Well last night I definitely saw the biggest concert I'll ever see, so I thought I needed to blog about it, even though I'm currently sitting at Camp with no internet connection. I'll publish once I have internet again :)
Saturday morning I left Camp to meet up with Jolene & Rob in Truro. There was crazy traffic the whole way to Moncton because the biggest band in the world was coming! I heard upwards of 100,000 people attended, making it the biggest concert in Atlantic Canada. That's the entire population of St. John's in a field! It was madness. Anyway, we got into town around 2pm and the traffic was surprisingly not that bad. I first went and got the keys to my new apartment, ran an errand or two, and then we had supper at Montanas. It was raining pretty hard all day but THANKFULLY it stopped as we were eating!!! YAY!! We might have lined up earlier if it was nice out but I didn't really want to be wet.
Trying to park for this thing was a challenge. The Maritimes are not equipped to handle shows of this size so it's honestly a bit frustrating when we do it anyway. We tried two "park and go" places but both were sold out (apparently you had to buy them in advance… if I was not at Camp I might have researched this better.) Eventually we just decided to tackle Mountain Road head on. There was a paved lane behind Home Hardware that had parking spaces (and no one was charging!) so we parked there. We definitely lucked out as we saw $20 lots of mud that people got stuck in later that night. I saw it was only a 15-20min walk to the concert grounds. It wasn't so bad until we got inside the gates. It was grass, but with rain and 100,000 people it was mud soup. I was so happy I wore chucks on my feet instead of toms. Jolene had crocs on and almost lost them. Newbies :)
Anyway. We got into the grounds just as Arcade Fire were starting. We got about 10 feet behind a barricade, just inside of where all the spot lights and things were set up. We could set the whole "claw". We probably could have gotten closer but Rob was content where we were, and I'm not insane about U2 or anything so I was cool there. Arcade Fire don't really play a concert… they put on a theatrical performance. It's almost ludicrous actually, haha. I kept watching the gold sparkles and the people running around banging drums. I guess they played an hour or so. Then we waited for U2 while jets blew our ear drums off and the bleachers did the wave. Being in a crowd of 100,000 people is a bit of an experience. Most people are happy and nice, but there's always a few dumb people. So many people were trying to weave, only to find the barricade where we were. It got annoying but no one was SUPER aggressive. They all just went right and I guess hoped to get around the edge. I have to say that security did a good job avoiding chaos.
U2 came on at about 9:20 and played for 2 and a half hours. I was surprised by how many songs I knew. I guess with a band this big you just know stuff even when you don't realize. Some songs I remember them doing… Beautiful Day, Where the Streets Have No Name, Vertigo, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Elevation, Still Haven't Found what I'm Looking For, Stuck in a Moment, Pride (in the name of love), One, With or Without You. And like a million more. They are so good live that it honestly could be a CD. There was one moment I noticed Bono's voice sounded tired or strained, but other than that it was flawless. You can tell they are bonified rock stars. They walk the walk and pull off a great show to watch.
The stage setup was intense. In some ways I'm glad we were as far back as we were because we could see the entire claw and all the lights and effects to go with it. At one point the screen extended right down over the band and it looked like they were inside a tornado. I really liked the video clips they had as well. Before the show even started they had random facts up there about the tour (18 babies born within the crew!), how many tweets have happened today, number of abortions this year (broke my heart), etc. There were some "Jesus moments" too. I didn't expect anything less from Bono, but there were calls to action and information given on things like AIDS, slavery, green peace, etc. My favorite part of the night was when Bono said "We are all works in progress. I am definitely a work in progress… and You know it Lord!" as he looks up. haha
So yeah. It was fun. Real muddy. And a really huge crowd. It felt like herding cattle trying to get out of there (a couple of drunk people were even mooing, haha). I say it took a better part of an hour for us to return to the car. I am so glad we did that though… I was speaking to a lady in church today who said for the last concert at Magnetic Hill she did the bus thing, and was still no where near getting shuttled back by 2am! That would have sucked. Poor Jolene almost didn't make it out of the grounds alive. There was mud and crocs and rocks and blood. But she survived and we all got out! Once we got to the car and removed the muddy shoes, we drove to McDonalds and then went back to my brand new apartment and broke it in by muddying the bath tub and sleeping on air mattresses. Definitely won't forget my first night there :) I loved hanging with Jolene & Rob again. I don't have enough of them in my life!!
So that was U2. Pretty epic. Not sure if I would do it again. Maybe I'd get seats next time. But it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm glad I did it! :) Concert #72 in the life of Jen: check!
0 comments:
Post a Comment