Running to Stand Still

Several people have asked me for a concert report. While Rolling Stone did a great job with their review, I wanted to tell you about my Mother's Day.

My concert buddy Allison and I flew to Seattle on Saturday May 13th, and we stayed with my dear friend Jason.

Airplane Selfie!

I love the window seat. 

Me & Jason on his roof. Words cannot tell you how amazing this man is.

We stayed at Jason's lovely home on Saturday night, and we got up early on Sunday for a Mother's Day brunch and ate lots of pastries.

Allison & I with the troll (and a random dude playing the ukelele)

Allison, Justin & Jason outside the "Silence-Heart-Nest" hippie restaurant

A delightful pain-au-chocolat

I had received an email from Century Link field a few days before I left, in which they told me they do not allow regular purses. They have to be clear. I debated on just stuffing my pockets, but luckily Jason had some leftover plastic bags from buying curtains. So I did a little arts-and-crafts project and made myself this super-classy crossbody bag. I literally braided some twine to make a strap and just kept everything else in the bag.

Amazing, right?! (Preview of young Barack on the right)

After my little project, we thought about going to Pike Place, but got caught in traffic and couldn't find anywhere to park. So we just went to Century Link,

As close as we got

After having paid $50 to park (gah!!!), we tried to find the General Admission (GA) line around 2pm. It was already around the building, so I'm glad we got there when we did. Allison had to go find a restroom, so I just started chatting with the guy in line in front of me. I noticed he was wearing a Joshua Tree hat, which he could only have gotten at the opening night of the tour in Vancouver. We started talking, and he has been to 50 concerts over the last 30 years (his first U2 show being during the original Joshua Tree tour). 

Simon (a.k.a., @BadAcrobat, a.k.a. Dad)

As we kept talking, the people around us started listening and joining in on the conversation, and we all realized that we needed to stick with Simon. He knew exactly where to stand and what he was doing, despite never having been to this venue. So we all started talking to each other and getting to know each other a little, sharing our cheesy popcorn and chatting. And I kinda started calling Simon Dad, because he kept looking back to make sure we were all with him. Simon is originally British, but lives in Alaska. The couple ahead of us were a French girl (Lisa) and her latino boyfriend; I don't remember his name, but he looked exactly like a young Barack Obama. Seriously. The couple behind us were Chaveli and Bryan, who were from the Philippines. How cool is it that people from all over the world met each other at a concert and became fast friends?! I love it. 

When the line started moving, we had to make our way into a Disneyland-type line, when we found out that it was Chaveli's birthday!

Moo.

At this point, I got to skip out of the line to use the restroom for a minute. It was pretty nice to wash my cheesy fingers, and my little group remembered me so I could get back in line.

We finally made our way onto the field around 5:45pm, and I decided I needed a group picture. I have no idea who the guy on the left is, but whatever.

L-R: Some random dude, Young Barack, Lisa, Simon, Bryan, Chaveli, Me & Allison

I also had to sneak a better picture of Barack.

It was throwing me off a little bit.

Lisa and Young Barack

So we waited for another hour or so, until Mumford & Sons came out onto the stage. they stayed on the main stage, so I was a little doubtful as to our positioning, and a little sad I didn't get a better view. But they still sounded fantastic.

This is what the stage looked like in the light. It was probably 30-40 feet tall,
judging by the very small, very talented Brits on stage.

 I was a little disappointed that the people around me weren't as excited as I was for Mumford & Sons; I'm also sad they didn't play more than they did. But I'm a total fangirl, and I know that people usually don't go to concerts fo the opening act. Even so--WHAT AN OPENING ACT. Here's their setlist:

Snake Eyes

Little Lion Man

Below My Feet

Lover of the Light

Tompkins Square Park

Believe

The Wolf

They played for about 45 minutes, and I knew I wasn't going to make it until the end of the concert, so I made my way out of the pit and up to the restroom. It wasn't bad going out, but coming back in was another story. I picked up some Fish & Chips (mediocre) and a beer (I bought a beer!) and trying to get back into our fabulous spot right by the stage with food in hand was, uh, not pretty. I have a whole diatribe on concert ettiquette, and I knew I was that annoying person, but I really was there earlier! I kept apoligizing and admitting what an a**hole I was for trying to get in front of people. But I did what I had to do, and I had to get back to my friends! 

