Let Me In The Sound

Last night, I was quite lucky enough to attend a U2 concert at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Simply put, it was the most amazing visual and musical production I've ever seen. Now I've been listening to U2 since I was born, I can owe my unwavering dedication to them to my mother (who is a bigger fan than even I am). And I know that U2 can sometimes arouse strong feelings in a lot of people—they seem to be a love-them-or-hate-them band, and I know that Bono just plain irks some folks. So before I launch into a lengthy multimedia recounting of last night, I'll include a

Disclaimer! What follows are the mad ramblings of dedicated fan who participated in a once-in-a-lifetime concert experience whose awesomeness you may or may not appreciate. I will in all likelihood geek out at least a little bit in the following paragraphs. So read at your own discretion. Also U2 rules all.

So I get to Giants Stadium only three hours before Muse opens the show. I was able to get my hands on a General Admission/Field ticket—and by "get my hands on" I mean "empty my bank account for"—so it was very important that I secure a good spot on the field.

Here we are in "line" waiting to take to the field.

After a lengthy wait (which I passed with some light reading) we were admitted to the field. One of the most indescribably giddy moments I've had was stepping onto the field and seeing this:


This is the Spaceship (also called The Claw).

Okay, a little background. When U2 was wrapping up their last tour a few years ago, their longtime production manager pitched an altogether silly idea to the band. Something along the lines of "lets do an open-air concert tour in the round, where the band is visible from every side." How could this be done? The Spaceship was the answer.

It's hard to tell in the crummy picture from my phone, but this thing is huge. Four enormous legs support the central structure, from which is suspended the cylindrical screen and sound system (I counted over 650 speakers hanging from the thing). The circular stage is underneath, creating a clear line of sight to each of the tens of thousands of attendees. This is, after all, the aptly named 360 Tour.

Looking out at one of the legs from my spot by the stage. People are just arriving.

Looking up through the screen, out of the top of the Spaceship the sun is still out. A couple of hours of waiting still...


This is a picture from the band website. Here is the U2 stage crew setting up the set in Chicago. It takes four days to assemble, and two to take apart. The stage structure weighs 250 tons.

And of course, when you're the "biggest band in the world," why have one Claw when you can have three. Yep, the band had three identical $30 million stages fabricated, which will each travel around the world "leapfrogging" each other so that one stage can be set up while the band plays on another while a third is disassembled simultaneously.

Okay, now about the show.

As I said before, Muse opened the evening. They played a really great, really loud set. I'm not that familiar with their music, other than that one song I remember James playing on Guitar Hero. I did recognize a couple of singles from the radio that they played (Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, and the aforementioned Knights of Cydonia). It was a good introduction to their music, I would enjoy seeing them again. I would also enjoy wearing frontman Matthew Bellamy's silver Keds.

And then U2.

I have seen them live once before, on their last tour. And as incredible as that concert was, it just doesn't compare to last night. The sheer scale and spectacle wasn't anything I can describe. Also, when I saw them on the Vertigo Tour in Dallas, at the American Airlines Center, I was seated in the stands behind the General Admission crowd. Having now experienced U2 from the field, I can say with certainty that this is the only way to see this band.

I was actually inside of U2's traditional ellipse or pit—the inner crowd, next to the stage, inside of the catwalk that separated us from the rest of the audience. I was probably 4o or 50 feet from the band onstage. Only seven-ish layers of people between me and the front. And this is the only place to be.

Disclaimer! As much as I enjoyed myself, I must admit that I was not nearly as hardcore as the middle aged woman in front of me. This lady knew how to rock. Like whoa.

Here's the set list. A lot of stuff off of the newest CD, No Line on the Horizon, which I'm less familiar with. It was all really good.

Breathe
Get on Your Boots
Mysterious Ways
Beautiful Day
No Line on the Horizon
Magnificent
Elevation
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Unknown Caller
Until The End Of The World
Stay
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy - Remix
Sunday Bloody Sunday
MLK
Walk On
One
Where The Streets Have No Name
Ultraviolet
With or Without You
Moment of Surrender

At the end of the night, Bono informed us that the crowd had broken all attendance records at Giants Stadium, with 84,472 fans. The previous record-holder for the venue was Pope John Paul II, when he visited the Tri-State Area in 1995. The record will in all probability remain indefinitely, as this is the last season before the Giants move to their new venue.

Here are a few cell phone pictures, unfortunately they're pretty lame—my phone camera didn't handle the darkness very well.

