All right, here goes nothin'! Hope it's not too long.....
I incredibly won tickets last Monday, and brought my dear friend who is another huge U2 fan. She heard my name on the radio and called me while I was in the green card appointment with my husband (LOL). Thankfully the appointment got over before the time limit and I was able to call WAAF and claim the tickets!
Part I.
What a feeling coming into work today with these memories so immediate in my mind! There was a definite bounce in my step this morning and I feel like my whole body is smiling. My ears still have a faint ring in them, reminding me something special happened last night.
It all started out meeting at the Museum of Science, pretty uneventful but nerve-wracking nonetheless, as most pre-GA events are. The crowd slowwwly grows, and then tour buses start pulling up. Coordinators appear, and we're given some info about the night, that they'll play 4 (or did he say 5?) songs, they'll be a Q&A and we will write out our question beforehand so the band can read them and pick the ones they want, and that it's gonna be a special night for us. They promise us that there are pre assigned seats, randomly preassigned, so there is no need to worry about where you are in line or rush to the first bus. They insist it doesn't matter. There's not many directions at all, so there are just hundreds of people now milling around in the lobby and outside, waiting. Eventually they have us form a line, it's very very long and about 5 people deep!
It took them a long time to get to us - we estimate about 35-45 minutes until we got to the front of the line. When we did, the woman in charge checked my ID, crossed my name off the list, and told the ticket people "two!" My friend and I stepped up, got a pink "This is not a ticket!" wristband on our right wrist, and then were handed 2 ticketmaster tickets. The tickets say Somerville Theater, the date, "U2 3 Nights" and told us we were in the orchestra!
Soon enough the first 4 buses (there were 8 total) were filled, and the next thing we hear are police sirens, see the flashing lights, and rock and roll stops the traffic as we are given a police escort through the streets of Cambridge and Somerville to the theater. It was the most amazing thing ever, seriously! The McGrath Highway, all the major intersections along the way, everything is blocked off by the cops on motorcycles with flashing lights. We sped through red lights, rumbled down potholed streets as people stood outside their houses or buildings, waving at us and watching the spectacle. My friend reminded me of the ZooTV moment where Bono notes the "four jerks and a police escort" and we laugh. I felt very loved by the band, to be given this sort of treatment; it was a real gift for them to do to this for their fans. And it was so fun! Our bus was cheering, clapping, chanting, maybe even singing a note or two!
When we pull up to Davis Square we see the paparazzi scene it has become. Times like these remind us again that our little beloved Irish band is actually a massive beloved Irish band, known across the globe and best friends to millions upon millions of people. Yet they always manage to write music that seems to have been written only for you, and when they play, it seems to be a celebration done just for you.
We exit the bus, awed at the throngs of people waiting behind the barricades, 5 rows deep. I sincerely thought with all my being that I would be part of that crowd, waiting, watching, hoping. I never imagined I would be on the inside, that I would have won tickets for the show. I send up some prayers of gratitude as we got in line again outside the theater.
News media were swarming around us, interviewing everyone and taking photos of the chaos. The police where everywhere. Some of the ticket winners were talking about how they won and where they came from; around us were people from New York, Rhode Island, and Maine! Quite a contingent was assembled for this show! To our right was the long line of the other lucky people: VIPs. They all had their cell phones out and cameras ready. Not that we were bitter about that! <G> Not that they all weren't wearing suits either. Ha!
Finally they started letting us in. They did a brief bag search/glance, and then patted us down. As soon as we walk through the door we walk past one of the familiar security faces and suddenly, This is Real.
The theater is much much much smaller than I imagined, even though I've been in theaters like this before. We are led to the left side, and can't believe how close our seats are. It's amazing. We sit in awe for several minutes, watching everyone. The theater is pretty empty at this point with people slowly drizzling in from the beer stand. The back row of the theater, standing behind the divide, are all people in black, maybe industry or radio people, or those controlling the video/audio recording. There's a huge, gorgeous camera on one of those extendable arm thingys up in the air, waiting to zoom down and around and film the show. The stage is flanked by four huge speaker systems. Larry's drumkit is all set up, and the back red brick wall is exposed behind the action. In front of it hangs huge black tubes that spell out "U 2."
The host of the night was the ex-deejay from MTV, Slay. He came out on stage and started talking to the crowd to get us riled up and ready for the show. I was freaking out. This was Real! Then, it was happening - those beautiful moments immediately before the show starts, when you know that they are waiting in the wings, only just out of your line of sight, listening to the same words, jumping up and down to the same music, psyching themselves up as we were ourselves - those beautiful, excited, anticipatory moments before they step out on stage, before a line is crossed, before you go from not having seen them in 5 years to being in the same room with them, communing with them, in the language that unites us. The moment that will begin the next hour or so you will spend with the band, the precious moments you get to be in their presence, listening to them make music, experiencing it with them. Those few, rare, precious moments when the stage is still empty and the screaming is building to a crescendo, are my favorite moments on earth.
Then Larry appears and it's over, the waiting and anticipating and surrealness is all over, only to be replaced by ecstasy, another type of surrealness, this one where the image doesn't disappear no matter how hard you rub your eyes. He's smiling and walking slowly to the drum kit, a bit of a change from a regular show, where he definitely seemed more relaxed, like he knew he was playing for a bunch of his friends. Or maybe he was more nervous because of that. You can't be sure because in the next moment a beanie on a body magically appears from the smoke on stage, smiling, his smooth skin shining, guitar in hand like he was born like that. My eyes are still searching the entrance to the stage - there are more, there are more to come. I didn't see Adam come on, since he was on the other side of the stage; one minute it was empty, the next minute he was there and Bono was there, raising his hands, his body bending and accepting the force of the enormous wave of sound that hit him, as if it had been building in the ocean for days, rolling inevitably toward his shore, just waiting for him to crash onto.
And they hadn't even played one note of music yet.