Day 2: Return to the States

May 13th, 2017
Day 2: Return to the States

I woke up to the alarm clock too early on Saturday May 13th, and got myself up and out on a short walk to the train station just down the road.  It was a beautiful morning and the sun rose pink over the quiet dawn streets.  There was no rain, and I snapped a couple of parting shots of Vancouver.

Once on the train, with coffee from the dining car and some breakfast before me, I began to write and sort through the deluge of impressions from the preceding two days.  I had some time to process some feelings and observations from the first night.  At the end of the Vancouver show, I had heard a woman near me say to her friend, "That was a sad concert." Disappointment came through in her voice.  I had to agree.  I began to notice thereafter that I was feeling really uncomfortable, and I considered the possibility of accepting the contrast of this unwanted experience, with the possibility that it might help me to better appreciate what would come next.

Then I recognized that I was practicing a method I had been learning for staying in a highly receptive mode of vibration, and I was even grateful for the opportunity to practice dealing with this disappointment in a way that would leave me open to receive that which I really did want.  I just sat with it, let myself process what was going on, and get in touch with the trigger for that feeling of dislocation, separation, and desperation.  I have found, recently, that the only way for me to return fully to a state of joyful connection is if I first become witness (with a sense of friendly curiousity in the observation of my own response) to the moment of alienation within.

No, it didn't feel good.  And I'd been there enough times to know that it would not be a permanent state, so I was able to relax into it, feel it, and let it pass, even as I noticed myself feeling urges to use something outside of myself that might let me feel okay again.  I just noticed this urge, then chose to do the next right thing instead.

At that point, I felt the next right thing was to connect with my daughter via Facebook video chat.  She greeted me with her characteristic, lovely enthusiasm, and my spirits rose quickly as I showed her the passing scenery out the train window.  She turned to Ted, who was there next to her, and said, "Let's go on a train!".  There was no way for me to stay blue, as the beautiful scenery rolled past my window, and my sweet girl smiled through the screen at me.

Soon thereafter, my nephew Kevin, whom I would be meeting for the show in Seattle, messaged me with a recording he had made of "Where The Streets Have No Name".  The sound of this was incredible, and ultimately, indescribable.  Hearing it, my eyes grew misty, and my funky energy was gone completely as Seattle approached.

https://soundcloud.com/kevinshoop/where-the-streets-have-no-name

Before noon, I found Kevin at the train station in Seattle, and he greeted me with a warm hug.  He started talking about how long it had been since we'd last seen each other, but, after our quick embrace, I was already off and speed walking with my baggage in tow, trying to get my bearings to find Century Link Field, where the GA line list was already well into the 100s.  By this point, I felt driven to get on that list.  Margaret and I had been IM'ing on the train, where she was seated in another car with her mother, and I knew that there were a lot of other U2 fans on the Amtrak with us that morning who would be making a beeline over there for the same reason.  So, I had messaged Kevin, and we agreed we might as well go for it.

I've harbored some mixed feelings about the ever lengthening, obsessive compulsive, and perhaps inappropriately controlling procedure of fan run GA lists that has been going on since the Elevation Tour in 2001, when U2 initially brought back the process of GA entry.  Part of me has felt, and said out loud, since the end of that particular tour, that it is a bad idea, and not in the right spirit, to sit in line all day waiting for a chance to be able to see the band up close. It is also a plan that could fall apart at the last minute due to any number of random possibilities, and an investment in time and energy.  At the core, perhaps it is an attempt to control the uncontrollable, and its a game in which ego seems to play a big role.

However, after Vancouver, I felt a strong desire to get close in and feel a part of the tribe for this show, and I was excited to have the opportunity and the willing company to do what we had to do to give it our best effort to get really close for the Seattle show.  I would just go into the whole process knowing that it might not work out after all, I told myself, that the meticulously fan-prepared line up and numbered list including check in times the night before and the morning of show was ultimately not official, and was not binding for the band nor the venue.

