I can only add to your comments: about weird combinations (Sting & Stevie Wonder, Bruce & Billy Joel, Crosby & Nash & Paul Simon)… to me, those are not nearly as far a reach as Bruce playing with Tom Morello, the lead guitarist from Rage Against The Machine (that’s weird), & Metallica backing Ray Davies on the 2nd night, which was so weired that they commented on it (with similar, less strong, comments about their backing Lou Reed).

For the nit-pickers, the finale on the 1st night also included Peter Wolf of the J. Giles Band.

From the 2nd night you MUST mention Tal Wilkenfeld, the 23 year old bassist for Jeff Beck who’s as good as any bassist(yes – Enthwistle, Geddy Lee, Stu Hamm… not just chops, but she has rhythm & soul soul that a 23 year old shouldn’t have!!). Also, you missed Metallica playing the Queen song “Stone Cold Crazy”, which is significant in that between this show and their induction ceremony, they played 14 songs of which only 5 were theirs! The guy I went with has now seen Metallica twice (he’s not their biggest fan), and 2/3rds of the songs they played were covers!! Interesting…

Finally, you were too kind to one lady, and not kind enough to the other:
(Too Kind) Patti Smith, who needed 2.5 takes to find the rhythm for “Because The Night”… that was a “real” moment that you don’t usually see (& won’t see on air or DVD) In your defense, I’ve yet to see any other reviewer comment on that glitch, and, while she had trouble finding the rhythm, theirs no disputing the soul in her voice once she found it!!
(Undersold) Ok, so she’s a professional that I’ve never been too excited about… While this was my 3rd time seeing the Black Eyed Peas, Fergie has never really struck home… until tonight. She is a professional… The female lead in “Gimme Shelter” literally takes over and owns that song… a tough, and very importantr role to fill, and she filled it beautifully, walking slowly from the rear of the stage to stepping between, and then in front, Bono & Mick. Can you imagine what was going thru her mind at that moment!! She needed to step up and take the stage away from the Bono/Mick duet… upstage THEM!Very few performers could pull that off convincingly… Fergie, I’m a believer now… Nice Job!

One final side note, only slightly related to this show, is that when U2 toured with Patti Smith in 2005, their level of fanboy respect had them actually print up concert t-shirts showing “Tonight: Patti Smith @ MSG, with special guests, U2″. I always thought that kind of respect was cool!

As my 2nd time seeing Patti Smith with U2 at MSG, I have to say that it’s still great to see her there! Warts & all! So she couldn’t catch the rhythm to the song… big deal… I’ve seen artists that were not able to catch the floor as they were falling towards it… I just wish that some reviewer, somewhere, would just print that it happened… (hmmm, I guess that I just did, huh?).