U2 played to 96,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. At the same time, they were playing to who knows how many more people around the world who tuned in for a live stream of the full show on YouTube. Pretty cool, right?

The stream is down now, but a message posted at U2’s YouTube hub — say that five times fast! — promises that it will all be available for encore viewing “soon.” And while I’m sure a YouTube stream can’t compare to an in-person performance, or even to a high-res TV simulcast, it still seems like a promising option. I know there have been lots of shows over the years that I’ve been unable to attend due to scheduling or location issues, and that I’d have loved to watch online. That goes double if YouTube would let me see a show the next morning. (Case in point: I, personally, was unable to tune in last night because I was watching the Yankees win the pennant.)

Did any of you catch U2’s show on YouTube? Or do you plan to watch it later? Let us know how the whole YouTube concert thing worked out for you — and make all the U2-YouTube puns that you can think of — in the comments below. And hey, if you’re really dying to see U2 in the flesh, you can try and make it to one of the new North American shows they’ve just announced for 2010…