the Dalaverse

Bleah. It's rainy and cold and nasty outside -- the perfect day to go back to bed. Except I have to go into town to turn in my passport application, and mail my Oxford forms, and mail Megan's t-shirt. And go to work. But we're ordering Chinese and watching movies tonight, so I've got that to look forward to.

In the meantime, U2. U2. U2 U2 U2. Dad and I took the Metro and got down to MCI super early. We wandered around window-shopping for a little while, ate at Ruby Tuesday, and hunkered down to wait for the doors to open. For about ten minutes we stood around with a bunch of other people at the garage entrance, and were rewarded by a cadre of vehicles passing. I couldn't actually see anything beyond the tinted windows, but technically the band did pass in front of my eyes, which I figure is exciting enough.

There was a moment of panic when we got in the door at 6:00 sharp; Dad's ticket, which he bought off eBay, didn't scan and the tickettaker made us go around to the box office. Thinking we'd been sold a bogus ticket, we freaked out until they checked the number and confirmed that the problem was just smeared ink on the barcode or something that had been affecting the scanner. We bought t-shirts immediately, like we always do. I hate that the women's shirts never have the tour dates on them, so I always have to buy one that fits but goes down to my knees. I do like the one picked, though -- it's black with a big red V and a picture of the boys on the front. I also got a button and a ONE rubber wristband. After that, we split up because we bought the ticket separately and were sitting on different sides of the arena. Here's my lovely Paint representation of the layout:


(the ring-shaped bit was where Bono wandered around in the middle of the crowded, like the Elevation tour; each of the other guys came out at least once)

I was pretty pleased with my seat; I could see all of the screens except the one facing where Dad was sitting, and I had a perfect view of the stage. The opening act was mildly diverting; one of Bob Marley's sons. I think his name was Damien. Ziggy came out later, and they had a full band and two backup singers, but my favorite part was the guy whose sole task it was to wave the Jamaican flag around. For forty-five minutes. After that the sound check took another forty-five minutes. I spent this time training my binoculars on a tiny slice of backstage below where Dad was sitting, where the curtains wouldn't quite close. I think I saw the Edge walk by once, but I couldn't be sure.

And then, the lights went down, and I went to heaven.

They opened with "City of Blinding Lights." They closed with "40." In between was two hours and ten minutes of complete rapturous joy. I screamed, I danced, I clapped, I beamed, I sang along or mouthed the words to every song except "Electric Co." and "Miss Sarajevo" (the latter was also the only time I took my seat). It was brilliant. The playing was tight, the lighting design was amazing, Bono was his usual spastic preachy self. There were a few suprises in the setlist -- the two aforementioned songs, "The First Time," "Elevation," "Love and Peace or Else," "Bullet the Blue Sky" (which meant they played the killer four-song opening of Joshua Tree, which made me incoherently happy). They put the Universal Declaration of Human Rights up on the main screen before "Pride," and pulled a little girl up on stage to shout "No more" during "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and Bono ran a spotlight in circles around the arena. At the end, the band walked offstage one by one -- first Bono, then Adam, then the Edge, then Larry paused, drummed a few measures until everybody started singing the line from "40" again, and finally left as well -- and we sang to ourselves until the lights came back on and we were brought back to earth.

This wasn't just a concert, you see. This was a transcendent experience.