With or Without U2

On Saturday November 19 of 2005, one of my biggest dreams was about to come true. It was about 12:00 in the afternoon and we had just taken our spots in line outside of the Phillips Arena in downtown Atlanta Georgia. After weeks of scavenging on internet fansites and classified ads, I finally scored 2 general admission floor tickets to see my favorite band, U2, come and play Atlanta on the third leg of their "Vertigo" world tour.
My dream started much earlier during a very formative summer vacation between my eighth and ninth grade years in high school. That's when I was introduced to some of the music that would see me through as I established my own identity and would help me to reminisce about those times in the years that would follow. I remember that particular summer very well because that was the time that my parents began to loosen the reigns as I was feeling out my independence and trying to figure out who exactly Matthew John Griffin was. I owe a lot to my youth leader at that time because he helped me to carve out an identity for myself and helped to foster a relationship with friends that I remain close with even today.
I also remember that he had enlisted the help of a summer youth intern who would take small groups of us out on weekend getaways to the mountians near Brevard North Carolina, which is still one of my favorite places in my known world. We looked up to him as the arch-typical cool dude. Had three things going for him that we hoped to have going for us someday- He was in college, he had a pretty girl friend, and he had a car. He'd used to call up three or four of us boys, our moms would drop us off at the church, and as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, he'd reach under his seat and pull out the most voluminous CD collection I may have ever seen, to date.
I can remember him always slipping one particular disk into his CD player as he pulled out a little rusty old harmonica from the ash try beside him. I remember he'd skip though about 6 or 7 tracks on the CD until a song popped up that started with a driving bass drum beat and led into the wailing of a harmonica, with which he would play along with, albeit in a different key. That song was "Trip Through Your Wires" on the Joshua tree album by U2. He'd always go on and on about what a great band U2 was and what a great show they put on. We'd spin that and other essential U2 albums over and over the whole way though the mountains.
I can still smell the vibrant scent of freedom in the lush summer woodlands of western North Carolina when I hear the U2 favorite, "Where the Streets Have No Names". I must have gone out and bought that album shortly after that summer ended and I still call the Joshua Tree my favorite album. In the years following that summer, U2 toured the area two more times with the "Pop" tour, which my parents forbade me from attending, and the "Elevation" tour, which unfortunately made its rounds while I was in college trying to make ten dollar bills stretch out for two weeks at a time.
In late 2004, U2 finally anounced the dates for its next tour, entitled "Vertigo". Being unencumbered by parental directives, and somewhat more financially stable, I was determined to get tickets. The online scalping industry snapped up most of the tickets before you could blink but I was determined that I could find the tickets I wanted with enough dilligence. Sure enough, I found my tickets, and there we were in Atlanta, about to see the show.
Most of my readers already know the story of our trip to Atlanta to see U2. I believe Olivia wrote about the experience in a previous blog. In summary, we waited in line all day outside if the Phillips Arena, only to be told when we finally got to the front door that we had tickets for the previous night's show. We were sent to the other side of the arena where we waited in line at the box office for another 3 hours, hoping in vain for one more chance to get a pair of tickets there happened to be a last minute ticket drop. I have to say that as heartbroken as we were, it was a positive experience for me. If nothing else, it happened to be a "Beautiful Day" outside that day and I enjoyed spending good quality time with my wife. We got to meet some really cool individuals and I had a thoroughly good time waiting in line with all those other people with whom I had something in common.
Needless to say, it was a long somber ride home that evening. All I remember saying was "Olivia, we are going to see U2 before the end of this tour." The good news was that U2 was scheduled to play in Charlotte on December 12. The bad news was that it took me 6 months of solid searching to find the tickets that I did for Atlanta, and we now had less than one month to find tickets for the Charlotte show. One week before the show, I found a pair of tickets way up in the upper stratosphere of the Charlotte arena. Dejected, but undetered, I purchased these tickets and continued my search for a pair of General Admission tickets that would give us the chance to be on the front row. I was about to call off my search when one ad caught my eye: "2 General Admission tickets, face value, Seeking buyer in Greenville SC". Olivia can attest that I almost knocked the ceiling out and went right throught the roof. We got the tickets and we were on our way to Charlotte!
So, with the dream resumed, there we were again, outside of a downtown arena, waiting to see my favorite band, U2. The only difference was that instead of a "Beautiful Day", it became a "Dirty Day", with temperatures hovering around 45 degrees and clouds rolling in. By the time night had fallen, a driving rain had overtaken us. I must say that our trials definately enhanced the experience.
The doors ahead of us finally opened at around 5:30 and the line started inching forward. My heart was rushing as we approached the ticket scanner. Although we had thoroughly checked our tickets this time, there was an air of anxious uncertainty that made my whole body tense as noise of the scanner beeping grew more audible as the line drew closer. When he finally had my ticket in his hand as he scanned it, the world stopped....beep beep beep...."Go ahead"....WHEW!!! We made it in! Olivia and I were in a state of absolute elation just to have made it past the threshhold of the door to the Charlotte Arena! As we made our way to into the arena, I remember just wanting to stand there and take it all in but we literally had to rush into the arena, down stairs, and across the arena floor in order to secure an optimal viewing location- which we did.
We situated ourselves right up against the small security gate that divides the stage from the crowd. We were slightly to the left of center stage. The stage set up was unique. On one end of the arena sits U2's main stage. A large eliptical "track" runs around the stage and encircles about 1/3 of the arena. The band members are known to spend alot of time performing and sprinting around the whole track so that they can be as close to as many of the fans as they can be. Once in the arena, we had to stay put, so as not to risk loosing our prime viewing location. We had to wait for another 2 hours before the opening band was due to start. The people around us were cool. There was a very large man beside me who had seen U2 in Ireland, the group beside us were all from greenville, and the lady's behind us were very drunk and insisting that they belonged in front of us (they fought for our coveted positions all night and recieved more that a few harsh elbow nudges in the side for their efforts).
The opening band was called Institute. I'll just say that U2 did not have a terribly hard act to follow. Institute was led by Gavin Rosdale, the former lead singer of the popular mid-90's rock group, "Bush". They didn't do a bad job and it was cool to see Gavin, as he really is a good performer, but I wasn't terribly inspired. Once they finished up, we waited for another hour while U2's stage crew set everthing up. I thought it was particularly interesting to watch the technicians tune the guitars. As the familiar house music was playing on the PA, a song began to play that I was not familiar with. This song was called "Wake Up" by the band "Arcade Fire". When this song began to play over the PA, the crowd erupted. I found out that this is the song played just before U2 comes on stage.

