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.