Still, the magnetic draw of the possibility of getting close enough to the stage to see and be seen by the band was temptation enough for me on that day to play along with the crazy GA line up ritual in Seattle.  I was ready to get my number marked on my hand and line up at my own risk, though I had a feeling that Bono himself, for one, would not have approved nor appreciated anyone's participation in this time and energy vacuum.  After all, who wants the same obsessive people right up against the stage every show, exhausted from spending so many hours on the sidewalk before the show, checking off hundreds of names on a list?  Not very rock and roll, maybe, but there it was, and there we were.

Once we found the list managers huddled discreetly around the back of CenturyLink Field, we got our numbers 181 and 182, plus 183 for Heather, my soul sister who was flying in from Denver that evening.  I was hoping she would be able to make it from Sea-Tac to Century Link in time for the evening check in to keep her number with us.

It was miraculous to me to have Heather joining me and Kevin for the show in Seattle.  Heather and I both had our kids in April of 2014, both under unique circumstances, and there is a spiritual resonance between us that is unlike the bond I've known with anyone else.  Plus, she was there for me in June 2015 at the Denver I/e show, before which I had managed to give Bono irises, and she captured on film the moment he had graciously received them from me.

June 6, 2015:  Irises and a hug for Bono in Denver

With our number secured, Kevin and I went for coffee and a proper catch up.

Opening Night

4pm May 12, 2017, Vancouver, BC Place

Having abandoned the hope of coming face to face with any of the band members before the show tonight, David and I took our position at the end of the long GA line that had begun forming no less than 3 days prior.  The line moved at a snails pace around the building.  David watched the pro-shot video I had on my phone of my dance with Bono from 1997 (or, as my friend Heather recently called it, "stage sex").  I giggled and glowed at the expressions appearing on his face, especially at that moment when Bono had removed the light silver jacket that had covered my velvet dress from my very shoulders.  

Some moments stay active in a person for decades, and that night in St. Louis was one of those moments: a core memory, perhaps.  So twenty years later, here I found myself, dressed up like a PopMartian in Canada.... of course!

As David and I wound our way through the GA procession, some attention did come my way.  My get up invited the approach of some reporters.

PopMartian landing at JT30 opener:  she travelled to the future that she might experience a bit of the past

First there was a crew from U2.com.  I grinned and flashed my peace sign as I explained that I had been waiting with gifts for the band down in back of BC Place, but we had decided it was time to line up instead.  

We didn't know, but we saved ourselves a great deal of drama by getting in line at 4pm instead of 6pm as we likely would have, had we hit the bar see like I did before the 2015 shows in Denver and Phoenix.  More on that later.

Another crew broadcasting to Periscope approached me, and one of my U2 friend contacts on Facebook let me know she'd just seen me through the scope called "Zoo TV".  These were the super fans from South America active in their own creative endeavor.  Mariza shared a screen shot from the broadcast. I saw a rather crazy looking woman with arms wide open.... I commented, "Oh my,"... and Mariza very sweetly said, "You look beautiful" in a quick reply.  Last but not least, a photo journalist from the Vancouver Sun stopped to photograph me, and asked about the sunglasses. [vancouver-may-12-2017-marcy-gannon-rhinestone-u2-sunglasses.jpeg]

The line moved slowly and we kept each other company as we waited seemingly endlessly.  When we finally got to the front, I was very puzzled to see--

There was a SINGLE FILE LINE of GA ticket holders who were being waved through a narrow doorway one by one and then entered a fenced in area where there were at least a dozen individual chutes with security personnel standing around WAITING empty-handed for fans to make their way to them.

That was weird, and dumb, I thought to myself.

The we found ourselves getting through the CC scan without trouble, except that the scanner asked for an ID.  The CC with our GA tickets on it belonged to David's friend.  Ruh-roh.  David presented his ID and we waited.  He was in a mild state of panic, and I was just curious, because I had a side view reserved seat on my own card as a back up plan.  Oddly, the ID checker checked David's ID, glanced at his female friend's card, and told us to go ahead.

The staff cleared my clear NFL official vinyl bag, and we were off doing the walk-run routine down long ramps to the field.  When we finally got to the floor, holding up our wristbands gleefully for the venue staff to see, we went for the tree stage and I let out a whoop of joy.  The floor was surprisingly empty, considering the late hour, and we sat down with groups of fans near-ish the tree stage to wait.  

