We (I'll have to tell you all how I subverted my husband...) saw two Elevation shows in seats, then caught the Lexington show in the heart. We had seated tickets for Columbus, but we bought GA tickets when we got there instead. I saw three 3rd leg shows, all GA. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!! Like Sula, I met so many cool people that I immediately considered my friends (including Sula!) (tho there is at least one person I owe an apology to.. sorry, Twins' best friend, whoever you are
) I hope GA is a continuing tradition, though it would be a tiny bit nice if it were a tiny bit easier. 48 hours without real sleep is hard on a girl.
I saw both Popmart shows in Dublin, which were at Lansdowne Road, a soccer stadium that holds, I think, 40,000 people. The "pitch" (field, for the Americans out there) was general admission, but there was a corridor made out of railings about a third of the way down the pitch--i.e. 1/3 of the field was close to the stage, 2/3 of the field was behind the corridor, and the two sections of the field were separated by this corridor. Some observations:
There were four doors to line up at, but we had to line up on the street until about 3, at which time we were marched to the doors. Your door was determined by a color printed on your ticket. No one was searched, patted down, wanded, or even glanced at, really.
Small groups of people kept showing up and getting at the front of our line throughout the day. The Americans were the only ones upset by this, or at least the only ones who said so.
I was right at the b-stage, inside the corridor in other words, and I was absolutely smashed up against everyone around me the whole night. I couldn't even move my arms much of the time. People constantly tried to move to the rail using their elbows as crowbars. I was drenched with a lovely mixture of anonymous sweat and spilled beer at the end of the night.
Security guards were passing cups of water to the crowd whenever anyone asked.
Many people were pissing drunk.
Everyone I could see knew every single word to every single song.
People were being pulled from behind the corridor in a constant stream of bruised, sweaty, fainting people. One girl reportedly cracked a couple of ribs; several reported bruising.
At the end of the show, there was trash EVERYWHERE. The houses around the stadium butt right up against the walls of the stadium--there are no parking lots of any kind. It's in kind of a ritzy neighborhood, and the residents sued to cancel the concert because they were sure U2 fans would trash everything, which, largely, they did. Nothing was broken or burned, it just seemed that there weren't trash cans anywhere. The Irish Supreme court had to approve the concerts (final judgement came on my birthday that year
). Search the Irish Times (http://www.ireland.com) for U2 in the year 1997 for coverage, which was good.
I was the most fabulous experience in my life up to that point, but I'll take mildly pushy, less sweaty, American GA any day.
OK, you non-Americans out there are free to lambaste me now for being anal and afraid of germs. Such is the American way.
Please see
http://www.geocities.com/cindit8/dublin.html if you'd like to see information about our Dublin trip. We met up with about 30 or so other "Wirelings" and had a blast....
...sigh... When's that next tour, again?
--
And through the walls you hear the city groan
Outside is America
Outside is America
