October 9, 2009 - U2 Concert - Raymond James Center Tampa - FL

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Just got home that show was AMAZING!!!!! I personally think it was the best one that I have seen so far on this tour. Seriously I cannot find fault with any of it. The band was on fire and the crowd's energy was electric! Met some really cool U2 fans in line during the day that adopted me and my sister as part of their group. We all ended up on the rail together it was so cool. Speaking of which I got in line at 5am and by then there were already 75 people ahead of me. No problem with that because I ended up with a VERY nice spot on the outer rail! Could have gone inside the inner circle but wanted a bit of room so stayed on the outside. During the show I had ALL of them playing right in front of me! :drool: :love: :hyper: This was my sister's first U2 concert and the look on her face was PRICELESS! She is already talking about the tour for next year :lol:

Have lots of pictures will post some once I get them uploaded. Unfortunately I didn't get the picture of Adam with his shirt pulled up. At that moment in time I was just in shock that I was staring at his bare stomach :lol:

Btw it was brutal with the heat during the day! I have never experienced such heat and humidity like that before. Drank tons of water throughout the day but still ended up dehydrated. Right before U2 came on I had a killer headache that thankfully went away so I could enjoy the show. No doubt at all that it was from sitting in the heat all day long. Saw a couple of people carried out of GA during the show. They were pretty much on the verge of passing out.
 
I have a new camera and have not yet figured out the settings...all the photos i took, the guys look like white blobs, I am guessing because of the spotlights on them interferring with whatever setting I had on....I did record UF on the camera and it looks and sounds great...very clear. I was wondering if the GA folks got hosed off...that would have been a good solution....everytime I looked at the inner circle it seemed everone was bopping and jumping...I really do not know how they did it.
 
I was wondering if the GA folks got hosed off...that would have been a good solution....everytime I looked at the inner circle it seemed everone was bopping and jumping...I really do not know how they did it.

In my section of GA we didn't get hosed off. Saw where the inner circle was being provided with water. When we asked if there was any way that we could get water we were told no. The security guy said that their cooler was empty. Five minutes later though the bastard came back with a cup of water for himself. Did notice later on during the night that further down the rail from me some fans were being handed water. Even though I was dying of thirst I was still rocking out!
 
First, what a show, what a night!

It was indeed a hot day. Even for a Floridian like me, that kind of heat deserves some serious respect.

It was a great day, and despite the heat, my wife and I enjoyed our hours in the GA line. It was a pleasure to meet all of the fellow fans!

My wife is relative newcomer to U2. Being younger than I am, she grew up on late 90's Pop. But she loved it just as much as I did. Great experience for both of us.

I'm more of an old timer to tha band, and even have a joshua tree and an Achtung Baby tatooed on my leg. (I swear I was about to fall over when the baby was talking to us in his Zooropa getup. Pretty funny.)

I can sometimes tend to go on a bit, so I'll keep this brief. Just wanted to say hello to all the fellow fans, and to say what a pleasure it was to meet everyone.

Regarding the COBL thing. I've always felt that song was one about youthful exuberance, and the loss thereof as we grow older.

I have three children, and I was moved to tears to hear the things Bono was singing to that boy. No doubt the kid had no idea or real appreciation for what he was saying, but what an experience nonetheless!

If you just think about the lyrics... "Don't look before you laugh, look ugly in a photograph." To me, those are just words of wisdom for handling life. It says "Have fun. Do something light and fun. Enjoy!".

The part where he asks the little boy if he can see the beauty inside of him, to me, was a little more poignant. I think that part is very personal for Bono in the way he presented it. He's giving the kid the glasses, laying himself bare, and asking "Can you still see the kid in me". I'm not trying to read Bono's mind too much, but I see a father of four, who lost his own mother and found fame/adulthood at a very young age making a little personal connection a with a kid.

I think it is wonderful, personally. Bono is a superstar, undoubtledly one of the biggest in the world. But I think that part of the performance is a nice little glimpse at Bono as a person, father, and family man. During that part of the song he's just a father who's not with his kids, connecting with a kid from the audience. As a father myself, I think that's really cool!