I headed out to the "washroom", and when I came back to the floor I was mesmerized by the sight of the setting sun through the venue's high glass windows.  To stop and stare at the setting sun right then was a gift in the form of a grounding, reassuring presence, and I stayed with the sun until the orb was no longer visible from floor level.

I went back out, and heard David shout, "Marcy!" whilst I wandered rather blindly looking for my companion.  I sat next to him on the floor as my vision slowly cleared.  I started with the practice of sun gazing almost a year ago.  As I've become increasingly clear and re-oriented to a wider reality in my recent awakening from worsening dependencies on marijuana and alcohol, sun-gazing has come to my attention as an ancient method of reawakening the pineal gland.  The pineal gland regulates levels of consciousness, like sleep and wakefulness, by secreting key hormones such as melatonin.

After some time with this practice, I remembered a time where I took on spiritual trauma as a small child and I found myself lying down and staring through a far window where the sun was setting as I was being scolded.  I laid there and stared into the sparkle of the setting sun while my weary and well-intentioned darling mother scolded me and asked why I was being naughty.  I repeated the phrases, "I don't know," and "cuz I'm dumb" and I waited for it to be over, while I escaped into the setting sun.

For the night of the JT30 opener in Vancouver, staring into the sun was a calming and centering practice.  I was very grateful to have a moment to be with the rays of light. After my vision quickly cleared, I started looking at the section where my reserved seat was.  I told David I would go check it out and I may or may not return.

When I arrived at my seat after leaving a number of venue staff completely confused, there was the sun again streaming down bright rays of love light onto the stands above floor level.  I sat and stared and took some pictures of the light flooding the floor where the crowd remained remarkably sparse.  It was 7pm and the venue was nowhere near full.  Mumford and Sons came out then and played to a half empty house.  I ran a bit of a Facebook live feed, connecting with more of the U2 family, including Elsha Stockseth, whom I would be missing on this tour, and Ted Gravlin, the father of my three year old daughter Julie Grace.  Ted was graciously making this adventure possible for me by taking care of her in my absence.  These U2 family and others around the world popped up to watch the window I was able to briefly provide into the venue.  I felt a glow of doing some service.  I felt connected, plugged in, supportive, and supported.  

During my broadcast, a friend mentioned that there was a cluster outside in the GA line.  I dismissed this as his characteristic negativity, commenting that I hadn't had any problem, and I kept my attention on the broadcast.  

But there truly was a clusterfuck outside, despite my eagerness to dismiss my friend's comment.  While I was safely in the building, surveying the scene and soaking in the sunset, beloved U2ers who had arrived at about 6pm while I was finally getting in the front doors, were left out in the cold, at the mercy of BC Place, the venue that was not ready to handle this crowd.  To these members of the U2 family, it felt like they were being literally left out in the cold by U2.

Eventually, the floodgates were opened, and the crowd came streaming in to the floor.  Once they were in place, then and only then did Larry stride out to his drum kit on the tree stage.  He sat making adjustments amidst the cheers, and then....

Bah bah baba BUM BUM BUM

The rapid fire of "Sunday Bloody Sunday", and a screaming crowd, filled the anticipatory scene.

And wow the band were far away from me!  I stayed and stood in the stands for "New Years Day".  I was disappointed that it wasn't my beloved "A Sort of Homecoming" to get the show going.  "New Years Day" was the second song... and then I found my unwelcome disappointment was very short lived as the sounds of "A Sort of Homecoming" rang through the stadium, and I was quickly off and out of my reserved seat, making a beeline for the floor.  I came dancing down the ramp and through the sparsened crowd on the outskirts of the tree stage congestion, where the whole band was still stationed.  I danced through to the front rail and found an open rail space far past Adam's standing spot on the main stage.  I found myself very excited in the idea that Bono would certainly come out to visit us before the night would end, perhaps even sending me his peace sign in response to my U2opia license plate, as he had done most recently in Phoenix in 2015 and twice before in years prior to that.

