To get a sense of what it was like in B.C. Place on Wednesday night, you have to acquaint yourself with U2's sense of scale. The Irish rockers are the world's biggest rock band, their Vancouver show was the last in their North American 360 tour, and the province's biggest venue was packed to the rafters.

All of that added up to an unforgettable performance that thrilled the crowd with the quartet's showmanship, treated them to political messages from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and gave shout-outs to Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, and even a happy birthday to the world's richest man, Bill Gates.

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The enormous, hulking metal stage - nicknamed 'the claw' - was 50 meters tall and so big it filled half the football field. The red lights atop its spire looked like they were there to ward off passing planes. If B.C. Place's roof had collapsed again that night, the claw would have held it up like a giant, multifarious tent pole.

But of course the stage was dwarfed by the band itself, which brought the crowd to its feet early and then kept them there. Drummer Larry Mullens Jr. was the first to swagger onto the set, and start off Breathe, from the 2009 Album No Line on the Horizon.

By the time bassist Adam Clayton, The Edge, and Bono arrived, each spotlighted on the stage and silhouetted amid smoke in the claw's giant television screen, the audience took the second song, Get on Your Boots, as if it were an order.

The Vancouver references were greeted with raucous cheers. "Where are we going on the Skytrain?" Bono asked. "The Millenium Line? The Expo Line? The Canada Line?"

But the audience gave its greatest reaction to the classics. Mysterious Ways had the audience belting out the words. Bono began Beautiful Day sitting on the stage's moving stairway like a crooning lounge singer, then stood and belted out the chorus, and then followed it with a melancholy homage to The Beatles' Blackbird. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For blended into a soulful rendition of Ben E. King's Stand By Me.

The sound at BC Place has never been great - ironically, Bono's thanks to the sound crew was interrupted by an ear-splitting crackle. Stalwart fans told me after the show that it sounded worse than when U2 played the stadium in the 1990s. Others said the live U2 webcast from the Rose Bowl had them hoping for more.

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But it was hard not to feel the energy during the showstopper Sunday Bloody Sunday. Ever the political crusader, Bono told the audience of the plight of Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, and played Walk On as her picture played on the claw's giant television screen. The encores featured Desmond Tutu talking about the ONE campaign, which naturally was followed by One.

In his Toronto show, U2 admitted "he was a pain in Stephen Harper's arse" in a quest to get aid dollars to the third world. Months later in Vancouver, he seemed halfhearted as he let what might have been a great compliment feel muted. He muttered, "The world needs more Canada," but no one in the audience gave a hint they heard him.

Maybe they were just listening to the music.