is at the show tonight) and Hold Me Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.
One Tree Hill was again particularly poignant as Bono recalled it was written about 'a life unfairly snatched away... we wrote it for Greg Caroll, whose family are with us tonight. But tonight it belongs to the miners of the West Coast Pike River...'
And as it ran, beautiful as ever, down to the sea so the red balloons rose from the stadium into the night and the names of those who have lost their lives lit up the huge screens above the stage.
Other notable moments: 'Streets' featuring some great new video footage of Edge walking the hills back in The Joshua Tree era and thanks to the U2 audience for campaigning for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi: 'She sends her thanks to you all and now we campaign for the more than 2,000 political prisoners... then we will truly rejoice.' And into Scarlet..”

The above is from www.U2.com as they describe the second night of U2 360 at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland. Both nights were very special in many ways including the differing set lists and the tributes paid by the band to the 29 miners who have lost their lives at Pike River this last week. There is much on the internet covering both concerts – from YouTube to reviews HERE and HERE.

I was a few rows from the outer circle on both nights armed with nothing more than a domestic Sanyo Cyber Shot 8 Megapixel digital camera with a 3 x optical zoom. I had loads of fun just capturing some of the moments on this camera for little more than the joy of doing so.

I have done a little concert photography before including a few concerts for Hot Press magazine in Dublin and have always enjoyed the experience. This was not about being too serious or professional however – instead it was about just enjoying the experience and using what I had to capture the moment. 

U2 360 was an extraordinary concert event – there was much I was impressed with but possibly the ability of the band to cross between being mammoth in scale to seemingly intimate was a touch of genius.

It was great to see U2 again and I hope to see them again further on down the road.

It is not every week that U2 play live in New Zealand – yet on Thursday and Friday this week the extravaganza that is U2 360 rolls into Mt Smart Stadium here in Auckland.

So how does this relate to photography?

U2 have always displayed an incredible openness to all things creative / artistic and this is displayed in every aspect of what it is they do - from their live performance all the way through the process to video productions and album sleeve designs etc And through it all they are the same four friends who started out in the northern suburbs of Dublin with little more than Three Chords & The Truth.

Along on much of this journey has been a photographer who is responsible for bringing us many of the most iconic images of the band…..and of course I am referring to the incredible Anton Corbin. You can link to his site HERE and see for yourself the amazing photographer this Dutchman is.

U2 have redefined it all and it is a credit to them they still hold their relevance today in 2010. This will be the seventh and eighth times I will have seen them play live - across 5 different tours, in three different countries and over three decades (the first time I saw them play live was in 1989 on the Lovetown tour with B.B King).

U2 360 promises to be something that brings us the same four lads from Dublin with everything thrown into the mix from Aung San Suu Kyi right through to possible alien activity. No doubt there will be more than a little photography in the show too.

I will blog on the shows themselves at the end of the week and ‘normal’ blogging will commence afterwards.

So thank you to U2 for bringing 360 to New Zealand and bring it on….Yeah! 

Definitely ranking high on my ‘dream list’ of photographic assignments would be the opportunity to travel to Antarctica and especially have access to photographic the historic huts left by Shackelton and Scott.

So while this remains on my bucket list for now I was delighted to see the release of a wonderful book by Auckland photographer Jane Ussher – Still Life. This is a beautiful book and weighty in it’s presence at 224 pages of glorious images from the frozen continent.

Still Life is made up wonderful images however it is the ones of the interiors of Scott’s and Shackelton’s huts that I truly find memorizing. If you have the opportunity do check out this book.

There is a delightful slideshow of some of the images HERE as well as details of the book HERE.