New York, London, Paris, Munich...

Everybody talk about Pop Muzik.

If memory serves, today marks the eighth anniversary of seeing U2 for the first time back on the PopMart tour. Not only that, I do believe it was my first 'real' concert, unless you count seeing the Spin Doctors on the parking lot of Union Station. Mmm, the good 'ol days when the Spin Doctors were huge.

Wait. I don't think they were ever huge. But they are still around, mostly. But I digress.

Back in '97, I wasn't quite as U2 obsessed as I am now, so there was little time spent surfing the 'net trying to find pictures of the stage or setlists or anything like that. I knew they were coming and I had tickets (thanks to dad's bottomless cups of change. Really. Who has $143 worth of coins in their house?) waaaaaaaaay back, as they were playing the then TWA Dome. Tickets were bought in March of that year, I think, on a chilly Saturday morning from Schnucks near mom's work. I remember doing the whole line ticket business and hoping hoping hoping they didn't sell out.

Turns out the tour was being as well received stateside as originally thought, so there was no danger of a sell out. Even better, we actually got to move down a couple sections since there were maybe 30,000 of around 70,000 seats sold. Worked for me.

I'd never been to the Dome before, but I knew it was a pretty spacious building. So to walk into the seating area and see this filling every inch of the floor was unbelievable. Our seats were pretty dead center in the back, so I had an excellent view of that monstrosity.

Third Eye Blind, back when people sort of cared about them, opened the show, thus beginning the trend of me not caring one iota about 75% of the opening acts I see. It had to be 45 of the dullest minutes I've experienced at a concert. The only highlight was the fact they used sound and music from Godzilla as they came on stage. Finally, they wrapped up, and the interminable wait for U2 began. Finally the intor music started, and there was the band, coming onstage through the crowd: Edge in his 'disco cowboy' gear, Bono shadowboxing the whole way, Adam in the haz-mat suit, and Larry as, um, Larry. The intro to 'Mofo' gets going, and once Edge hits the whammy pedal for the 'airplane noise,' the stage just lights up and proceeds to blow me back in my seat for the entire song. I couldn't find any pictures that did justice to that moment, suffice to say, it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Once the opening notes to 'I Will Follow' started, the initial shock and awe wore off, and I was able to enjoy every moment of the concert: the classics like 'Streets,' 'New Year's Day,' and 'Desire.' New stuff like 'Discotheque,' 'Gone,' and the song that really turned me onto the band, 'Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.'

There was the 40 ft. lemon, which turned into a giant disco ball for the first encore, taking the band to the b-stage. And each moment was bigger than the next. Wonderful stuff.

I imagine this would be a more fitting tribute with some more time, or maybe not 8 years later. Better pictures, maybe. Oh well.

Just about a month from now will be U2 show #4 for me. It's all a bit smaller now, but I imagine the emotion will be just as big.

In other news, the 'Tones new album is due out January 31. It's called 'Hidden Land.' Here's to hoping for a couple dates in the area.


Try some buy some fee-fi-fo-fum, Talk about, pop muzik
Dave