Ok so had mixed feelings about night 1 :

Positives :

1. Band in a great mood
2. Stage show fun and well thought out.
3. Jons voice strong - sang well and smiled a lot
4. 24 songs not a bad effort
5. 4 song walkway segment very engaging
6. Jon singing 'working man' in a less irritating way!
7. Rooftop gig was fun
8. Crowd loud and really up for it
9. In these arms as first encore just rocked!

Negatives

1. Setlist. No getting away from it, for such a loud crowd we deserved a rarity, surely?
2. 3 lost highway songs!
3. Sleep when I'm dead. I never escape this song.
4. Crowd - was loud but full of 'casual fans' - during LTOR and SFTP most around me sat down or went to the toilet.

The band were really up for it and there is no doubt they put in a great show. I have to give jon credit in that he gauged the crowd spot on last night. He engineered an up tempo, party setlist that suited 90 percent of the people there. It was a party show to announce their arrival and the setlist reflected that.

If you took out sleep when I'm dead and whole lotta leavin and replaced them with only lonely and hey god or dry county the balance would have been much better for those of us who aren't casual fans :
However : the casual fans got their way again!

Jon did say in the encore that all bets are off for the rest of the shows. 'bring your banners and we'll learn them' he said. I guess it's up to us now!