I finally made it, and delivered the beer to Simon as a thank you for getting us to where he did. (Chaveli asked him how he got a beer, and he said that it magically appeared over his shoulder!). I'm not sure if buying a beer on a Sunday is considered a good deed, but I'll leave that up to you to judge. I probably should have bought Bryan a beer, considering that he bought me a lemonade earlier, but I barely made it through the crowd with one!

Anyway, after Mumford & Sons was done, we had to wait for another hour or so for the sun to set. And when the boys walked out onto that stage, literally 15 feet in front of me, I was jumping up and down! Simon really came through for us.

The Edge is so freaking adorable.

Seriously?! How amazing is this lineup?!

Bono . . . still sounding fantastic

Adam . . . who only looks better and better with age

I wish I had a better camera, but my curtain-bag crossbody would only hold so much. And I try to not take too many pictures, because I want to BE THERE and enjoy it. But the views were so incredible I had to take a ton! Plus, Allison's phone had died, so I had to get pictures for her too.

They stayed on the B-stage (right in front of us) for a few songs:

Sunday Bloody Sunday

New Year's Day

A Sort of Homecoming

Bad

Pride (In The Name of Love)

 Then the screen turned on and they made their way back to the main stage to play though the entire Joshua Tree album (in order):

Where the Streets Have No Name

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

With or Without You

Bullet the Blue Sky

Running to Stand Still

Red Hill Mining Town

In God's Country

Trip Through Your Wires

One Tree Hill

Exit

Mothers of the Disappeared

Each song was accompanied by an original mini-film (with a very American flair) on the giant screen. Some were really cool; some were a little weird, like the one of Edge's wife, Miss Mysterious Ways herself,  wearing a stars-and-stripes bikini top and jeans while throwing a lasso . . . but the screen was incredible. Apparently it's 8K (top-of-the-line TVs these days are 4K, so I'm just saying). I can't remember which images went with which songs, but I'll do my best.

Where the Streets have No Name

In God's Country

Red Hill Mining Town, featuring a Salvation Army brass band

This shows you the scale of the screen

I think this was Trip Through Your Wires 

One Tree Hill

Not sure which song, but a cool visual of the screen

On Mothers of the Disappeared, they had Eddie Vedder and Mumford & Sons come out to join them. Now that's a supergroup I could get behind! (Who am I kidding? I love supergroups.)

That was the end of the main set, but (of course) they came back for an encore. They played a few more songs on the main stage, accompanied again by amazing (if political) videos:

Beautiful Day

Elevation

Ultraviolet (Light My Way)

One

Miss Sarajevo

I love how Ultraviolet became a girl-power moment, changing HIStory into HERstory, and they showed faces of amazing women, like Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Patti Smith, Angela Merkel, and Lena Dunham. (I'm sorry--I can't even type that with a straight face, but she was one of the chosen few).

Bono has always been political, so you have to expect that at a U2 concert. What I did not expect was to be close enough to see the whites of his eyes. They came back out to the B-stage to finish out the show.

 They played a new song (the only song less than 15 years old) from the upcoming "Songs of Experience" album, called The Little Things That Give You Away. I really liked it, and apparently that's where they ended the show in Vancouver. But they gave us one more to send us out on a serious high: I Will Follow.

(Side note: Simon posted in the atU2 forum on Twitter after the Vancouver show that they should end the concert with I Will Follow. Coincidence? Maybe. But he was unbelievably stoked about it!)

Here's my favorite picture of the night:

Bono and Adam stuck in a moment, with the Edge (larger than life) looking on

I love this picture, because it really encapsulates what I love about this band. They are brothers. They know how lucky they are to make so much money doing what they love. They use their celebrity for good causes. They have fun and live every day to the fullest. These guys are well into their fifties, and have literally been doing this exact same thing since they were teenagers in the 70's, still going strong after 40+ years. 

Are they the greatest band in the world? Probably not. Are they the most amazing musicians? Not really. But I adore them. Their lyrics mean something and the music is heartwrenching, and they just figured it all out together, becoming unbelievably successful through hard work and perserverance. It's so cool to see. And their music speaks to people all over the world--even to just a few people who would have otherwise never met. 

*sigh*

That's about it. We drove Simon back to the bay to catch the Bainbridge Ferry, and went back to Jason's for the night. We slept for a few hours, then got up early to catch our flight home (and there were plenty of people in the airport, and even on the parking shuttle at SLC also wearing their JT30 gear). It was an amazing couple of days, and I'll never forget it. Some say I'm crazy, but this was definitely money and time well spent. I hope you have something you are as passionate about, and that it brings you as much joy as this did for me.