"Marcy I think Bono is pointing at you" photo courtesy dear friend Caryn Keenan, May 23, 2015

After "Homecoming" came "Pride", and then suddenly they were back on the main stage and the Joshua Tree was starting.  During "Streets" I tried to broadcast to FB live, but failed to connect.  I recorded a snip of the end of "Streets" then I put my phone away.  

Much of my visual field was dominated by the stage walls and the cavern between stage and rail. Above the stage wall just in front of me was the otherworldly HD screen, flowing like a wave dream behind Adam Clayton as he ventured out toward the side stage.  He surveilled the crowd, smiling down at some, standing regally and thumbing his bass above us.  If he noticed U2opia, he didn't openly acknowledge me.  

During "In God's Country", Bono ventured over to Adam's side of the main stage and gazed out upon the crowd.  When he got close enough that I thought he just might see me, I felt an electrical storm of pure pleasure racing through my system.  I was getting lit up from the inside.

Being that far out to the side of the main crowd on the rail, I was able to hold on as I swung around like a monkey on a tree during the chords of God's Country and Edge's wailing guitar solo near the end.  I felt a direct connection from the music into my nervous system and I was plugged in through "Red Hill Mining Town' and "One Tree Hill", despite the fact that Bono had retreated to the main stage and I had not, in fact, received another pointed peace sign from our hero.

I was charged like that until just before the start of "Exit", when I was dismayed to hear the name of the malignant narcissist who preyed on the lowest common denominator of fear in my country, and in combination with the corruption of an engineered opposing candidate, had found his way into our executive Oval Office.  This name was broadcast throughout the venue.

I don't say that name.  I certainly don't want to hear it from the U2 stage.  I had been harboring a fantasy that they would NOT give the current administration of my country the energetic boost that would come from having THAT name broadcast to stadiums full of fans.  Somewhere in me I had assumed that just because I've personally come to understand that where attention goes, energy flows, the adored U2 would have come to this understanding in the same time as I had.  Evidence of my poor boundaries, on display and felt painfully in my heart.  My prediction, while I was projecting my own understanding onto Bono and the band, was that they would not speak the name of the current president of my country.  I was wrong, and I was deeply disappointed to have my mesmerized focus be directed to such a place of ugliness, and a source of personal trauma for me.

Thereafter, I stood in a downtrodden energy bubble.  I heard Bono saying to the Canadian crowd that they must show their neighbors to the south that the people have the power.  I felt sheepish and sad and sorry.

I felt myself dissociating from the experience by the time the encore was going.  The electric opening to "Beautiful Day" struck me as over the top, Las Vegas style, and coldly consumeristic.  I watched the video screen during Ultraviolet and turned away from the far off tree stage from which Bono spoke.  I was out of it.  

The feat of the crowd passing the giant image of the woman across the stadium during "Miss Sarajevo" was magical.  Still, not enough to quell my far off sadness, which broke through in the tears that formed in my eyes. 

At the end of the show, I shuffled out and looked at a Periscope broadcast of Tim Neufeld's Crystal Ballroom.  I watched the stadium empty as I heard with half an ear about the atU2.com after show session that would be happening later in the city, somewhere.  I wasn't part of that group, and hearing of it then only increased my sense of alienation in the moment.  

I walked back to the hostel, grateful for the dryness of the night, and I got myself to bed, still feeling numb and downtrodden.  A thought of drinking or smoking crossed my mind, and I longingly imagined escape from this emptiness.  Instead of chasing that dead end, I put on my noise cancelling headphones to drown out the punk band jamming next door, and I was left only with the shrill ringing in my ears to sing me to sleep.

Day 1: Opening Day

At about 5am on Friday May 12, I awoke in my bottom bunk to the sound of rain outside my room in Vancouver.  My crystals were arranged on the ledge, and I peaked out through the curtain to see a grey cold morning.  I knew the GA line would be checking in at 0600, and I was grateful that I would not need to be there.