Looking behind me at the crowd, waiting for the show to start.

Bono, Larry Mullen, Jr., and Adam Clayton

The one. The only. The Edge.

When the moving walkway between the inner stage and outer catwalk swung around and stopped practically above me, I got very very close to Bono.


During Unforgettable Fire, without any warning, the massive cylindrical 360 screen began to unfold. Crazy. I think at this point just about every flashbulb in the stadium was going off.


Here's the screen again, fully extended. Speechless.


This is the luckiest kid in the world. During City of Blinding Lights (one of my personal favorites), Bono pulled this kid up out of the crowd onto the moving walkway. They ran a lap around the outer catwalk together to the cheers of 80,000 people. Then the kid got to wear Bono's sunglasses.


Bono and Larry Mullen, Jr. under the expanded screen for Vertigo.


For Sunday Bloody Sunday, the recollapsed screen showed images of the recent violence in the Iran Election protests, and the Claw went green in support of the Reform Movement.


The Edge, and the huge suspended spire hanging from the Spaceship.


All four guys.


Here they are again, taking their final bows before leaving the stage.

This video was taken by someone in the audience during Where the Streets Have No Name (they played into the song from Amazing Grace). For me, this was the peak of the entire night. I just can't describe what it was like, as the music built into the first verse, when everybody in the pit just started jumping up and down like crazy, 80,000 people singing along. Whew.

Here are some more videos I found on YouTube, uploaded from last night:

Video - Breathe (this was the opening song, watch as all the lights go out and the band enters the arena)

Video - Beautiful Day

Video - Unforgettable Fire (you can watch as the screen descends)

Also, check out this video from the U2 website, which shows the production crew talking about designing, constructing, and assembling the stage.

Overall, I can't ask more from a band and from a concert. I'm so glad to have grown up with this music (thanks, Mom!). What a great night, and who knows, maybe I'll catch them again in another five years?

I love U2 because they make optimistic music—not about the world as it is but about a world that should be.

P.S. There's plenty more cool videos and photos from the tour (much better quality than mine) over at u2.com. If you like this then you should check it out!

Word of the Day: Cinemapathy

Ugh.

Every once in a while I get really in the mood for watching a movie, thumb through my modest collection of DVDs (from Adaptation to Whole Nine Yards, The), and can find nothing appealing.

Certainly, I tell myself, there is something here worth a couple hours of my time. After all I did buy all of them for a reason (actually, I inherited much of my collection from my parents, but they have an excellent taste in film).

Once again I take complete survey of my movie library, with no luck.

In fact, I can't pinpoint a genre that seems appetizing. Drama, Comedy, Action, Musical, Adventure. Bleh.

I can't even get excited by one of my TV shows on DVD.

And so, in honor of this common plight, today's Word of the Day is

cinemapathy (sĭ-nə-ma'pə-thē) lack of interest or concern regarding the selection of a movie [from French cinéma; and Greek a-, without, and pathos, feeling]

No matter how many films Kevin compulsively purchased, he couldn't avoid the occasional case of cinemapathy.

What do you do when faced with cinemapathy? Is there a fallback movie that never fails you? Was there a time where you, too, faced this hopeless ailment? Please feel free to share all home remedies and war stories.

On Top of the World

I met my Memere and Pepere—that's grandmother and grandfather, en francais—in Midtown today. They came in from Connecticut for the day, in part to mark a very cool occasion.

Memere's parents, my great grandparents, were married on September 18, 1939, and they honeymooned in New York City, which included a trip to the top of the Empire State Building. Yesterday is their 70th wedding anniversary, so the three of us decided to do some high-altitude celebrating in New York's tallest building.

I figured I share some pictures. But first, some quick history.

When my great-grandparents were married in 1939:

• FDR is President (his second of four terms) and Nazi Germany invades Poland, marking the start of World War II
• DC Comics introduces The Batman, a superhero who would come to define the brand
• Both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind premiere
  
• The Mahattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapon is started
• Lou Gehrig retires from the New York Yankees
• CBS Television begins transmission
  
• France holds the last public guillotining
  
• LaGuardia Airport opens in Queens
• GM introduces the first fully automatic automobile transmission
  
• Nylon stockings are sold for the first time, anywhere
  
• Texas A&M University wins it's only football national championship to date (Whoop!)
  
