June 3: Inside Soldier Field
As soon as Chris and I got inside the venue, I started to feel better. Memories of entering Soldier Field for U2 twenty years ago with my big brother came flooding back. The sense of joy that I had felt on that day returned as we found our way to our club level seats.
We sat down and took in the view from section 209. The floor and the seating sections were only beginning to fill up as the sun sank down in the sky, getting ready to fall completely obscured behind the stadium. I was grateful to take another moment with my softly shining solar star before this long day might transform into another magical night.
I spoke with Elsha over Facebook chat, and shared the scene with her through the lens of my phone. In a moment after we disconnected, I saw a text had come in from Ken Mendez, and his message brought unwelcome news. Ken sent pictures of Bono that he had just taken, right out where I had sat for four hours waiting on the singer through the afternoon. I had missed Bono's late arrival. I felt as if my heart might break as I looked at two gorgeous pictures of the man greeting the crowd. My pre-show happiness vanished and was replaced with deep pain for having missed him, especially after having waited right there for so long. Marcela had been mistaken, apparently. The adorable pictures Ken M. sent hit me like a punch in the gut.
Ugh.... so close yet so far. I sadly shared the news with my brother Chris, who didn't seem too bothered. I was so sad though! Before this news came through, I had been planning to grab a number on my hand after the show, and play the GA game again in anticipation of tomorrow night's show. After seeing this turn of events, I figured I'd better go wait by the loading dock to see what I could see again tomorrow after the GA crowd would be let into the venue.
The smells of pot and alcohol wafted around me. The aching hole I felt in my heart nagged for me to fill it with one of my old addictions. I was craving for real, for the first time in a long time. I was glad Chris was with me, keeping me grounded in sobriety. After all, higher powers willing, tomorrow, June 4, would mark eighteen months free of marijuana and alcohol for this grateful addict in recovery.
The stadium continued to fill, and The Lumineers played to a happy crowd under the oncoming twilight. Soldier Field was overwhelmingly massive, and despite myself, I began to admire the sheer power of this joyous humanity brought together again by U2 music.
Finally, Larry's entrance song began, and he was striding down the ramp on his way to bang into "Sunday Bloody Sunday". As the rest of the band joined him, one by one, my heart sank, seeing how terribly far away they were from me. I flashed on troubled memories of my very first U2 concert, 25 years prior, when I had felt pained over how far away they were onstage in RFK stadium that night. Tears began to creep up behind my eyes....
Then I remembered hearing Bono say sometime in the past...
"If I stay close to the songs, and you stay close to the songs, then I guess we can be close to each other"
With that thought, I pushed off my personal rock bottom of isolation, powerlessness, and regret, to find my way into the songs, starting with "Bad", where we, the multitudes at Soldier Field that night, came together in an intimate embrace inside the inner sanctum of our collective, shared heart. The band was the channel; the music led us inward together.
The beauty of the stage and the production was breathtaking from the club level. The HD screen, indescribable. My brother the photographer made some gorgeous shots while I danced through Side 2 of the Joshua Tree.
"Ultraviolet" remained in the encore, and I thought of my little daughter. The lyrics this night very clearly spoke my message of gratitude to her. Back when I felt alone, pregnant, and frightened, when "I was all messed up and I had OPERA in my head, (her) love was a lightbulb hanging over my bed". I was in joy, thinking of her, singing what had since become her song, as we had used it to announce her anticipated birth on Facebook in 2013.
The waves of happiness continued through the encore with "Elevation", where, from this angle, I was able to appreciate the enormous power of the crowd, spreading out before Larry and the big screen, and behind him in a magnificent reflection of happy humanity. Joy all around in these songs, in this celebrating crowd, and in the end as "I Will Follow" closed out the night for us.
Chris and I sat, and watched the crowd dissipate, and he marveled that it was the best U2 show he had ever seen, as we took a selfie to capture our post-show glow. I rode the glow cloud all the way out of that stadium, untouched by the chaotic masses, uninterested in getting a number for the GA line that was well underway for the next nights show, unfettered by the traffic and the drunks and the city chaos, just floating on that sweet soft cloud of joy the whole way back to the hostel.
There was a feminine form in a statue, across from the hostel, where late night traffic was gridlocked and drivers were hunkered down cursing at each other. She flew gorgeously above the chaotic commute, headlights like a carpet under her heels, and in her, I saw me. Happy, joyous, and free, transcending together... not coming down.
So the 34th U2 concert in my 40 years did, after all, end on a peak note. I finally surrendered to sleep on the seventh floor of HI Chicago in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
Sadly, my sweet dreams would soon give way to a furious frustration, with the return of the Chicago morning sun.
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