As the song drew to a close, the lights went dim, and a voice came over the PA, announceing "everyone........everyone...........
EVERYONE!!!................EVERYONE!!!" I remember that. At that point, out of the shadows on the main stage, I saw the sillouettes of Adam Clayton on bass, Larry Mullen on the drum kit, and of course, Edge on lead guitar. Edge was picking out a nebulous tune on his guitar that he eventually molded into the introduction to the song "City of Blinding Lights" as Bono appeared directly in front of us! The light show began as confetti rained down on the crowd.
I could go on and wax eloquent for long time and talk about each song, and every emotion, but I'll suffice it to say that it exceeded my highest expectations in every way. They ended the show with the song "40", which is derived from Psalm 40 in the bible: "You lifted me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay. You set my feet upon a rock and made my foot steps firm."

It was an absolutely inspiring show, I bought a T-shirt for myself and Olivia and we drove on back to greenville after enjoying a wonderful meal at the Waffle House in Gastonia. and I can't wait for them to release their next album, as I already have my bells on for the next show. Thank you for spending your hard earned time reading this post. I really don't expect that many people have made it this far, but it would have been hard for me to do justice to all of my exitement about this event with anything much shorter.
If you have made it this far, I really appreciate your time. I wanted to give this piece of photojournalism as detailed an account as I could because its so easy to simply say, "Oh the U2 show? It was great!". Even though we really mean it when we say we had a great time, this was a great way for me to flesh those words out and express all the things I wanted to, so that if you really care, you can take the time to find out just how "great" it was!

Thanks!
Matt.