Bono: eloquant, funny, heartfelt speech tonmight in NYC
[SIZE =1](mods you can merge this if u want. but if possible make sure that the post- phrase that i'm actually talking about him speaking tonit e is there--so people know. thanx)[/SIZE]
I'm back!
hey, no fair kelly & Queen Bee~~ putting photos in before I could get back uptown to the net
[nice photos! :applause:]
jeeezz... I thot I might have missed him!
I left a little late [from home]. Though it's only about a 20 min ride by subway from my stop in Brooklyn to the {on the line I was on} local first stop in Lower Manhattan {where Battery Park is}~~ it #ain't# when you screw up and then have consruction changes that change your usual line to express only going back into Brooklyn.
Thus I was too disracted with doing something {jewelry work
not Bono fantasies, so I missed the change to the local subway train in Brooklyn, thus sending me over-shooting to the next express stop { a mile away}. Trying to double back by local while forgetting about the construction,
I ended up going right back over the Manhattan Bridge to Brookyn from whence I'd just gone over 20 mins earlier. arg!
SO I got there in time for macy Gray --good singing and great funk & touch of hip-hop sound to the band. Luckily kept me moving and the restof the audience--thehour plus before sunset brought the usual windyness but off the Hudson [river] Lower BaY -making it colder.
I was on the parks perimeter,about slightly back of parallel to the stage [a block away]
I was finally able to ask some peopole leaving the show qho'd been on,but they said she was. I didn't want to ask about the B-man and they didn't mention him either.
>>>[putting these in before i get knoked out by this site willl finish in a a few mins via editing.]<<<
anyway there was this comic in between who i din't like [his main material].Then Stevie Winwood came on. NOwi wadsreallystarting to feelcolder,soI retreated a block plus away to the temporary housing of the SOuth Ferry stop {another last southern stopppin Manhattan}
I put on a sweater ,finding that the sound bounced backwards to this area.I could here from there. I almost gave up and wondered what happened to the first band [ but since he mentioned them..the black-eyed peas- maybe they were first}.
But I decided maybe they'dwould have eanted himtogo first --keephim for in between acts..
And that's what happened.I heard Winwood finish ,walked back upyo where I was. And they announced Chris Tucker [comedian] and he started talking and menmtioned that Bono would be out in a few mins. >yes!<
SO he finally gets on.....from my POV where i saw the Jumbotron that was on the right side oft he stage [perfomers'POV] and I could see him{in the distance} on the stage through just the right angle of between back/side of stage rigging and foward part. His jacket was {under the stage lights the color of the leather lapels you can seein QB's photos. and the light shirt.
AH,what a joy.... I've never actually heard him {vs transcript of one, stage patter, or latenight show talk} give a speech before in person {you folks in going to philly will be in for a treat!,i think}
He was introduced by Robert Dinero. He started out with ' I'm a rock star'. How the Tribeca Film festival was one of the best of the defient events down here in Lower mAQNHATTEN{after 9-11}.
then he chuckled and said he felt 'naked' up there on the stage with out the band.The he
amended himself to say to the FCC --I **SAID** I "feel naked",not that I am[/I].Otherwise tomorrow the NY Post [neo-conservitive rag] will have the headline " Bono naked in Battery Park!".
he spoke of nyc how he loved America and how NYC was his favorite city... getting such a charge out of walking the streets of the city "where Langston Hughes walked,where Bobby Kennedy walked "{ i sighed mightly& winced,too}. How his people arrived there {a litleaways across the bay] at Ellis Island.
He went into how he'd read the Constitution & Declaration of Independence and how America was an idea,morethan any othercountry. "There are great ideas that come out from my country....Ireland...but Americais an idea itself.
"I 'm a great fan ofAmerica. But the kind fan who pushes you,who pints things out that haven't happaned yet, and should act acccording to your Idea.
The kind of fan who reads ALLthe liner notes& credits. Who follows us into themen'sroomwanting to know just *What Kind* of Echo _______machine The Edge is using for....."
That youout there in America...have the power youonlyneed the willto help Africa's problem with drugs so badly needed for HIV/Aids. And to help in getting rid ofpovertythere.Notlike the poverty here [USA] but the kindof stupid poverty that lets youingest diebecause of lack of ________."
"youcan be the generation to change this. We won't solveevery thing in Africa,there'scorruption etc. But we can make agreatr difference. Once here in America a woman finaly _____ ____{i just forgot},a blackman could finally run forPresident.
Nowlet's take the next stepin equality...because if we really thought t the people of aFRICA
were our equals we then couldn't take seeing so many die, as they are now.
"Equality {or some other word he used}
shouldn't be a matter of ##where## you are born" , it just should be.
oh man he had me teary-eyed by that point [ and I've been a semi-activist for decades]..
You are the generation that really can make this next step foward
phew.....even though I lost 4 hoursof net time tonight to peruse Interference...I'm glad I gave it upi norder to hear him at such length in person-- in this particular way.
ANd glad to report it to you.
it could have started by 1PM.
, you're going to speak to a NYC concert crowd tonite about Africa..? .hey, you're on your own!
}
Sounds great!