Instead, I spent the morning writing the first short entry of this blog, watching a periscope feed of what was happening down at the venue in real time, and I dialed into a recovery support group meeting by phone at 7am.  There was no chair to lead the meeting, and I hastily stepped in to serve as chair, feeling blessed to have this opportunity to stay grounded in my recovery on this long anticipated day.  I wondered if my neighbors on the other side of these thin walls had known before that there was such a group as "Marijuana Anonymous".  If they hadn't been aware of the existence of MA, now they were being made aware by my reading of the meeting script, and that felt like it had to be a good thing!  Especially here in Vancouver, which seemed to reek of marijuana perhaps even more than Colorado.

Following the meeting I went on a desperate search for coffee and was led out into the grey city streets where the light was trying to break through the clouds.  I was wearing my bright blue leggings, silver shoes, and my disco silver shiny coat and walking under the umbrella that the kind pizza merchant had gifted me the preceding night.   I found my way into the cornershop grocery store to which the hostel manager had directed me, and I grabbed a coffee and sat down with yesterday's edition of the Vancouver Sun which had a photo of Bono on the cover.

It felt almost hard to believe that I would be at the tour opener tonight.  

I finished a second cup of coffee and a banana, and retreated back to my private room for meditation and nap.  

When I woke to my alarm set for 11:11am,  I busily started getting my concert attire on.  I had put together a "PopMartian" themed costume for the shows.  I had the bright blue leggings, a blue velvet skirt, the shiny silver light up shoes, and my U2opia plate, of course.  I also had a blue t-shirt that said POPTART across the front, underneath the shiny silver jacket, and my friend Billy's bejeweled U2 fly shades as accessories.  I was feeling the silver jacket was a bit too much for the grey morning, and I opted instead for my black motorcycle jacket.  Didn't want to look like I was THAT desperate for attention, now, did I?   No, I would be conservative and just have my license plate and light up shoes to be the little things to give me away... 

As I walked out into the streets, the sun was breaking through the clouds, and I quickly found my way over to the venue sound check entrance (after returning the umbrella to the pizza shop) and I met a few fans who were possessively standing around where we thought the band might enter within the next few hours.  Luckily my friend Margaret was there already (we had been IM'ing about the timing of our visit to the back entrance) and she graciously allowed me some space on the poncho upon which she sat with her back to a silver rail.  

More fans and familiar faces began to show up, as the minutes and hours ticked by, and the energy rose steadily as the afternoon ticked on.  I met a fan called Woody, who carried items to have signed (as I did) and Bridget Rebecca came along too, and sweetly posed for a picture with me there as we waited.

There was high excitement, and Brigitte kindly made plans with me to get a photo of me and Bono for me, as we waited and I fumbled with items I wanted signed, items I wanted to give them, my phone for pictures, and all these things went flying as the adrenaline coursed through my veins... like a drug, actually....  

Brigitte helped me get it together, and I took some deep breaths.  A text came in from the Canadian fan named David, from whom I would buy a GA ticket, to get in to the floor tonight, and soon he was there with us, and we decided to abandon the soundcheck entrance and go get in the GA line at about 4pm.  

Day -1 (continued)

When I got to my hostel room, my funky little hostel room, I sat to get grounded and recharged in a meditation that was interrupted only by a random buzzing of my phone timer.  It felt way too soon to have been twenty minutes, and at first I didn't check my phone at all.  Then a thought occurred, what if I had just had a very focused moment where I lost time?  So I grabbed the phone, just to see these numbers ticking past:  11:12, 11:11...
I smiled and laughed to myself, put down my phone and said thank you thank you in my heart.

I emerged shortly thereafter to find my way to the venue where the U2 tribe would soon be doing their evening check in dance for the GA line that had begun to form on Tuesday night.  The walk through Vancouver was wonderful, and I stopped to take photos of flowers glistening with raindrops behind the hostel, and a strange statue of cars sitting on top of each other, as I approached the venue BC Place.

I walked around BC Place, in the midst of the city center, with an eye out for the venue back entrance that I had seen online over the last few days with band members greeting, signing, and selfie quick-posing for fans.  There were a couple of fans with whom I chatted briefly once I found the spot.  There was no action at the back entrance, though, and I soon moved back up to the front of the building where the GA line was beginning to buzz with evening check in.