That's just one guy's take on it. I'm sure other's opinions may differ.

Take Care!
:hug:
 
Tampa was a great show! My husband and I did GA and it was brutal. We arrived around 2pm. I couldn't believe the crowd standing in the hot as July Florida sun. The stadium really, really should have considered moving those people. We got a wristband, but I knew I would be feeling miserable if we attempted to stand in the GA line until the gates opened. We hit up the merch stand, but they were out of several items I wanted. Hopefully they'll show up on the website soon enough.

After that we found a place to sit under some shade trees near the area that the band would be coming in. We met some great fans waiting around there. There was debate on whether the band was already in the stadium. Security seemed to think so and someone claimed to have seen Bono there at 8:00am. We decided to wait until a little after 4pm to see if they showed. I had to go back to the car to ditch my purse and change out of flip-flops. When we returned, I saw security moving more barricades out, so I thought the band might be coming in soon. We waited and around 4:45, the motorcade turned in. I saw Brian in the front seat of the first SUV. The SUV stopped right in front of us, Bono rolled down his window while chatting on his cell, waved and told everyone he'd be right back out. I had a feeling he would not since they were late and it was incredibly hot out. Brian confirmed this a few minutes later. I felt bad for the fans who'd waited for hours in the killer sun. It was also starting to get a bit crazy after the band arrived which may have factored into the no Bono.

We got several beverages before hitting the GA line. We sucked down a Coke, water, and lemonade while waiting for the GA gates to open. Luckily we were corraled into an area with a few shade trees and by this time, the stadium's shade was over the GA area. Gates were set to open at 5pm, but since the band was late and needed to do soundcheck, it was quite a bit later. I was irritated because there were at least 3 helicopters circling the stadium so we couldn't hear soundcheck much at all.

Once they opened the gates, we got in rather quickly. We initially were going to try for outer rail, but decided to give the inner rail another shot. We were able to get closer to the center than we did in Raleigh.

It was HOT in GA. Killer hot. I've lived in Florida 80% of my life and I have NEVER sweat so much. We were pretty crammed in and I didn't want to lose my spot on the rail, so the security guy kept bringing people cups of ice cold water. He was awesome! I saw at least 3 people being escorted out of our general area (center, Edge side), presumably for dehydration or other heat-related issue. I looked back to the clear area near the Red Zone and saw the paramedics there off and on throughout the show. The only thing I can compare inner circle GA to is a gigantic sauna.

The show itself was fantastic. I liked the Raleigh show, but think Tampa was two times better. We got UTEOTW which was the highlight for me. That has to be my favorite song live. I also loved Magnificent and the Crazy remix. Having the same setlist as the ATL made me less sad that we sold our tickets to that show.

I have some photos and video, but everything looks blurry. If I find any that are decent, I'll post them.

As of now, we are through for this leg. I'm desperately trying to squeeze in another show, but this is probably it until the summer. At least I now know I can take the heat when the summer shows roll around!

Glad I'm not the only Floridian who has NEVER and hopes 2 NEVER xperience heat like that again.
 
I'll post my better photos of the night here:
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During COBL

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Adam's midriff

As for tips on future concert photos with cheapster cameras, don't bother using flash unless you are not going to be blocked by anything. Even a hair will capture all the flash and you'll get a clear picture of someone's scalp. Up your ISO settings until you can get a non-blurry shot. It really depends on where you are. 1600 was too much for me, so 800 and 400 were alternated for these photos. The downside is that you get that fuzzy white speckled effect, but I'd rather have that than just blurs, personally.
 
Great photos! Love the Bono no jacket and Adam's midriff shots! thanks for the photo tips, but I am unclear as to what you mean about the ISO settings...I can put the camera on ISO...as a matter of fact that is what I used to shoot my pictures...but I do not know what you mean wen you say "up it":reject:
 
Nice photos! where were you in GA..inside the circle?

Thanks! I wish I wasn't so short and could get better pics above the stage. We were inside the circle, right on the inner rail, Edge's side. We were there for Raleigh, too, but managed to get a bit closer to the center in Tampa.

