I’d Have Gone For It

I am completely and totally exhausted today. My Honey and I went to see U2 in concert last night and consequently, due to the drive and the ludicrous traffic, my head didn’t hit the pillow until 2:45 in the morning and then up at 6:30 to get us all ready for work and school.  My Honey sent me to work with a vitamin.

“Here, this will help,” he said.

“Why? Is there six hours of sleep in there, cause zinc I can do without.”

It was worth all the frustrations, however.  And let me tell you, the frustrations were monumental.  We were in the car for 11 hours for a 2 1/2 hour concert.  It wasn’t that we had to go that far, it’s just that the traffic was comically absurd – only we weren’t really laughing as much as swearing.

But the show was everything you could want in an arena concert: the band, the lighting, the stage, the crowd – all of it magnificent.  My Honey and I are very long time U2 fans.  I saw them on the Joshua Tree Tour in 1987.  They say, or at least Chris Rock says, that the music of high school becomes like the soundtrack of your life.  It is very true – at least with me and that album.  It’s a real toss up whether I’d want that one or Springsteen’s Born to Run if I was stuck on a desert island with only one album to keep me company.

Bono was a God last night.  The crowd just ate him up.  He is really pulling off 49 years with aplomb.  He has a tendency to pull people (especially pretty young women) up on stage.  I remember seeing a DVD of them in concert, Boston I think it was, where he pulled up a pretty young woman and sang With or Without You to her.  He laid her down on the stage and spooned up next to her and sang that incredible song while cuddling her.  The poor thing just laid there sobbing.  I’m sure she’ll never be the same after that.  She pretty much doomed as no other man will ever compare.  Last night was no exception, although this time is was three pretty blond sisters, all in their early twenties.  He sang a lovely song from their new album and slow danced with each in turn.  Afterwards, he sat them down on the drum riser and laid across all three laps.   And can you believe that not one of those girls even gave him a kiss?  Not a little pat on the tushie.  Nothing. 

I watched through my binoculars and was so frustrated.  After all, at least 1/2 of that crowd was living vicariously through those girls, and they didn’t even take the shot.  Seriously, how often are you going to come up with this opportunity?  It was agony.  Someone said to me when I was relating the story that maybe they were too nervous.  I say PSHAW to that.  Even at 16 I would have gone for the kiss.  You’re talking to the girl that crashed a private dinner Congressman Morris Udall held just for the opportunity to meet Robert Redford – believe me, if given the golden opportunity to waltz with Bono there definitely would have been a kiss and, it’d be a pretty good bet  I’d manage a pat on the tushie as well.

Later, Bono pulled up a little girl on stage.  She was maybe 10 and he held her hand and sang to her while they walked the entire circle of the huge stage.  At the end, he gave her his famous sunglasses and sent her back to her parents.  A hundred bucks says her mother slept with those under her pillow last night.

My Honey, the musician and more specifically, bass player, said on the ride up that he wished Adam Clayton would quit the band so that he could join up and play with them.

“Yeah, not much of a chance of that since they’ve been harmoniously together since 1978.” I hated to crush his hopes, but really, I don’t think he’s got a shot.

“It could happen,” he argued.  “I could join the band and go on tour with them, and then Bono would have to get a restraining order against my wife, and then I’d have to quit, so I guess it’s best that they just stay together.”

It’s nice that he knows me so well, isn’t it?