WOW

OK, so we went to the "Vertigo" concert that U2 gave & it wasnt very good. "Very good" doesn't actually do it much justice. It would actually be fairer to say that it was bloody brilliant. To be part of some 40 000 odd people all singing along to "One Tree Hill" would have to be one of the most moving experiences I have ever had short of the time I ate a dodgy chicken dish at the Victoria Street Market & was crook for 3 weeks, but thats another story, & not a pleasant one.

This is Self & Herself outside the stadium. We hired a van & took both ourselves, Morticia & her two rug rats along. We got there nice & early, & the nice security guards were most helpful in showing us where to go to get to the "Wobbly Walk" carparks. Both Herself & Morticia have the magic cards. This put us within 200 metres of the main gate that we had to go in to.

A picnic lunch that herself had constructed took care of some of the 3 odd hours that we had to kill before show time. A good book took care of the rest for us, but was a little harder for 2 teenagers that arent quite so good at the "Hurry up & wait" thing. Another nice security guard, (Love those guys), let us into the corporate tent area so we could use the toilets there.


After pledging our firstborn at the souvenir stands for a programme ($35.00) & a T shirt each ($45.00) We finally got inside to our seats. Seeing the queues at the food stands made me very glad that herself had gone to the effort of bringing our own. This is the view we had of the stage, so we had pretty good seats I thought. If we wanted a better view, there was always the big screens at each top corner of the set.

Before U2, we had to suffer through 45 minutes of a non descript rap artist called Kanye West, who uses as backing classical instruments such as violins, violas & a harp as backing. An original idea, but one that just somehow doesnt quite seem to jell. The best part of his set, other than it finishing, was the female Negro vocalist he had as a backup singer. Damn she could sing.


















This was the scene shortly before the lights went down & U2 started rockin


This is the stage area once the boys were doin their thing & what a thing. As a muso, I can generally tell if a recording is from a live performance or not just from the instrumentals. Some bands have a tendency to pad numbers out with protracted instrumentals so they dont have to play as many numbers. Not these boys. They get on stage & just fairly rip in to it all.

There is something magical about the combination of Bono's vocals & The Edge's guitar work, especially live , that just makes the hair stand on the back of the neck. Ok, so we had to have Bono's customary little speech about ending world poverty & I'm sure that they could contribute to that by lowering the prices at the stands a bit, but hey it was all good. Midway through one track, not quite sure which one, because the fumes from the herbal tobacco being smoked around me were sorta taking effect, Bono asked everyone to take out their cell phones, light em up & wave em around. Damn that looked good. Then they gave a number to text your full name to.

During one of the two encores, they started scrolling a few of the selected names across the big screen & guess what ? There in lights & capital letters across the top of the big screen at the U2 concert was yours truly's name. AND afterwards, I got a text message from Bono as well. OK, so it was just a form message directing me to his web site for world hunger , & Ok so every other person who texted in probably got the same message, but that aint the point. I can still casually drop it into the conversation at work Monday, along the lines of, "Well, when Bono sent me a text message...."

At the start of the second number , he took a few minutes to thank us all for waiting. That was really nice to hear, & all I can say is "Damn it was worth it, every minute & dollar of it." All I have to do now is make an appointment with my bank manager & drag my eldest son along...