I've been a fan for most of my life and always thought getting close was impossible and expensive. Now that I know it's not, I'm addicted!
 
Great photos! Love the Bono no jacket and Adam's midriff shots! thanks for the photo tips, but I am unclear as to what you mean about the ISO settings...I can put the camera on ISO...as a matter of fact that is what I used to shoot my pictures...but I do not know what you mean wen you say "up it":reject:

I guess I should have mentioned that it depends on the type of camera you have. My old Sony Cybershot didn't allow me to change the ISO settings, but my Canon does. I know that for Canon there's a button on the directional pad marked for "ISO" and that's how the settings can be changed. But that's specific to Canon.
 
Great photos! Love the Bono no jacket and Adam's midriff shots! thanks for the photo tips, but I am unclear as to what you mean about the ISO settings...I can put the camera on ISO...as a matter of fact that is what I used to shoot my pictures...but I do not know what you mean wen you say "up it":reject:

If you have an iso setting, there should be a way to change it. Some cameras have 80, 100, 200, 400, 800 and up.
 
Okay so here goes the probably really long story lol.

I got there at about 5am, and I met up with BonosBaby12. She was around 70 something in line, and I was 83...at 5am. WTF? People were there at like 5pm the day before...that's rough haha. But I met her, and another interferencer who doesn't post on here much, but she was from Canada, and very excited about the Poetic Social Mission that night :)
They moved us closer to the stadium around 6:30 and we were in line for quite a while. I met some other cool people (not sure if they have accounts here) but they were all chill, and they all discouraged people to cut in line by giving em mean looks and talking crap about em :applaud:

Uh...time in line was awesome. I spent it talking to people, we got wristbands around 10am so I went to check out the front of the stadium and take pics in front of it with the Claw in the background.
So hot. UGH! It was terrible, even at 10am. I went to the bathroom around noon and it was even worse. I was sweating bullets.
About 1pm they started telling us to be back here and have our stuff up by around 2:30, but I spoke with a security guard and he said to really be there by 4. At around 2 or so, they moved us closer together. BAD MOVE. Everyone was jam packed, hot, sticky etc, and it sucked. And a lot of people were bringing stuff back so they may have missed out. At around 2:30 or so they moved us closer to gate A of the stadium, with no shade at all. Damn. Horrible horrible heat I must emphasize again, luckily the staff had lots of water for us :) Everyone cheered when clouds covered the sun, too lol

At around 3:30 or so they decided to move our first group INTO gate A, in the shade. It was still humid in there tho :/ Gates were supposed to open at 5 but I guess since the band was late they let us in at 5:30. They eventually moved us near port-o-potties and they gave us water so it wasn't all bad. We heard them soundcheck Elevation and everyone was singing along :) Then they did Breathe intro and bits of Vertigo. It was cool.

We got in around 5:30 and I rushed to the inner circle in front of Adam. Being a bass player he is my inspiration and it was nice to finally see him up close. I had a sign that said "Me + Bass New Year's Day" to try and get on stage but it wasn't on the setlist so no luck :/

At about 6:30 I needed water and they had a bunch of water jugs with cups for the people up front. Good call on the staff. Muse came on around 7, and I tried getting the people around me into them. It worked :) They noticed my big enthusiasm with my singing along and headbanging to the songs :wink: I was near exhausted after Muse, but it was worth it.

When they were tearing down and U2 was setting up, I saw Stuart and I called out his name, telling him he rocked. I held up my sign and he saw it and gave it a smirk. More on that later. When U2 finally came on, I got goosebumps and was sooooo excited. I saw them on Vertigo Tour in Miami but it was bad seats, and now they were so close to me. I held up my sign during every song and it caught Adam's attention and he smiled at me a few times and acknowledged me.

To take things further, around the 8th song, I decided to use my friend's sharpie market to write on the back "You're my bass idol," thinking it would get his attention more. As soon as he saw it he gave me a big grin. Throughout the course of the night, he stayed in front of me a lot (it's his side, obviously, but in front of me directly a lot), and even winked at me once. He was smiling a lot anytime he was near and was interacting with me a lot, even though it was through body language. And he put a big smile on my face throughout the night.

