Well the day started out great. I got to the line up at 6:30 and my friend and I were #48 and 49. Seemed like a great place to be. It almost guaranteed us a spot on the rail. Waited for what seemed like forever for the HP Pav. guys to come out with the wristbands. I ended up getting #14 in the non-fan club line. It actually worked out better that I wasn't in the fan club because I would have been #35 or so. After we got our wristbands we took off.
Side note - The line up at HP Pavilion was run incredibly well. They treated us well and made it a pleasant experience for everyone. Every other arena should call Ken (the director at HP Pav.) and take some notes.
We got back in line right at 5:00. I couldn't believe how close we were to the front of the line. It really put it all in perspective when we were all there. We got to go in at 6:15 and there was kind of an issue with the first set of doors. They didn't have them open when they first opened the gates so it just bottlenecked there. My friend and I got separated, and I got into the line with the person who had 19 bags with them (exaggeration of course) so I got held up. My buddy was about 8 people ahead of me when we were getting wristbands. He took off trying to get us a good spot on the floor. Well they scanned my ticket a second time and... JACKPOT! I'm in the ellipse. They asked me who I would like to have with me and I said well he already walked in. They told me to get him. I, of course, got yelled at for running into the arena b/c I was so excited. As I was going through the tunnel I wanted to yell and get my friend's attention so I didn't have to walk all the way up to the front. When I yelled I was expecting there to be quite a bit of noise in there, so I yelled out "Clower" at the top of my lungs only to find out the arena was completely silent. So my yell completely filled the cavernous arena, and most eyes were on me, so I just yelled "I got in!" My friend started running back (he got yelled at too) and we got our 2nd wristband for the evening. It was actually king of back up at the entrance of the ellipse so we had to wait a couple of minutes. We got inside and there were only a couple of people on the rail. We had our choice of where we wanted to go. I went went straight for the spot in front of Edge. As a guitar player I knew it was going to be a treat to be able to watch his fingers do their magic. From that point on, it was all smiles. I have to admit, I never thought I would be one of those people at the very, very front. I've been close, but I never thought I was going to be one of the "lucky" people that you see on the video right next to the main stage. I couldn't believe that I was actually there. While I was standing there early, I noticed a guitar pick laying on the floor in front of me. I called the security guy over and asked if I could have it. He picked it up and looked at it and I could tell he wanted it. I begged and begged and finally he gave it to me, but I had to promise that if I got another one it was going to him. So I got a used Edge pick. I found out he actually has two kinds of picks. There's the ones he uses in concert like the one I have (it's a nylon pick with grip on it and is quite flimsy), and then there are the ones that Dallas gives out that has Edge's signature embossed on it.
Kings of Leon was actually better than I expected. I found their album to be very forgettable, but the songs sounded much better live. My one complaint is that all their songs sounded very similar, but they were just straight up rock'n'roll with no gimmicks and I liked that.
U2 took the stage at about 9:00 and I loved the opening of LAPOE. I didn't really see how it was going to work, but it was pretty sweet. Having all 4 members spread out around us in the ellipse was very cool! 360 degrees of U2.
The songs all sounded great, but the new songs and The Boy songs really stood out. Those sounded incredible. I couldn't get over how good the new stuff sounded. I'm really not that big of a fan of HTDAAB, but those songs were amazing live. Streets without the red screen was different, but not as bad as I thought it would be. They even did some of the bright light stuff which I had heard they weren't doing. Highlights of the show for me were - Vertigo, City of Blinding Lights, Bullet the Blue Sky, and The Fly. All of those sounded unreal.
Bono's voice was spot on last night. I've never heard him sound that good since the Zoo TV era. His voice was there all night. He was actually hitting the chorus on Pride. Edge has his game on. He is sounded unbelievable right now. If you haven't heard Bullet the Blue Sky from the Vertigo tour yet, look out. The solo is amazing. Adam interacted with the crowd quite a bit and even walked around the ellipse a couple of times. Larry was like a metronome back there and seemed to be having fun and actually smiling a couple of times.
The crowd was kind of lame, even down on the floor. It didn't seem like anyone was into The Fly at all. I was going nuts as this is my favorite U2 song of all time and I was seeing Edge play it 5 feet from me, but no one else seemed that into it. The crowd loved the favorites, but seemed out of touch when U2 brought out some surprises out of the bag. It just seems funny to me that someone would spent $180 on a ticket if you didn't enjoy/know the entire collection of the band's songs. Oh well, being that close to U2 felt like I was in a club seeing them. It was like standing next to the stage at The Independent.
Overall, I think this show was one of the best I have seen from U2. They were on their game last night. Which just enhanced the experience I had from the front row. It was almost surreal to see them from that close. I can now die a happy person.