So Bono, The Edge, Adam, and Larry (also known as U2) were supposed to stop by LAST summer (in Philly) where I was supposed to see them with Tierney Roche. My parents got me two tickets for my bday but then Bono injured his back in "tour preparation training" and thus postponed the concert to the following summer (2011). In the mean time, Tierney and I had matching "Got Bono?" and "Yes!" t-shirts and had been getting pumped via Bono emails for months. Then SOMEONE just HAD To see HP7.2 at midnight and thus ABANDONED me and my U2 tickets, and I had since acquired an additional ticket. So I call up Brendan McMahon who is too busy acting to come to the concert. Anyways, Brendan Maxon and Patrick McMahon ended up coming to the concert. Well, eventually.
I got there at 10am where a woman was going around numbering each person in line to try to keep track of the people who got there first (even though you really didn't need this to get in). As I handed her my hand I thought, "really? You're going to write 420 on my hand in sharpie? Really?!" Most of the people around me were too old, however, to even know what that means (apparently) because only two people thought it was odd. I became friends with two Brazilians and a girl named Danielle. Behind them you can see the ridiculous line that formed behind us.
The Brazilian man on the right actually went to get food and came back with pictures of the stage. He somehow just wandered over there. Danielle showed me 3x5s she had printed that were pictures she took off the U2 site along with her U2 book. Then she told me about her craziest U2 concert ever which involved a 5am plane that she purchased a ticket for the night before, showing up to the concert without a ticket, and then randomly being selected to go into the inner circle. She is a law clerk and is currently dating a 40 year old man who is "a teddy bear" though she almost broke up with him because he couldn't get out of work to come to the concert. She was nice.
Brendan eventually showed up around three thirty, at which point I had also befriended two 30 year old women behind me in line and a guy named Omar. By 5pm Patrick was still no where to be found because somebody just HAD to take a shower. The gates opened around 5:30pm and we briskly walked to the second row of the center of the catwalk of the stage. Well that's about the time Pat decided to call us. Brendan was kind enough to be willing to run his ticket out to him (did I mention I had the tickets?) even though he didn't know what he looked like. I mean I showed him a picture. Let's be real, I waited in line for 7 hours I wasn't about to give up the second row spot. Fortunately, Brendan magically got Patrick in and they were able to come back to the same place. I don't even know how that worked out but it did. Though Pat and Brendan were a row or two behind me.
Interpol opened and they were pretty legit (though most people didn't know who Interpol was but you should look up Slow Hands and Evil if you don't know them!). We also became friends with the two forty year old women to the left. One of them HAD to be U2's biggest fan. Her own sister (the other woman with blue earrings) called her "stalkerazzi" and she had several pictures of her with each member of the band. One of them was in a hotel. Awkward. Please note the "got bono?" t-shirt and the lack of Tierney's presence with the other t-shirt with Bono's face on it reading "yes!" Also, we became such good friends with Omar, Danielle, and the Brazilians, that we stood with them at the concert, hence Danielle's presence in this photo.
Interesting Facts Courtesy of This Giant Screen
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Can you spot me, Brendan Maxon, and Patrick McMahon??? (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)
Naturally, the concert was beyond awesome. Here are a few pictures, some from Brendan's camera, even though they don't do the experience justice (of course).
That's Bono...
and the Edge...
and Adam Clayton. Ya know, U2. Larry only came around once with a bongo of sorts, I mean I don't think his drums are all that portable...
Bono during "Elevation"
Bono on the bridge.
So in the middle of the concert they had this video of this astronaut, Mark Kelly (the husband of Congresswoman Giffords), holding up words that spelled out "7-billion one nation imagination it's a beautiful day" thus segueing into the song Beautiful Day. There was even a message that he said and he even personalized it a bit and said hello to Philadelphia! This got me thinking. I pictured Bono sitting at a table with the band and his manager saying, "Ok, so I've go this idea, right? I want to have an astronaut--"
"--an astronaut??" says the manager.
"an astronaut, a real one, in space, to say hello to EACH crowd that we will be touring around to."
"But Bono, don't you think the astronaut will have more important things to do than cut out pieces of paper that spell words and record a video just for a U2 concert? I mean the man is a scientist do you know how much training--"
"I WANT AN ASTRONAUT. And besides, we can just FedEx the words to him."
"Well... I... okay, I'll call up NASA tomorrow."
I'm only joking of course. U2 seems like a nice group of guys though I do wonder how they set that up.
But I digress... more photos!
Bono during the encore with his sweet laser jacket and swinging microphone.
I imagine his "tour preparation training" injury may have involved that microphone.
After the concert...
Patrick and Brendan Post-Concert
The concert let out around 11:30pm and we had been standing for 7 hours and we were hungry. We had already decided before the concert even started that we were going to 7-11 AND Wawa ("green light, 7-11, you stop in..." --Stay, haha) but first Patrick had to take a seat in the stands so while I'm snapping the above photo he sits down and finds a Droid phone. We're walking out of the stadium looking for an official looking person to hand it to. The closest person was a very nice, polite, slightly large woman with a facial (literally, her face) piecing, black hair with red streaks, and a name tag that I was guessing would read something like Shenaynay but was far worse. As Patrick handed her the phone the three of us couldn't help but notice that her name tag read "Muffin" ...on her top... I mean that's just awful. Who would do that to their child.
We continued down a sketch path under a highway overpass to my car where we watched people get in fights over hitting other cars. Eventually we made it to Wawa (for some serious caffeine) and then Villanova to drop Pat off. We made it back to my house at about 4:45am (nevertheless, Jovey was happy to see us). She ran over to Brendan wagging her tail, rubbing up against him, at which point he was overcome by her excitement and simply collapsed to the ground. It had been a long day.
