Amri's journey through GA!! (VERTIGO 2005)

Videos (I highly recommend Electric Co, First time, Fast Cars, LPOE): http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~ar2358/oct7vids.html

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11777907@N00/sets/1102856/

How do you put words to a feeling without killing it? I don’t know….but I want to share it with you…so I’m going to try to keep the feeling alive…

October 7th will go down in my history as one of those days that I hated being captured in my body. I wanted to soar the skies, I wanted to dance with Bono, I wanted to hug the Edge, I wanted to give Adam & Larry a kiss for being so adorable. Let me start by explaining the events of that day…my very first GA experience ever.

Oct 2nd morning: Brainwave occurred while thinking about The Edge. “I should wear a Mrs.The Edge tshirt” The idea was exciting…so I asked my Knight in Shining Armor a.k.a Maximus to create the graphic for me.

Oct 6th 11:30 am: Begged Kinko’s to create a tshirt for me with my “Mrs. The Edge” print. They had all these rules about 24 hrs…so I was wary…cos we had to be in GA line early in the morning (GA tickets yay!!).
Oct 6th, 9:30 pm: Picked up Noreen at Penn Station. No signs anywhere of a U2 show the next day…no fans…no scalpers…no neon lights! We hailed a cab and headed homewards when enroute we saw a Vertigo truck! We went NUTS screaming and high-fiving…:P lol
Oct 6th 11:00 pm: Kinko’s guy calls me saying my tshirt’s ready! Holy Crap!! Noreen and I head out to grab a bite at “Tom’s restaurant” (The Sienfeld restaurant) and Starbucks. Then came a midnight rush to Kinko’s to pick up my tshirt…it looked fabulous and I was giddy at the thought of Edge seeing it! Heh! J

Oct 7th 1 am: Dying of exhaustion due to a severe shortage of sleep. But wanted to share my tshirt story with everyone…especially Max. So took a picture and shared it with some zootops. Together, we decided that I would definitely get pulled up on stage because of it….more giddiness!! :D
Oct 7th 5 am: Needed to finish some work…so got up early. Noreen hardly slept because of excitement. J
Oct 7th 7:15 am: On our way to VERTIGO!!! We could hardly contain or excitement. MSG rules said no GA line before 8 am, so we decided to reach the venue 7:30-ish. We reached at 7:45 and found out to our dismay that there was already a line and people were being numbered. We made a beeline for where the line started (8 Penn Plaza, 33rd st) and were numbers 44 and 45. Gee whiz!! We were really scared for a second …The Line was organized by a guy called Jim and he took real good care of the whole thing.

So we got ready to wait about 10 hours outside and were hoping it wouldn’t rain too much though the clouds were arriving. Met Alexa (I AM WHAT I AM) and her mom. Then met Steph (EdgeFan4Ever), her mom, Erika. As the day went on, we met a gazillion more people including the hilarious North Bowman from Hamburg, Germany. Had a blast throughout the day, made my “BOOM CHA” banner cos that is the one song that I want to hear them play…I LOVE POP! Around the meet and greet time, met some other fabulous zootops as well…Kite, HuggoMartini, Bob L, Vikki, Clare, Odie, James, Steph (Lostinwoods), Sharon (servo), Fran (franna1). The London people were giddy with excitement and so were we…there was much screaming…lol. Also met some non-U2.com people…Erin…funny guy (best friend!), Ben, McPhisto girl, Lindsey, Jen, Jen. So you get the picture…a whole lot of people!

Now comes one of the day’s highlights…meet n greet time. Cars driving by but noone stops. Then suddenly Bono’s SUV drives in and he jumps out. For what lasted about 45 seconds, he went down the line shaking hands and a lucky few got an autograph from him. I was at the other end of the line, so I waited with baited breath not ready to believe that I was going to meet Bono. By the time he reached my side, he was in a hurry to leave but he looked me straight in the eye and shook my hand and ran back to the SUV!! :D :D :D Oh God!! I couldn’t believe my luck…I was brain dead for a few seconds after that. His hands are really soft in case anyone was wondering…lol! Now if only the Edge had stepped out…I would have died right there.