• The Empire State Building is the World's Tallest Building (and would hold the title for another four decades)

Looking Uptown, with a view of the Park, the Hudson is on the left

Looking northeast, you can see more of Midtown, the Chrysler Building, and past the East River is Queens

Downtown, you can see the Statue of Liberty (and New Jersey) in the top right corner


Looking up at the 16-story tower and broadcast "pinnacle"

I loved hanging out with my very cool grandparents, I had such a great time—minus the motion sickness from the SkyRide attraction on the second floor (poor Memere didn't do so well!). I can't wait to go visit them up in Connecticut in a couple of weeks!

And here's to my great grandparents. I don't think it can get a lot better than starting your marriage on top of the world.

My Garden State Adventure

I went to New Jersey this weekend.

A friend and fellow TC student of mine is moving from Connecticut to New Jersey in order to be closer to the city. Ebony and her husband Deep just bought a home, and last Sunday was moving day. The two of them spent most of the day caravaning down the East Coast, Deep in their 26 foot Penske and Ebony following closely in her sedan. So, at around five o'clock—only a little behind schedule—I hopped the 1 train from campus to Penn Station.

I like Penn Station. I like it mainly because it feels a lot like an airport (and I'm a sucker for airports), however it does, in my opinion, lack two things that airports have an overabundance of.

First, there are no security lines.

Second, there is no flying involved. I'm not a fan of flying. If you ever want to travel with me I suggest you find either (A) a train, bus, or boat to our travel destination, or (B) a bottle of Xanax and a good book. The book is for you, I will be quite busy self-medicating and staying as far from self-awareness as possible.

And so I procured a round trip ticket to Newark (a steal at $7) where I'd be meeting Ebony, and was fortunate enough to find a train on the Northeast Corridor line already boarding at the platform 12.

I nervously boarded the two-story train, having never been formally introduced to the New Jersey Transit (Long Island Railroad doesn't speak very highly of her, but I think he's just jealous of her curvy lines). It didn't occur to me to say goodbye to New York. It had been 24 days since I moved in to my apartment and this was the first time I'd be leaving the city.

The train lurched into motion. It accelerated much more swiftly and quietly than the rickety city subway trains I was used to.

My ears popped as the train exited the tunnel above ground. And I was in New Jersey.

The eternal six year old in me had insisted I locate myself in a window seat when I boarded the train, and it was that six year old whose face you would have seen plastered to the window for the brief and uneventful ride (not the 22 year old graduate student, I swear). I couldn't help but reflect, though, on the everyday things that rolled past me—the trivial details of life that already seemed alien after only 24 days in the city.

Power lines. Highways. Shopping malls. At one point the train passed over a creek with bright green slicks of algae. There was grass. And open sky. Space.

And it was quiet.

I think it would be hard to argue that Manhattan isn't a strange place. It's not the real world, not by a long shot, and I wondered about how quickly and easily I had forgotten the rest of the universe on the other side of the Hudson. The universe that drives and shops at Walmart and sleeps.

The next time you find yourself in Manhattan, do this: try to find a rock. Just a rock. Any stone, maybe fist-sized, even smaller. It's actually kind of impossible, especially if you avoid the park.

It's a strange place. And it was a strangeness I was suddenly aware of when the train crossed back into the world where streets were given names and not numbers.

Newark was only the second stop, so before I could grow uncomfortable against the window glass I found myself hopping over the nefarious gap between the train and the platform (NOTE: in the U.K. you mind the gap, in the U.S. you watch it). I grabbed a magazine and a bagel and passed the time until Ebony picked me up.

I won't go into an excessive amount of detail about how our night unfolded. I don't think Ebony and Deep would appreciate documentation of the woes that only the combination of relocation and sleep deprivation can earn. I would like to pass on a little recently acquired wisdom, though.

Incidentally, you are not allowed to drive a 26 foot truck on Garden State Parkway.

In fact, after picking me up from the train station in her packed sedan, Ebony and I (and her dog, Coco) arrived at the new house only to find that Deep hadn't arrived with the moving truck. He had indeed been both kicked off the Parkway and thoroughly disoriented by the less-than-intuitive back roads of New Jersey.

So Ebony and I (and Coco) left the empty home and departed again. What followed can only be described as a military operation—two GPSs, two Blackberrys, three college-educated adults (plus Coco's canine intuition), all coordinated across thirty miles of highway in order to arrange a rendezvous point in the parking lot of a 24 hour diner, followed by the careful extraction of the 26 foot Penske back to the new house.

And then we had to, you know, unpack it all.

It was quite late when we finished, we were all hot and sweaty, Ebony and Deep were exhausted. And out of sympathy for them both I won't try to describe the looks on their faces when we discovered the water hadn't been turned on in their new, now less-than-empty house.

