Amusingly even though I'm clocking up close to twenty years working in radio, I can count on one hand the massive stadium shows I've experienced I've been too and most of them were football games! (Although I'll never forget my 2005 AFL Grand Final experience alongside my brother!)
Thankfully a couple of days ago the might that is U2 changed that for me...and in all probability have now set the bar ridiculously high for any future concerts I check out in the next twenty years..
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| My old Huawei phone takes great photos. Up close not so much. |
I've been talking about U2 coming to Australia for a while now and a while back in one of the biggest highlights of my career, even got to interview The Edge while they were playing the tour in Boston (seriously one of the nicest and most down to Earth rock stars on the planet.)
Seeing them live though? Hadn't even considered it.
The closest I've gotten was back in 1993 when I was living in Richmond, U2 played a massive show at the MCG down the road and I managed to hear a lot of it from the comfort of my own bed. That was pretty huge for my thirteen year old self. When I retold the story to The Edge, he laughed.
'I don't know if I should be proud of being that loud or apologize for keeping you up...'
That all changed when the master of music (not official title) here at the station popped by while I was doing the show explaining that he had a couple of review tickets if I was keen, to their very first show here in Australia as part of the Joshua tree tour no less - all I had to do was wrap up work early and fight the traffic to Suncorp Stadium Brisbane and they'd be waiting at the box office.
Sign me up baby!
The plan changed a few times before we jetted off (they always do) and instead of my war wagon making the trip, I suddenly found myself in the drivers seat of a Co-workers Nissan under the agreement of 'I'll drive, you point out where we're supposed to be going' (because I had no idea, limited stadium experience remember?')
Couple that with a multiple personality GPS on her phone ('Turn left. Turn left. Right. Turn right. Left.), her suddenly needing a toilet stop while we were crawling along in traffic and Brisbane streets being more confusing than the opening mail from a Nigerian fraudster and it's no wonder we made it to the stadium with about ten minutes to spare.
Sorry Noel Gallagher, we missed your opening act.
We ran into a few workmates when we arrived, snuck in to a very long line and paid way too much for a drink ($10.70 for a lukewarm bourbon and coke? Who are you kidding here?) then ran to our seats as soon as Larry Mullins started drumming away on Sunday Bloody Sunday.
The seats it turned out were roughly 100 meters away from the action and our ears even closer to the booming speakers, holy moley.
Firing things up from the smaller stage island out front, they ripped into a few classics like New Years Day and Pride (in the name of love) before they ventured back to really work in the space in the greatest concert screen you're ever going to see to get the Joshua Tree album part of the show underway...
(Officially it's the largest hi-res LED video screen ever used in a touring show and boy did it get a workout)
A personal highlight was the rolling video that played while they got into Where The Streets Have No Name - a trip down a remote American Highway that passed people walking alongside it and ended with the camera zooming up in the air like it was a plane starting to gain altitude.
Couple that with plenty of Americana photography and video (the footage of regular people donning helmets in Bullet The Blue Sky was very moving), footage of the band during various songs, swirling patterns and Bono's handy cam work and it meant no matter where you were, there was always something to watch.
In a word? This was phenomenal. The usual hits a pleasure to hear live but the trip through the Joshua Tree album combined with the visuals in sync with everything they did made this completely unforgettable.
My personal highlights?:
-The Edge just doing what he does best and making it look so easy. What a gun.
-The songs that started out with just The Edge on keyboard and Bono's soulful strains. Hauntingly beautiful.
-Bono being...well Bono. Dancing around with mad glee, donning the hat and prancing around like a Southern States preacher out of the 1800s, charisma oozing out of every pore. His energy is just boundless (the way he screamed through Bullet the Blue Sky with the manic black and white footage as he poured his heart out to one of the boom mounted cameras was a prime example).
-Hearing Bullet the Blue Sky played live. I had goosebumps.
-The encore lasted longer than I expected, finished on One and the crowd ate it up, waving their phones in the dark. Amazing.
Anything I didn't like?
-The sound where we were seated (left hand side of Suncorp Stadium, not far at all from the speakers) was a massive force to be reckoned with and when there were moments of frenetic activity (namely Larry going nuts on the drums or The Edge wailing hard on every guitar in his collection) it really pushed that to the limits and a bit got lost in the tidal wave. It took a while for my head to stop ringing but hey, that's a rock concert for you.
-Brisbane roadways (nuff said)
-The price of drinks. $8 for a cup of terrible beer? What?
-The roadworks we hit on the way back home. It's 11 something at night, 64 clicks out of the Gold Coast and we sit there for twenty minutes moving an inch once in a blue moon as four lanes become 3, then 2 and then 1. Just horrendous. Luckily the co driver loaded up some Youtube clips to bluetooth through the car and we went one for one until we go home. (Endicott by Kid Creole and the coconuts got a run as did Rock Me Amedeus by Falco..)
It was a little after midnight when I got home, my stomach doing back flips from not eating since lunch (didn't have time to swing through drive thru and after spending so long in roadworks, I couldn't be arsed on the ride back) so I celebrated with a jam sandwich and about 4 hours sleep. And I was doing okay the day after until I finished work, sat on the couch and didn't want to get up again.
But wow, what a show! Thank you U2!
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