I met so many fans for the first time, fans that I felt I knew from months or years of regular connection on FaceBook.  One fan I thought I had met, and who was gracious enough to greet me as if we had met, was the beloved Brigitte Rebecca, who was seen onstage during the 2015 tour, and was known at that time to always wear lemon.  She was the one with the beautiful loving smile and the open gaze whom Bono had reached out to touch during the Paris DVD performance of 'Until the End of The World".  When I saw her with my friend Margaret, who had stood by me in Denver as I gave irises to Bono in 2015, I went to both of them with hugs and Brigitte greeted me charmingly with the French tradition of cheek to cheek touches on either side.  I soon realized that we had not yet met before this, and that in fact it did not matter.

Margaret's mother Ruth was also there, and she was charming with her stories of chatting to Bono on his birthday, at the informal fan meet and greet the day before.  Soon we went on to the fan gathering spot for the night (called The Pint, where I wouldn't be having one of those as I had quit drinking at the time of my psychic break 18 months prior and I had no plans to start up again anytime and certainly not now).  We found a space to sit and just soaked in the loveliness of being amidst our U2 tribe again.

I soon realized that in spite of the meticulous preparation I had made of gifts to give the band, I would not be needing to meet any of the band this late spring to have an incredibly joyful experience.  I was already there, in joy.  In fact, across the table from me sat beautiful Joy from the Chicago i/e stage, with whom I had connected on Facebook two years prior and was only meeting in person for the first time on this night.  Yes we were all home again, and I drank lots of water while others enjoyed their beers, and we sang along to U2 songs together, and I talked a bit with Margaret about the choice to drink water instead of alcohol, and how grateful I was to be free of that compulsion on this night.

The rain was coming down outside when I reluctantly chose to depart for some rest.  I was already short on sleep and the tour hadn't actually begun yet.  As I left the bar, the rain was pouring down.  I saw a fresh pizza by the slice spot and realized I hadn't eaten all afternoon.  So I popped in and had a vegetarian slice.  As I was getting myself together to go, the man behind the counter said, "Where is your umbrella?" while the rain poured down insistently across the shining streets.  "I don't have one," I replied.

"But it is raining," he stated, and I agreed with him on that.  Then he turned around and reached up to grab an umbrella from a collection I saw sitting on a high countertop, saying to me, "Here, you take this one and you can bring it back later," in his lovely French sounding accent.  I was touched, and I gushed, "Oh what a wonderful thing, I will bring this back to you tomorrow!  I appreciate you!"  He smiled and nodded as I went on my way in blissful gratitude for a universe that continued to yield miracles, moving through these miracle days.

Soon enough, back to the hostel, where I peeled off wet socks and shoes and hung them up, then curled up in the bottom bunk in my private room for a brief sleep. The day before Day 1 of 40 days from May 12, 2017 at opening night in Vancouver, to June 20 in D.C. for the summer solstice show, was finally done, and on the other side of sleep... opening night!

To Vancouver

Day -1

Today I set off from my home in the Mile high city of Denver CO, for the first of the very special "JT30" shows.  Destination for this opener is Vancouver, a city that is new to me.  I've been blessed to see U2 a total of 31 times since 1992, and this is my first tour opener. I am tuned in, tapped in, and turned on today.  I see the light in everything and everyone, even in the stressed TSA agent who had to in-depth screen me on the way through DIA security. When she finished her painstaking process (including following my directions to hold Adam's set list from the Boston Elevation 2001 stage with great care), I thanked her and told her she did a good job.

This is the first time I've traveled away from Denver since I had a two month hiatus from work after experiencing a nervous breakdown following Thanksgiving 2015.

For now, I am blessed to say, I am seeing the world with new eyes and a heart that is full.

The streets were shiny with a cool rain, and there was a hint of the sea as I rose up from the depths of the underground via escalator.

On my walk from the train station to the hostel, the beautifully gritty humanity that surrounded appeared before me as drops of divinity, scattered just for the experience of it, and destined to come back together in the end. I saw myself in them, and I found myself  in love.