Then what bits of the night that hadn't unraveled yet did.

They decided it would be best to return to their apartment in Connecticut. The promise of a shower there overruled the hope of sleeping on an actual bed (which was now in their New Jersey home). Of course that meant we had to turn in the moving truck (it was due back in the morning), which meant it had to be refueled, and as nearly every diesel gas station in a 30 minute radius was closed we yet had some driving to do.

I'll just skip to the part after the truck was turned in and the three of us (and Coco) were at last together in the sedan, headed back to Manhattan—Ebony and Deep had graciously offered to drop me off at my apartment before the three hour drive back to Connecticut.

So here, sitting in front of me, are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet, more than excited to move into their first house, and I just don't think there should be that many obstacles to their happiness. Talk to them for five minutes and you'll know they deserve nothing less. And still, from the backseat I watched them both manage to chuckle at the situation they'd found themselves in. Oh well, better luck next time.

Dear World, next time treat these two a little nicer, okay?

And so we sped across the deserted Garden State Parkway, having finally ditched the truck. The air conditioning was cranked up, frigid air relieving our hot, fatigued bodies. I would have shivered, had it not been for Coco, who was warm and asleep in my lap.

Orange shadows from the sodium vapor lights outside danced back and forth inside the car.

I missed driving. I never really missed it before. Something so mundane as that. I was suddenly troubled, again. What else from this real world was I missing out on? What had I already forgotten after existing only a few weeks in the over-caffeinated, over-saturated, Our-City-Goes-To-Eleven mentality?

And then it appeared as we rounded a curve in the highway.

The Skyline.

Even in my earlier childhood I would have recognized it—from the countless TV shows and movie posters and advertisements. New York City. Arguably the apex of human civilization, the entire world crammed onto a crooked little island.

It's even improbable to look at. It's like a joke that somebody half-told, and eight million people are all patiently waiting for the punchline. The Human Aquarium.

And a feeling stirred in me. It was distant, vague, but persistent.

I was home.

The Skyline grew before us, right up until we plunged into the Lincoln Tunnel. You could have hit the fast forward button as we descended below the Hudson River, as the world behind slowed down and the world at the end of the tunnel sped up. And then we were in it. At 4 a.m. this was as quiet as the city could get, yet the air hummed like it always, always does.

Ebony and Deep dropped me off at my apartment, and Coco gratefully rearranged herself on the now-empty back seat. They were anxious to get on the road and I was anxious to get to sleep, so we said our goodbyes quickly.

And then I'm lying in my bed, waiting for sleep to come. I realize I haven't pulled down the shade on my open window. The sun will soon be rising on my 25th day in the city, but I don't bother to get up and close it.

Outside, seven stories below me, the air brakes of the M60 bus hiss as it ambles around the corner of Amsterdam and 120th, then turns onto Broadway.

I smile. And then I sleep.

Word of the Day: Hunngrui

I started today the best way I know how: talking to Kelsey over breakfast. We both had V8 Splash Tropical Blend, which incidentally is my new addiction.


Try it. It's like drinking the rainforest. But not in any way that would harm something endangered and cute.

I'm on a mission to reread all of the Harry Potter books, which started after I purchased the paperback boxed set over the summer. Today I finished Book 2. Unfortunately, it appears that this will interfere with my other mission to be a good grad student and read five chapters for my Monday Theories class. I think the solution has to be to find a Counseling Psychology class that focuses primarily on the works of J.K. Rowling. That'll be the new mission.

This afternoon, one of the suitemates and I decided to stay in from the rain and order Chinese (good for us, less so for the delivery guy who walked 20 blocks):

New Kam Lai
212/749-8388

It was good, not quite spicy enough. But it was very cheap, especially for the city.

I watched Glee this afternoon. It was excellent. Surprisingly racy, at times (read: gag reflex humor) but definitely mandatory for anyone who knows what solfege is. Check it out.

Then I baked some cookies because I was bored/hungry. Does anybody else eat out of sheer boredom? I've come up for a word to describe this experience:

Hunngrui (hŭng-grē') a fleeting sense of malnourishment due to general disinterest or boredom [from English hunger and French ennui]

Can I get an amen?

Tomorrow will be more interesting. I'm helping a friend move into her new house in Jersey in the morning/afternoon, then tomorrow night I'm going to another friend's party in Queens. And I'll eat less bored-calories than I ate today.

That will be the new mission.