Beautiful Day

Last night I fulfilled a life’s ambition and saw U2 play live, at Twickenham Stadium. It was a very special moment for Dave and myself. Long ago as friends in Newcastle we spent a drunken evening in the Fog and Firkin pub overlooking the Tyne river, eulogising about the merits of the Irish ones, with Dave leaving at closing time performing the intro to Zoo Station with full percussion. But we never imagined then that we would one day see them in concert together as husband and wife. Dave had seen them several times before but somehow I’d never managed to be quick enough off the ball to get tickets and had had to make do with naff cover bands in pubs.

It was a glorious summer’s evening, but this unfortunately also meant having to bear the brunt of London transport at its sweltering worst to get there. Hats off to Silverlink Metro for its Gospel Oak to Richmond service, which I would now officially rate as my worst ever train journey. ("Leaves you standing in the station, your face pressed up against the glass...") Anyway, we arrived as limp rags but soon rejuvenated ourselves with water and baguettes and let the evening’s entertainment commence. And at first I almost had to wonder if it was worth the wait. We felt a million miles from the stage; Bono, Larry, Adam and The Edge appearing as tiny dots on the horizon. They were blown up onto big screens for the benefit of those not in the mosh pit at the front, but it took another couple of seconds for the accompanying sound to reach us, so everything appeared out of synch. And the sound that reached us was from the second set of speakers, so it ended up distorted and buzzing. But then suddenly they launched into the poignant opening chords of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and my heart, seeing the tears in Dave’s eyes, melted into the summer heat. By the time they got to Pride (In The Name of Love) I was hollering with the rest of the stadium and would have waved my arms in the air had not my Mitchum Super Dry failed me in the Silverlink sweatbox and resulted in a nasty and lingering pong. U2 don’t just do a gig, they give you an experience, a slick set that lasts for over two hours where not a second is wasted, unlike the aeons of meandering faffing that bands like Belle and Sebastian subject you to. I’ve never seen anyone work a crowd like Bono can, but then his Messianic complex does give him an ego the size of a planet.

There is something to be said for the stadium experience, but I think it’s one more suited to sport. Looking at the crowds doing Mexican waves and singing along, I imagined how it must be at a packed England rugby match with choruses of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot booming out at full volume. The atmosphere must be staggeringly electric.

I was raised in a household of strictly classical music, so I’m used to concerts in staid concert halls, where everyone sits quietly (bar the occasional bronchial coughing fit) and applauds politely at the end of each piece, the music starts at the allotted time, and you don’t have to sit through two support acts before you get to hear your chosen group of musicians. And somehow, I always long for that when I go to pop gigs. I get sick of people leaping up and down pouring beer over my feet, of everyone shouting at each other over the songs, and of the mass karaoke session you end up with on the greatest hits. It’s Bono I want to hear sing, not the three pissed-up twats from Dorking behind me. I was going to say that classical concerts don’t have the same levels of discomfort, with everyone having their own seat in a relatively cool environment, but then I remembered the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. But, oh, to see U2 toned down playing an acoustic set at the Barbican!

But then how would all their many fans get tickets for such an event unless they performed every night for a month? What was slightly galling last night was that despite the concert being claimed a sell-out, there was a whole section of empty seats near us. Presumably ticket agencies had bought out the block but had failed to get enough punters to pay their extortionate mark-ups. (The seats would have cost £75 before commission, so the mind truly boggles.) So many fans missed out on tickets for last night’s gig, so it seems unfair that those seats were allowed to remain empty, with no stand-by system in operation for “no-shows”. Of course U2 will have got the money for those seats whether they had bottoms in them or not. Dave noted that U2 may want to end global poverty, but they remain obliviously happy to lead their fans into poverty with their enormous ticket prices.

REBECCA