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