The Call to Awaken

Night 40: JT30 from the Red Zone

A number of times I had heard Bono singing this timely lyric variation in this year's performance of "Pride": 

One boy washed up on an empty beach/ one boy never to be kissed

The emotion of this line, the grief and sadness, touched me to my core; especially now, as a mother to my own sweet three year old, tears stung my eyes.

Tonight, just outside D.C., he spoke to the crowd from his heart specifically, passionately,
"From the right, from the left, and those in between, you are welcome here tonight!
Whoever you vote for, you are welcome here tonight;
We will find common ground reaching for higher ground!"

There had been some controversy during recent dates of the North American tour around Bono's outspoken perspective on our 45th president.  This message of unity was reassuring.  I knew I stood amidst a community of varying beliefs, right next to me, all around me; we could still celebrate together.

"Pride" moved through to its close, and the crowd chanted "Oh oh oh oh" together, cheering.  As the redness of the "Streets" opening swirled through the stadium, the band stood together in a line, gazed upon the crowd, then turned back to climb the ramp to the stage.

 Bono said:
"Maybe the dream is just telling us to wake up,
Awaken the America of community and compassion,
Protest and tolerance,
The America of justice and joy.
Maybe the dream is just telling us to wake up... Awaken!"

And with this, Edge's guitar rang out in its own language beyond words, directly awakening the energetic center in my heart space.  Until the redness broke through to a bright open screen showing the road we were on, dizzyingly vast and endless, open.  The crowd roared together on this roller coaster ride down those open streets they invited us into, on their megapixel high-def-wave-voyage screen.

It was a ride, and we cruised right into "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", Bono observing "here we still are... here you still are!" and we were one giant fucking family singing our hearts out, rocking back and forth to Adam's steadfast solid bass line.

During "With Or Without You"  I had my antennae up to see if Brigitte, presumably down at the main stage, might take a little walk with Bono on the ramp, but it was not to be so tonight.  The screen was beautiful from this perspective.   The boom was in the way a bit, here and there, but it didn't matter.  We had it all at that corner of the tree stage, Beth and I did that night.  From the whites of their eyes to the vast, overwhelmingly gorgeous cinema of the main stage.
As "With Or Without You" peaked, Bono announced to the stadium:
"These songs belong to you now
Let them sing you!
Will you sing us, as we sing you?
Lovers of song! Lovers in song!
Sing your heart out!"

And we did.

Then, the breakdown...
"Bullet The Blue Sky"...
Settling eventually into "Running To Stand Still".

Running, the ode to the addict.  I hadn't known that's what I was until a decade or so after I first got to know this song.  Tonight, tears again...

Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth
I see seven towers but I only see one way out

Bono had been singing of the seven towers of Ballymun, the low income dwellings of North Dublin visible from his boyhood home.  For my part, I had come to realize that the seven towers of childhood had stood over me in the forms of my five older siblings plus my two parents.   Tonight, with my sisters and my brother here next to me, with my U2 family all around me,  I stood among them, feeling tall as a tower unto myself.  Knowing I always had been, I just had to find my own way to plug in to my power.

"Welcome to Side Two!" the vocalist proclaimed after side one's harmonica swan song.   Off we rocked into God's Country.  How the landscape here had changed so fast in just the last year... still, we danced on through.

The mad dancing thrill of the second side kept me bouncing around the rail again until "Exit" began, and then still captivation, anticipation of the Shadow Man's visit back out to the tree stage was all I knew.  I was fascinated with the idea of Bono's Shadow Man playing out in the backyard of the real life shadow man who now sat in The White House. 

I summoned up as much focus as I could, and filmed.  The shot is shaky especially when Shadow Man has approached... I kinda started vibrating....

https://youtu.be/LFDcdYLwCOk

After that... Mothers.  I sang El Pueblo Vencera to myself as the final chorus rang out through the stadium.

During the encore, Ultraviolet was specially marked by Bono's return to the tree stage.  There was a little girl and her father next to me on the rail.  Bono gazed at her then nodded in a sign of respect to her as he sang U2's song to women everywhere.  Her father lit up like a Christmas tree, laughing as I high fived him after he finished hugging his somewhat dazed looking little girl.

Finally the show wrapped up oddly.... appropriately, perhaps, to follow the last song tonight, which was "Vertigo".  A young man down front had a poster advertising his ability to perform a headstand...

"You better be good", said Bono, "we normally don't work with tall people or animals".

Here's the link to the whole thing:

https://youtu.be/fTo98ED8DFs

So this was the way my 40 day journey chasing the Joshua Tree across North America ended in the capitol... on the longest, loveliest day.

Sister glow (with gratitude to Tony Weier for making it possible)

Another Hit, Another Time, Another Place

By the time "The Whole of the Moon" filled the stadium, and Larry strode out on the stage I was full on blissed out.  I said to my sister, "Here comes Edge" as his guitar rang out through the crowd, and my jaw dropped when Bono came into our  view.  I managed somehow to snap some pics to capture our (slightly rear) lovely view of the band.

