U2

“You know I took the poison, from the poison stream
Then I floated out
of here, singing
Ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day”

My love for U2 goes way back to the days Zoe and I went to church conventions together. She had the Joshua Tree album, and somehow we listened to it together (I can’t remember if we shared what are now referred to as ear buds, her having one and I having the other, but somehow we did cause we would sing the songs together). I memorized the album on our trips. We use to think that the above line “…floated out of here…” was instead saying “…throwed it out of here…” Right now was the first time I realized what the lyrics are. Silly me!

I am such the U2 dork in that back in the 80s, I asked my parents on a trip driving through the part of California where the Joshua Trees are, to stop and take a picture of me next to one. I’ll have to dig up those pictures and laugh at myself!

U2 albums remind me of happy times over the years. For example, Achtung Baby is the sound track of many a tirp to Trinity with Weather Boy’s dad. After their last tour for All That You Can’t Leave Behind, I swore to myself that if they were ever in town again, I was going to go no matter how much the tickets cost. I warned Weather Boy’s dad of this back then even. Needless to say, I was stoked to see they were coming to Sandy Eggo and that they were even kicking off their world tour here.

A week before the tickets when on sale, I checked out U2.com to see the details about how to get tickets, etc. I saw that if you became a member of their fan club, you would be eligible to purchase tickets before the general public. They didn’t guarantee that you got a ticket, but it sounded like a better chance than pressing redial endlessly tyring to get through at Ticketmaster. So I forked over my 40 bucks and hoped for the best.

On the day of the sale, I warned my boss not to stop by at 10:00 am because I was going to be buying the tickets. Little did I know that I would still be trying to get tickets 8 hours later. Ticketmaster was having troubles with the volume on their site and there were problems using the unique code to purchase tickets. I was unable to get home right when all the unique codes were reset because I was getting the latest round of antibiotics for Drewbie’s ear infections. I finally got tickets in the noise bleed section, but I was happy to just be in the building.

Fast forward to March 28th. I was fired up all day to go see the concert. 91x was playing only U2 songs all day and hearing a couple songs gave me the chills. I am not a person that gets all crazy over celibrities. I seem to be grounded in the fact that they are just like you and me – normal people, so I don’t get all crazy over them. I think U2 is the closest I’ve ever gotten to being a crazy fan. I really wanted to bring a camera so I would have pictures, but Weather Boy’s dad thought I’d never get away with taking pictures, and I disappointingly agreed.

Anyway, Grandma and Papa M watched the kiddos and Weather Boy’s dad and I headed off to the Sports Aroma. We debated where we were going to park. We finally cruised by the streets behind the Aroma and found a spot on one of the one-way streets out of the Aroma. It was windy and cold, but there were a lot of fans lined up waiting to get in. We walked right by then all and went to dinner. After dinner, we made our way back and stood in one of the lines to get in.

Security was frisking people, and I was happy (for the moment) that I didn’t bring a camera. It was a joke getting in. The mob mentality took over right before we got in because people started cutting in line and cutting in around the security check point. I was happy to get in finally, and we stood in another line to get a t-shirt. Finally, we made it to our seats.

The show started and I was transfixed. One phenomina that we weren’t use to was everyone taking pictures with their camera phones. It was errie looking around and seeing all the little screens light up in the dark, snapping away at Bono dancing around the stage. I should have brought a camera because I also saw quite a few digital cameras around me. Oh well. I have checked out flickr.com and been able to review some pictures others have taken so it wasn’t a complete loss.

I enjoyed the show, but thought the set of songs was a little weak. They didn’t even play Desire! Oh well, they played Elevation at least. It was nice getting out and doing something different. Weather Boy’s dad complained of ringing ears, but I was OK.

Enough of U2 (for now!)