After Moment of Surrender was finished, I held up the sign again, and I will never forget what happened: he looked down at me, gave me a full blown smile and pointed right at the sign. I almost lost it. He actually acknowledged it and knew how big of a fan I was. I was watching him the whole night, trying to see his technique and whatnot, and he noticed. I felt like I could die lol.

So after they get off the stage and the crew is tearing down, I see Stuart again and try to get his attention. I had another blank sign and used the sharpie again, writing "Stuart, Setlist Please?" on it. I held it up, and after about 2 minutes, he saw it. He was in the back by the drums, and put down what he had in his hands, went over to the keyboard or drum set (I wasn't sure) and tore tape off a paper. He brought it over, folded it up, and called a security guard over. By that time, 10 fans or so had seen it, trying to ask him for it. He told the guard "Give it to that gentleman right there. He's a great fan" and he pointed directly to me. :drool: I told him thank you and I nearly freaked out. It was the one thing I wanted most from the concert to always remember it. And it was one of the on stage ones too, making it even sweeter. I left the concert that night..and I felt as if it was the greatest night of my life, and I think it will be that way for a long time.

Oh, and Stuart is awesome. When he was soundchecking Adam's purple Fender, around the catwalk, he totally played Muse's Uprising. I was like..in awe. :)

Hope you guys enjoy!
 
The best show I have ever seen by far.

The performance was fantastic. It's been said before and it is true: All the pictures in the world can't prepare you for the size and abilities of that set in person. Just amazing. When we drove up to the stadium and saw the top of the claw it was one of those "holy shit" moments.

The people I met at the VIP party were very cool. We were downing beer and wine and being generally giddy for the show.

The VIP vantage point was section 112 on Adam's side. It really was a great distance to experience great sound and all that the show has to offer. It was so very hot. I cannot imagine what you folks in GA went through.

The general consensus here seems to be that the band was on fire and sounded exceptional. I completely agree.

I missed "Unknown Caller" though. I just can't believe how the show impacted me. You would think after hearing "Where the Streets Have No Name" for the thousandth time on record, live and on DVD, that the effect would be minimal. It was one of many powerful moments for me. I wasn't alone.

U2 conquered Tampa and everyone in their path.

Fantastic.
 
I generally avoid PLEBA, but I'm not going to tell you not to take them. :whistle:
I've actually got a few more. I'd link my facebook album, but there are some personal pictures there that I'm sure my friends wouldn't appreciate being passed around.
Maybe I'll post more at my blog and then link it here to get around the 12 image limit. :hmm:
 
- very hot gig, so the band were drinking lots of water, and Bono removed his jacket after SBS, I'm sure Mala was happy :)

You got that right Cathal. I think I've said it enough times, I guess Bono heard and I was a happy camper when he showed up on stage for the One encore jacketless :heart::heart: It was nice to prove to my friend Sarah that Bono is NOT a fat little man!! She loves Bono too though. I think my Texan friend is probably having second thoughts about BMan being a bit on the chunky side. What say you, Dallas girl???? You know your name...so punch it in!!

I was just not meant to have your book Cathal. Sarah #5 and I #4 left about 11:30 to get lunch and shower - we had been there since 4PM on Thursday (I must commend the nice people at Raymond James for providing us with a nice swamp to line up in overnight-trips to Target were made for insect repellent and the mosquitos, luckily, were kept at bay for most of the night). We were able to leave the line at 1:30 am to rest for a couple of hours and were back at 5 and left the line in the capable hands of Mandy and Melissa (thanks girls).

Needless to say the weather was unbearable (and I'm a Floridian - hence the screen name). We were "lucky" enough to be in the first group which got squeezed into the tunnel to "get us out of the sun." I don't know if that was better or worse as with so many people packed into the tunnel there was no air flowing at all. I probably should not complain as I'm sure being out in the blazing sun was a tad worse. I bought a hot pink umbrella that I could use to ward off the sun and which I knew I could toss once we entered the stadium but never got to use it. I just passed it back in line so if anyone on this board got to use an unopened umbrella it came courtesy of me :wink:

The police warned us numerous times that if we ran onto the field we would be stopped and taken out of the stadium and for some reason I believed these guys so resolved to have a fast walk to the pit. Upon actually entering the stadium, we were greeted with a maze of barricades, presumably to keep us from getting up any momentum (see they were serious). So we zigged and we zagged and then we were home free but most people I saw were actually walking. There were a few joggers, but alas, they were not removed from the stadium.

