Right, see, those greetings don't assume that the whole city has come to see the band, or, counversely. the band has "done" that city, or "conquered" that city.

I don't know if he always does it this way, but I like the way Bono greets the crowd and mentions the host city separately. He'd greet us with a normal "How're you doing out there? You OK?" and then in, say, Bullet the Blue Sky, he'd change the "Outside is America, outside is America" line to "Outside is America but tonight we're in Auckland, New Zealand!" or something.

I also saw Melissa Etheridge once. Her crowd greeting was a regular "Hey, how are you?" sort of thing, and then she acknowledged the city by talking about going to Kelly Tarlton's (is that place still there by the way?)

That kind of thing sure beats (from among countless examples) Tim Finn's "Good evening, Hamilton" with the accent on Hamilton on the Finn/Runga/Dobbyn live album, which makes it sound like he was ticking it off a list or something (although from several accounts, he was genuinely enjoying himself at each stop on that tour). Or Beck playing in Osaka: he'd flop down in a sort of touch-toes kind of pose in a kind of poured-all-my-energy-into-it-and-now-I'm-tired way and say "Osaka.....ookini" as if the entire Osaka City population of 8,815,000 had come to see him, when in fact he was just reading the line off a card on the stage floor. (still, that was a weird and wonderful gig - from the Midnite Vultures tour).

some people say 'how are you westport!!!!' cos it's just so corny and halarious