peevish mama

Photo by Steve Cohen – Metromix

It has been a while since I’ve woken up with the need to dump the contents of my heart on the floor and sort out all the pieces like legos. If you had asked me yesterday at five o’clock whether I was excited to be seeing U2, I would given you a not entirely convincing yes. I just haven’t been into U2 as much in the last few years – there has been so much other music. Somehow this show seemed like an over blown event that absolutely every one I knew was going to, and call me peevish, but I tend to not like being part of a hoo-ra-ra. If only I could hear myself. I sound like an a-hole.

But I had forgotten one thing: U2 is U2. For people our age, and those a little older and a little younger, they are, for better or worse (and today I argue for better), our defining band. I was completely unprepared for the surge of emotion as the four of them walked on that incredible stage in the softly darkening night. It turns out I have deep, latent reserves of affection for those lads and for the beautiful music they have given us through the most turbulent and raw parts of our lives: our early adolescence through our early adulthood. Not to mention the fact that Dash and I have had big love for Bono ever since we spotted him outside the Four Seasons in Boston and he held baby Saint James, said something about missing his little guy and let us take a picture. Look at these. I’m mean, come ON!

They started with ‘Even Better Than the Real Thing’ and I could have fainted. It’s hard to overstate how amazing the sound stage was, a giant claw being one of those ideas that might have sounded ridiculous on paper, yet worked as a cool and strangely unobtrusive way to frame the band and the incredible 360˚ video screen that has been all the hubbub. The acoustics were great – from where we were sitting I could feel Larry Mullin’s drums and Adam Clayton’s base pounding in my ribcage. Possibly my favorite physical sensation in life, as you know. Bono introduced the band and I kept leaning over to Dave, yelling in his ear. On Larry: (I used to have THE HUGEST crush on him!), Adam: (Ohhhhhh, I have SUCH a soft spot for him!), The Edge: (AHHHH! I LOVE THE EDGE!!!) Poor Dash. I am such a fiend. He just nods, smiles and massages his ear drum. (But he kind of looks like Bono, so . . . mmmmm . . . he’s the one I love the most, hands down.)

About half way through the show they were playing ‘Beautiful Day’ (which he dedicated to Gabby Giffords) and her husband, Commander Mark Kelly, was up on the screen in space and for a second I thought it was live and my head was going to explode. Live from SPACE?! In a touching little riff off Bowie’s Space Odyssey, Kelly said tell my wife I love her very much . . . she knows. And then Bono echoed in his inimitable wail. Seriously. I could have sobbed. There was also a beautiful moment when Somali rapper, K’Naan joined Bono on stage to sing ‘Stand by Me’ in order to raise awareness of the famine in Somalia. The thing is, U2 can get away with anything. They can be as earnest and dramatic and florid and shwooshy and tender and hopeful and outraged and uplifting and awareness raising as they want. It is literally impossible to be cynical about them or their music when seeing them live because that band, as a band, has such a lion’s heart. They swallow you whole. She never stood a chance.

And this was just about the point where the magic really started to happen.

The wind picked up, seemingly stirring 60,000 people into a palpable frenzy and I had a total Beyonce moment dancing with my dress and hair whipping around like a banshee. I actually thought: if I get struck by lightening in this moment, I will die happy. Morbid, I know, but y’all, I was ee-mo-shun-al! And then came the rain. The rain. First in teasing droplets and then in buckets – I was soaked to the skin. I could have housed goldfish in my chuck taylors. And my people, my hardy stalwart Minnesotans made me proud, pulling foul weather gear and rain ponchos out of every orifice and singing even louder. Even with the lightening, nobody left.

And this was where U2 showed us how it’s done – why they are such an iconic band. They didn’t miss a beat and charged on through the driving rain. Bono acknowledged the weather and then took it and owned it, making it a part of the show. It looked so cool on the LED screen – I just couldn’t figure out how they could still play their instruments, how their fingers didn’t slip. They were as soaked as we were. And poor Bono in his leather pants must have had the worst case of swamp ass ever. Wait, am I allowed to speculate about Bono’s swamp ass? You take the humidity, add the torrential rains and mix it with the leathah? I’m just saying. He gave no clue as to the conditions. A true professional.

Kidding aside, it felt good to let myself go back in time through their music. It felt good to dance in the rain. It felt good to hug Doctor Dash during ‘With or Without You.’ It felt good to shelve my jaded, wise-ass self for a few hours. No doubt about it, I was feeling the love. I even had an epiphany of sorts about what I need to do next in terms of my professional (non-mom) life. You never know when you’re going catch a good thought (although dancing in the open air with a smile a mile-wide is a good place to start). And today, I feel happy. All that angst about the driving and summer schlepping from a few days ago seems to have dissipated like the steam coming off the stage lights last night. U2’s songs are a really good way for me to track my life and emotional journey and dare I say, an inspiring reminder that I am truly blessed to be on this journey at all.