Once in the pit I was rewarded with a spot dead center on the front rail but decided to switch to a spot a few feet right of Bono (as that's really my favorite position). We were literally packed in like sardines which surprises me as security obviously knew that it was extremely hot and it didn't make for the best situation.

Security were good about providing water all night (I requested it several times - but with each cup I was torn between thinking "should I die of dehydration?" or even worse "what if I drink too much and have to use the restroom." I opted for the latter and had about 5 cups of water - another benefit of being on the rail - easy access to security).

Anyway, it was another awesome show-highlights for me were No Line, Mysterious Ways, Elevation, Crazy, Streets, and Ultraviolet. Crowd seemed good from where we were although it seemed that the pit was a bit exhausted from the heat (although looking at some of the videos it doesn't appear that way).

Was also lucky enough to get a setlist (thanks to Sarah) and got a pixel from the 360 screen from a truck driver I reluctantly became friendly with while waiting in the GA line overnight. He was also nice enough to give me a Gatorade. I had to decline the offer though to go with him back to his truck to watch movies though :doh:

Now to wait til Miami next summer...another hot, hot, hot one no doubt.
 
You got that right Cathal. I think I've said it enough times, I guess Bono heard and I was a happy camper when he showed up on stage for the One encore jacketless :heart::heart: It was nice to prove to my friend Sarah that Bono is NOT a fat little man!! She loves Bono too though. I think my Texan friend is probably having second thoughts about BMan being a bit on the chunky side. What say you, Dallas girl???? You know your name...so punch it in!!

I think he had sweated off all of his excess during the first 90 minutes of the show. :wink:

Was also lucky enough to get a setlist (thanks to Sarah) and got a pixel from the 360 screen from a truck driver I reluctantly became friendly with while waiting in the GA line overnight. He was also nice enough to give me a Gatorade. I had to decline the offer though to go with him back to his truck to watch movies though :doh:

:lmao: Don't know why this made me laugh.

You should come to Vegas!!
 
I think he had sweated off all of his excess during the first 90 minutes of the show. :wink:



:lmao: Don't know why this made me laugh.

You should come to Vegas!!

That's what it was supposed to do!!!

I would love to come to Vegas! The only thing standing in the way is the thought of running into the truck driver again. If you see a driver with a thick, thick head of white hair, that'd be my guy.
 
Just got home that show was AMAZING!!!!! I personally think it was the best one that I have seen so far on this tour. Seriously I cannot find fault with any of it. The band was on fire and the crowd's energy was electric! Met some really cool U2 fans in line during the day that adopted me and my sister as part of their group. We all ended up on the rail together it was so cool. Speaking of which I got in line at 5am and by then there were already 75 people ahead of me. No problem with that because I ended up with a VERY nice spot on the outer rail! Could have gone inside the inner circle but wanted a bit of room so stayed on the outside. During the show I had ALL of them playing right in front of me! :drool: :love: :hyper: This was my sister's first U2 concert and the look on her face was PRICELESS! She is already talking about the tour for next year :lol:

Have lots of pictures will post some once I get them uploaded. Unfortunately I didn't get the picture of Adam with his shirt pulled up. At that moment in time I was just in shock that I was staring at his bare stomach :lol:

Btw it was brutal with the heat during the day! I have never experienced such heat and humidity like that before. Drank tons of water throughout the day but still ended up dehydrated. Right before U2 came on I had a killer headache that thankfully went away so I could enjoy the show. No doubt at all that it was from sitting in the heat all day long. Saw a couple of people carried out of GA during the show. They were pretty much on the verge of passing out.

:wave:It was nice meeting you in line BonosBaby. Glad you had a great time.
 
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