'Stay Cool,' says Bono, introducing Beautiful Day to the assembled Austrian fans tonight. 'Take It Easy.'

Well, words to that effect. They are actually in Austrian and the literal translation is 'Keep your ears stiff' and tonight, the first of two shows in Vienna, everyone's ears are at attention all night long.

'This is a beautiful song,' he explains as U2 prepare to play Kite. 'And it came out of the ugliest circumstances. This is a song about letting go of somebody you don't want to let go of, somebody you love, this is Kite...'

And before you know it, Until the End of the World, becomes New York - with Bono and Edge a bull and matador on the heart catwalk, Bono kicking and pulling at Edge's guitar strings - and then I Will Follow.

'Ring those bells Edge, make those bells ring, ring those bells Edge, make those bells ring,' extemporises Bono. 'Wrote a love song on two strings, ring those bells Edge, silver and gold, my spirit never getting old, never getting old, don't let your sprit ever get old'

And then Sunday Bloody Sunday and Stuck In A Moment (opening with In My Life) and then In A Little While.

'Anybody here heard of a punk rock group out of New York called The Ramones?'

Seems a few have, so the singer continues.

'Well, the Ramones gave us the inspiration to start our own group and a couple of months back Joey Ramone, a great singer and the singer in the Ramones passed away and this next song is the last song he heard. 'He made it a much better song than it was'

And tonight it's that much better song again, climaxing when Bono leans into the heart of the audience and takes a sunflower from a fan and tries to stick it behind his ear. During which, unsurprisingly, he misses the last lines of the song. Now he is kissing - you know how he is - a fan from the heart. Who can't believe what is happening.

Bono wipes his face with a towel, it's getting warm, he's reminded of his guitarist: 'Edge is never hot OEcos he's coolI'm hot.'

Then we have U2 playing Stay, and Bad and Where The Streets Have No Names and Mysterious Ways, for which Bono is the recipient of an Irish football shirt with 'Bono' and 'U2' on it. 'That's funky,' he says, and U2 play Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye which is also funky.

Bullet The Blue Sky follows the chilling video apologia from Charlton Heston for American gun laws and then With or Without You, in which another young woman finds herself pulled from the audience and blinking into U2's spotlight. She hugs Bono and dances with him, rubbing noses in the Austrian style, then dancing some more.

'we've Italians, we've Polish, we've Austrians, we've Germans, we've Irish' says the singer before One. 'I'd like to say that last time we brought the show here to Vienna, the PopMart show was one of the greatest of the tour, we had a very special time. 'This is a hip town, you got what was going on that night, we're very proud of that tour as we're very proud of this, though they're very different. Both are cool in Vienna.

'Also I want to thank Wolfgang Klinger (tonight's Austrian promoter), because he's a very cool dude OEcos he brought us to Sarajevo on that tour in Bosnia and that took a lot of work and a lot of nerve and Wolfgang thank for that. 'Any of you that came to Genoa in Italy for the G8 this one's for you, thank you for your support for the last three years on Drop the Debt.'

U2 play One, then Wake Up Dead Man and then close the first night in Vienna on Elevation 2001 with Walk On

What They Played

Elevation
Beautiful Day
Until The End Of The World
New Years Day
Kite
Gone
New York
I Will Follow
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
In A Little While
Stay
Bad
Where The Streets Have No Name
Mysterious Ways
Bullet The Blue Sky
With Or Without You
One
Wake Up Dead Man
Walk On