Zoomed in

Four-legged table

Hallelujah Here He Comes

Then, as the band flowed into New Years Day, Bono was handed a bottle of water by one of the stage crew.  After he belted out the opening "yeah yea oh oh" he drank some more, then turned to walk toward our corner of the tree stage.  He bent down, with his gaze upon my poster or license plate, and set down his bottle on the edge of the stage.  In a flash, he straightened back up and pointed at me and my sign before he turned back around to cross back to his mic.  

"Whaaaa'? Wait did that just happen?' said my brain as I turned to my sister, grinning, to see if she could confirm the reality of this perception, even as the band cranked into the first chorus of New Year's Day.  She didn't look back at me, just stood with her chin resting in her hand, above her elbow resting on the rail, seeming appropriately mesmerized by the performance unfolding in front of us.  

For some reason, any time I have any kind of interaction with Bono, even one as small as this, I experience a lasting sense of disbelief.

So I was glad to find the YouTube video and grab a couple zoomed in screenshots a couple months down the road, confirming for me what no one else could this time around.  Childish, for sure.  But, here it is.

Getting my little fix of Bono love... just can't get enough.

Then the music took me away again.  New Year's Day had me lifting off, then Bad brought tears to my eyes on this night, in gratitude for how life had shifted since I first got close to the song of an addict/co-dependant in 1992.  Still the layers peel away.  That night, I was beyond high off the show, and the (real or just imagined?) moment of recognition that had just occurred.

Day 40: Pre-Show Shenanigans

Day 40: Pre-show Shenanigans
June 20 at Fed Ex Field

Beth and I walked the sunny sidewalk to the stadium through moments that remain vivid in my memory to this day of writing, nine months later.  To be in the company of my big sister Beth on the final day of this journey was a great gift.

We found the Dream Out Loud film crew easily with directions from the lovely Amanda McCune, and joined them to shoot film under a shade tree. I sat self-consciously for my long-anticipated fan interview.  David Barry set me up for a comfortable and most enjoyable conversation.

After the interview we met Michael Wilson, a fan who was due to interview next, Phillip Roy Neal Chambers, the U2 Fan Tour ticket  guru, and we sat and pow wowwed in the Sun for awhile before Beth and I went on the stadium walkabout.  We stopped and chatted with Brigitte, and I met a new U2 friend Rhonda Apple waiting in the GA line, who I would subsequently "see" at Periscope broadcasts when the tour travelled on to Europe in July.
We circled the stadium and scoped out where the band might enter, but I wasn't feeling waiting for them today, so we went on to find the Red Zone entrance.

At about 2:30pm at the designated RZ entrance, we found 2 other fans waiting to obtain their RZ wristbands.  So we joined them.  I had a sharpie, and for the first time in my life, I played line leader and marked numbers on the hands (of any that wanted them) there before us and those that soon joined to form a line behind us.

With Philip, David, Amanda, and Michael
  Photo by Beth Weier

Lowest queue number I will ever have!

What a luxury, to enter the stadium after queuing for a mere few hours and nab what seemed to be prime rail!  I chose the corner at the Edge side of the tree stage where the Red Zone was divided from the more crowded GA rail in front of the tree stage.  Yes, I was hoping that the band might see my sign, and that I might gift someone with a few (now slightly wilted) summer solstice irises.

My friends, Sun and Joshua Tree

The best times

Across the tree stage, there was Dahna Propst... I messaged her a picture of herself across the stage and she sent me back one of me.  Soon enough, my other sister Julie and bro-in-law Tom were there using the seats I had grabbed in the presale, which I had sold them after grabbing a couple of Red Zone spots in the public onsale.  Julie texted me that she had unexpectedly run into our cousin Jennifer as she went for a pre-show snack.  There was simply love around every corner, well before the band came onstage.

And then, the techs closest to the band started walking up and down the long ramp to the tree stage.  There was Stuart Morgan, Adam's right hand man, and I managed to catch his eye and show him my license plate from my rail spot, earning a smile I remembered from 17 years ago.  And then, Dallas Schoo, a rock star himself to us long term U2ers, marched Edge's guitar down the ramp to the tree stage amidst great cheers and jubilation from the masses on the ground.  He began tossing out a pick here and there to a few lucky fans.  When he turned my direction, I waved the irises at him, and he walked right over to throw me a pick!  It fell on the ground as I returned a throw of the irises.... And he caught the flowers then stayed to make sure the local security in front of me picked up the tiny prize and gave it to me!  Oh I was buzzing then.  Dallas turned and walked back up the ramp, flowers tucked into his elbow, and when he reached main stage, he turned around to look back our way, lifted the flowers above his head, and waved  before disappearing into the substage underworld.

Dallas made sure the pick found it's way into my possession as he held those droopy irises.  (With gratitude to photographer Janice McKenzie).

All this, already, and the day hadn't even given into the dark of night yet.