About 4:30pm
Once we got into the first part of the inner holding area for the GA line, there was some effort amongst many fans to keep the number system intact. Still, it quickly became moderately disorganized as we were wound through rows of rails and then into a second room full of vertical chutes where there were huge garage doors closing off the entry way to the stadium. Kevin and I looked around and gleefully realized that he was in fact the fastest runner in this final holding area. We had lost Heather in getting there, and we maintained contact by phone. She confirmed that she was all good and would catch up with us at the tree stage once we were in. I went to the bathroom and heard the band soundchecking "Bad", and my joy kept rising. There had been no "Bad" in Vancouver. Tonight was getting really very promising by this point.
Guy Oseary came out then and mixed with the first part of the GA crowd at the front of the chutes.
I didn't approach U2's current manager at first, but then I wondered if he might tell me how the band feels these days about us all lining up for hours or even days in advance. So I moved toward him and listened to the conversation between him and the fans. There was an intense discussion that sounded to me like the manager was working toward problem solving around what had happened in Vancouver, with the entry fiasco. I was most appreciative of Guy Oseary's focus and engagement with this issue, which had been directly traumatic for some of my friends.
I did take a moment to ask him how the band feels about us lining up all day to get close. This question was so far off the focus of his inquiry at that moment, that at first he looked confused, then ultimately stated that they don't care, they just want everyone to have a good time.
Ok.... I thanked him and I stepped back to my place in line next to Kevin, feeling enlightened and impressed.
Here's my speculation, only speculation here, not assertions of fact: maybe Guy knew that it wouldn't be a diplomatic time or place to mention that the band doesn't exactly approve of this investment of time and energy that might otherwise be spent productively and non-obsessively, or maybe the band has let it go, IF they ever cared enough to disapprove in the first place, as I had believed at least Bono did, for years after hearing some supposed conversations that took place between fans and Bono during the Elevation tour. There is no way to know, and that's okay. I was grateful that I got a minute to ask so directly and test my hypothesis, as strange a thing to think about as it may have been.
After a while, the chutes started getting let in one by one. The process was not perfect, but I was very happy once we got in to grab the spot I had been visualizing myself in, just one person back from the rail, at one of the two front tree stage branches. Kevin had run ahead of me, but hadn't had any way to know exactly where I wanted to be, so when I got in I re-directed him from the spot he had chosen to the spot I had been picturing myself in all day. Just in front of me were Trish and Sam with their bear named Joshua. Joshua the Bear would be planning to attend every show of the tour (I did note that I had seen Sam in line behind me with a number on her hadn't that was higher than my own, but I let it go without too much resistance out of respect for the awesomeness of where I was, and all the people around me). Heather quickly joined us at our spot without any trouble, and Kevin and I posed for a very happy selfie:
I sat down to take a breather for a while behind Trish and Sam, and I snapped this picture of Trish's ankle (shared with her permission):
We were ready for lift off.
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