all you need is love (and a rocket ship)

Oh, why is it Monday? Why can't I stay in my happy little U2 induced state of euphoria for the next several years? Come into my bubble, please, and stay awhile. It's nice here, and the music is rocking. Saturday, Heidi, Jane & I set off in the early afternoon - we hit MSI, but weird timing and strange museum hours (closing at 4:00? On a weekend? Really?) kept us from seeing Harry Potter, but we did see the Fairy Castle and the U505 submarine, in its new, cool permanent home, and that was awesome (although not at all yellow, as I'd been led to believe. And if you are at home, you should have left your code book on the plane!) and nostalgic. More trippin' down memory lane was in store, for Heidi & Jane as we cruised the U of C campus looking for a place to eat. We picked Leona's and had a lovely dinner and had some trivia while we waited.

And then - it was time. Can I tell you how long I've been waiting for this concert?? I don't think there is any other artist on this planet that I will happily drop everything for and spend 45 bucks on parking for, either. The mood in the Soldier Field parking lot was festive - people were tailgating, drinking beers, making "sassage" and all around us, U2 was blasting out of car speakers. Ah, yes, we found the right place! We had to park "where Jesus left his sandals" as someone said to me once. In this case, that meant way the hell far away from the stadium almost at McCormick Place. Lucky for me, I wore comfy shoes...

Only U2 could sell out their tickets to a stadium show within half an hour of when they went on sale. And only U2 would shlep this crazy-ass stage around the world with them.

Funky, right? Like a giant space alien, ready to attack. Since I had my finger on the ticket-buying button for this show for about half an hour prior to when they went on sale, I scored us seats in section 130. Naturally, never having been to Soldier Field before, I had no idea where these were, I was so relieved that I'd actually procured tickets, I just about wept with joy. They ended up being in the end zone (end opposite the one shown in the picture up there).

Strangely, the entire row in front of us stayed pretty much empty the whole time. Since there were about 17 seats there, we wondered what had happened. My guess was an unsuccessful scalper or ticket website bought the whole block and was unable to sell them at their ridiculous double or triple face value cost. Good news for us, though, since we didn't have anyone in front of us (except for one dude who came down and parked it. We know it wasn't his seat because he asked if anyone was sitting there. Our theory was that he was a refugee from the no-man's-land known as secion 447 - way the hell up in outer space - aka the rim of the stadium's new and unattractive "space ship" addition. The climb up to the top of that thing is practically vertical. If you look above my head in the pic above, you'll see what I mean. How scary is that section way up at the top? It's just sort of hanging off the side of the building, attached to a lot of nothing. This is why I never, ever, ever, ever go for the cheap seats. Ever.
Snow Patrol was our opening act - and I think they were the best band we've seen open for U2. I only know one song of theirs, "Chasing Cars" but the other songs were good too. Their frontman endeared himself to the crowd by saying "What's up, Chicago?" a lot and also by wearing a blue t-shirt with a big orange C on it (a Bears shirt. By the way they played last night, though, they deserve no cool band affiliation). He asked us to help him fulfill a lifelong dream of his by singing along with one of his songs ("So sing one we know, then," someone behind me muttered.) He gave us a line to sing we sang it. It must be cool to be in a ginormous stadium and have the crowd sing along with you.
The crowd gave them nice reception - I think it must kind of suck to be the opener for a group like U2, knowing that the crowd is really only humoring you while waiting for the main attraction. Still, the applause was rather polite and the crowd seemingly subdued. I knew though that we'd all perk up once U2 hit the stage... But we had to wait... and so do you, because I gotta go and get some work done!