U2 Concert Review

You may have heard that U2 was in town this weekend. They were playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena — the 360° Tour (aka outdoor arenas).

Back when I was gainfully employed as a contributing member of society, I bought tickets the second they went on sale. Knowing that U2’s tickets usually sell out, and knowing the capacity of the Rose Bowl (92,000 seats), I figured it might be a good idea to accompany the ticket purchase with getting a room. Sometimes my genius ideas surprise even me. Getting a room is always a genius idea.

First off, let’s cover the bad — the idiots. Of course, there’s always the idiots in the world… like the people next to us in the parking area who were blaring non-U2 music so loudly that their stereo was distorted. *eye roll* Instead of hanging near their distorted world, I went up and sat on a grassy knoll under a tree and read my newspaper, while listening to Bono and Edge perform their sound checks. Far more enjoyable than distorted “canned” music. Or how about the group of people who walked by while Tony was sleeping before the concert in the back of the car (since he went to work this morning at 4:30 AM) and they saw him sleeping and YELLED at him about how he’d missed the great concert, thinking he’d wake up and be bummed. They really thought they were so funny and clever. I told them they were rude and was ready to take them on! Don’t mess with my husband! Then we had the dudes who were sitting next to us in the arena who were smoking cigars (I’m not a fan) and were surprised when the gal in front of them mentioned that some people might not enjoy the smell. I think I’m turning into a crotchety old lady!

Tony’s the huge U2 fan. Me, well, I know their music and unless you’ve had your head in a cave for over 20 years, you have too. The show was great — they set out to please their audience, and did they ever. They put everything they had into their show as musicians and kicked butt doing it. They were broadcast live on YouTube, which was pretty cool. (You can see the re-broadcast of it here: Link) They were very professional and started their show on time (with a disapproving nod toward Mariah Carey’s disastrous display of unprofessionalism at her concert in Anaheim).

The weekend went off like a well-synchronized assembly line. When we drove up there Saturday, we got every light green between our house to the freeway (not even kidding), had a leisurely dinner at Olive Garden (leftovers for concert day), spontaneously walking to the theater and learning the next showing of the movie we wanted to see started in 10 minutes. Sunday, we showed up with our general parking pass and were directed into a lot not too far from the gate we needed to enter. Better than that, we were directed to park under a tree! A great big shade tree!

I even had my very own MacGuyer moment! During the concert, a dude coming back to his seat stepped on the front of my flip-flop and the string between my toes broke! Imagining a flippy-floppy walk back to our car at midnight, I desperately looked around for ideas. I spotted a long string tied to a light cable. It wasn’t doing anything as far as I could tell, so I untied it, looped it through the plastic doo-dad, tied it over the “V” on the top of my shoe. The perfect temporary fix.

So I guess what I’m really admitting is, I stole a string from the Rose Bowl arena. When you’re watching the New Year’s football game, you can remember that and think of me. Here you thought you were gonna read a concert review…

Of course, we took pictures: Click to See