Oh, They Were So Beautiful Last Night

Yes, yes, I know. Where are the Reflections you ask? Well, for the first time in a long time, they are not coming on the lovely Monday. Why? Because something simply awesome happened last night that needs an entire post devoted to it. Do to the fact that this was an incredible weekend beyond last night, the Reflections will most likely make an appearance at some point.

So what was this awesome occasion that I must write about. Well, I traveled down to Philly last night with a certain Mind the Gapper to see a band simply called U2. Yes SM was good enough to get the tickets a while back for this show. Our tickets were general admission tickets for the floor of the Wachovia Center. The way that U2 set up the stage, they had the stage and then an elliptical walkway running out from it into the center of the floor. Because of this, there was some space in the center of the ellipse that could hold some people.

So we walked into the Center and had our tickets scanned and a pink band put on our arms. Then we proceeded to the next scanning area. U2 had chosen to fill the ellipse by randomly selecting tickets from the general admission group. As we were waiting to get scanned, I noticed that all of the tickets were scanning as floor admission tickets. Then it was my turn. I gave the nice lady my ticket and she scanned it. It seemed like it took forever for the computer to read it, but then the logo popped up. IT WAS THE SPECIAL U2 LOGO!!! Since a selected ticket holder could bring himself and a companion in, it was me and SM that would get to enter the ellipse. We then proceeded to a special place where we were given blue bands.

After a quick bathroom stop and a drink from the water fountain we decided to head down to the ellipse. We got there and it was still mostly empty. We were able to get spots next to the elliptical walkway and 15 FEET AWAY from where the Edge would be standing. It was AWESOME!!!. Here is a photo I found that I put a red X on to show where approximately we were. It is not the Wachovia Center, but does show what the looked like. The Edge was actually situated a little farther to the left for our show.Is that not cool?

So we went through the opening act and at 9.00 U2 came on. They were great. I was not let down in the least. They were tight. They were entertaining and solid. Me being a guitar player really enjoyed being that close to the Edge. They rocked through some old stuff as well as the new stuff. At one point, somebody threw an Irish flag up at Bono. When the song they were doing finished, he broke into an old Irish song that gave homage to Ireland. It was very personal and off the cuff. There were many other moments like that throughout the show.

Some highlights were 'Where the Streets Have No Name', 'One', 'All Because of You' and 'With or Without You'. I really like how they redid 'With or Without You'. They really built it up to a big crescendo at the end unlike any other time I had heard before. Props to them for changing it a bit. So after 23 songs and about 2 hours and 15 minutes of playing they walked off the stage one by one and then we got to leave very happy.

Well, it was great and an experience I will never forget. It was worth the price of the ticket and will probably keep me quite happy this whole week. What a blessing.