Close to show time, it starts raining and we were told that we’d be let in early. 6 pm, I’m going crazy with excitement, everyone runs back to their spots in line. We’re let in and Noreen and I are praying for the bomb shelter…but no luck. Our entire gang of about 15 people ends up without the “Vertigo Vertigo Vertigo” signs. We resolve ourselves to hitting the rail on the Edge side to make up. So when the time came, we made a beeline….up 2 escalators, down a few pathways, and onto the floor. We made it to the tip on Edge’s side. Me and Erika were on the rail bit containing the small platform so now we’re even more excited. When the dust settles, I started looking around…reacquainting myself to the Vertigo stage, MSG etc. The view from down there is amazing…and very humbling.

Keane starts playing…they rocked!!! I enjoyed every song….sound check time. Rocco drops a few guitar picks but I couldn’t get my hands on one. I’d been holding out my Boom Cha banner throughout of course. Then it begins…”Wake Up” by Arcade Fire starts playing and we all go maaaad!! :D :D :D

9:20 pm Edge steps out and starts strumming the opening rythms of COBL. We saw Bono reach the stairs and climb up…and that’s it…VERTIGO WAS UPON US!!! Among the screaming and singing, I noticed Adam and Larry step out as well and we were well into COBL. Awesome performance as always, it’s a good show opener in my opinion. We swiftly moved into Vertigo before which Bono says “New York City, Friday night, Home sweet Home”…and the crowd went nuts!! The beginning of Vertigo was a lil rocky…but the crowd took over and made it perfect! :P No offense to the boys.

Guess what? I think U2 found their fifth band member. The audience!! :-) Bono got what he wanted everytime he looked at us….and the wooo-hoooos of Elevation rang out loud in MSG. You should have seen The Edge gyrate and play that guitar…oh my!!! *fans herself* Power packed performance.

There were 6 songs on the set which blew me away and Electric Co was the best of all of them. The Edge finally stepped on to the ramp…and he danced, stomped, gyrated his way across with killer riffs….my heart stood still and I’d died and gone to heaven. Seeing him do that on a guitar 2 feet away from me was mind-numbingly brilliant. Him and Bono dancing…pure drama…but perfect! Then we had ISHFWIALF, Beautiful Day, Miracle Drug, SYCMIOYO…all awesome and much much better from the floor.

Now come Love and Peace…my absolute favorite Vertigo show song. Seeing it frm the front was extraordinary. Bono even came and stood on the little platform an inch away from me….oh my God!! I touched his leg….OOOOHHH!! :D ;) I can hear thuds now…haha. Sunday Bloody Sunday was as powerpacked as usual…so was Bullet The Blue Sky. It was nice to see the COEXIST headband up close.

At some point of time Bono did his speech about the Edge belonging to the future…that was really really cool. I dug it. “Bonorotti” was born as Bono sang Miss Sarajevo. I had to keep reminding myself that the band had members besides the Edge cos I would keep gazing at him. Hehe. PITNOL, Streets and One…the power triplet…perfect perfect perfect! The audience sang along…and Adam walked out and let some people touch his guitar!!! Wow.

Encore 1. The First Time is a beautiful live song. And it’s even prettier when you have the Edge slow walking down the ramp 2 feet away. *drooool* Stuck in a moment followed with Edge singing along. Then Bono says “Now we’re gonna play a song which most of your haven’t heard of”. Opening drums for “Fast Cars” and I lost it ….jumping up and down….started recording it. It was amazing…even more so cos of E(dge)steban (borrowed frm Mr.Fly). He danced on that Spanish guitar of his. If I loved him before…I don’t know what I was feeling now.

The show ended with ABOY, Crumbs, Yahweh, WOWY…very very nice! Edge’s guitar string broke during Yahweh….which was very funny. The Edge walked back and shook hands with Erika right next to me and someone behind me….but not mine. I was heartbroken and started crying when the show ended. Not just cos of The Edge…I guess the whole emotion of being so close to the band…came out. It was a perfect and awesome day. I left MSG feeling numb and reeling from the riffs.
I’m happy I met so many Zootops and made new friends. All thanks to one of my oldest friends from the Zoo…Noreen!! ((hugs)) Gracias! And thanks to Max for the tshirt graphic….and BOOOOM CHA!!!