Even Better Than The Real Thing

Last night I was finally able to fulfill a (nearly) lifetime dream: I got to see U2 in concert! I can't believe I hadn't, but somehow I always convinced myself I couldn't afford it, which was lame of me. I decided I was just going to do it. I drove down to Anaheim, in the slowest drive ever and got to Angels Stadium a few minutes before Lenny Kravitz opened the show. So my seat was awesome! There was the stage, the field for the standing/general admission and then I was the fifth row of seats! Fifth row, dead on! I was super stoked.

The lights went down and we saw on the screens above the stage the band walking towards the stage - so exciting - the energy and anticipation from the arena was palpable. The first moment of them playing I was in shock for a minute that I was actually watching and hearing them live and then I got quite emotional. I mean this is the band I've loved since I was, I don't know, like five years old or so. I just felt so joyous! It's been the toughest year of my life, but standing there as U2 started to play, I felt like you know what, my life has been rough, but who cares? I'm here seeing U2! I know that sounds crazy, but it was great.



I took a bunch of little videos on my phone throughout the night and some pics, that I'll post below, even if they aren't great - but they are fun for me to remember what things were like. Ok. So, I just tried to upload my videos and none of them will upload - I don't know why I can't, I've done it before - yargh! So I'm posting a couple of picks and will try to figure out the videos for a future post.

The first song was "Even Better Than The Real Thing" followed by "I Will Follow". So much fun. The thing is U2 has so many freaking songs/hits from over the years and they can only do so many in one night, so they did tons of great songs, but still more I would have loved to hear. Love the old ones, of course, like hearing "All I Want Is You", "Pride: In The Name of Love" and "With or Without You". I love "City of Blinding Lights" - great to hear that. My favorite moment of the night was U2 performing "One" and then at the end he started singing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" - he sang that line over and over and then the rumble came in and the deeply imbedded in my soul opening strains of "Where the Streets Have No Name". I mean how iconic is the beginning of that song? Did I totally sob during that song? Uh, yeah. It was just insane to be hearing that after the hundreds of times I've probably listened to that song in my life. All the times I listened to that as our family started out our drive across the salt flats towards Napa, CA. All the nights I listened to that song in the dark on my walkman. They also showed video of U2 from back in the day/Joshua Tree era and seeing them like that while listening to the song was really emotional: just seeing them as boys really, but as the band I remember first going crazy for as a little kid.



It was a great concert. They sounded fantastic. I felt really really lucky to be there. That was a big part of getting emotional during the night - I felt grateful to be there and wished my sisters could be there too - particularly my sister, Alex, who loves them too and hasn't had a chance to see them yet. I'm so happy I went. Long live U2.