Today is the one week anniversary of seeing U2 at the United Center. It almost didn't happen. The tickets sold out in the blink of an eye and we were never able to scrounge up the small fortune required to get tickets from a broker, so we resigned ourselves to the idea of trying to hit the second leg when it came around. Well, unfortunately, those tickets went on sale while Steph was in the hospital for her gallbladder, and we missed out again. So we decided to show up at the United Center and see what we could get.
At past shows the streets have been lined with folks waving tickets in the air, but not so this time. Will call didn't have any thing but singles when we got there so we just paced the sidewalk trying to look obvious and hoping someone would approach us. Eventually we came across a couple standing out in the cold wearing short sleeves and sandals. We figured they wouldn't be out there shivering unless they were looking to buy or sell, so Mark struck up a conversation and it turned out the couple they were coming with had a death in the family and they were trying to get their money back on the tickets. So we got two seats in the 200 section for ticket price, and figured Steph and I could sit together and the guys could take their chances on singles. We went back to will call and were almost done buying two singles when a pair in the 100 section suddenly opened up. I have no idea how we got that lucky, the show was still 30min away! So we got four great tickets at ticket price the day of the show!
(I would recommend this tactic to anyone, we may try it again for leg 2.)
I've been to Zoo TV, Pop Mart and Elevation I and II. Nothing compares with the spectacle of Zoo TV, nor the raw emotion of Elevation II (post 9/11) but this show was really solid, with some great thrills (I never thought I'd hear An Cat Dubh!) and well worth the money! This was the fourth Chicago show and Bono's voice was a little worse for the wear, but the nuts in our section were singing loud enough to make up for it! (One of the worst things is going to see a band your crazy about and sitting with a bunch of zombies!) I thought the guy behind us was gonna have a fit when "bad" started, and the middle-aged woman next to me was so jubilant she nearly knocked me over! It was a party for sure.
2 comments:
I so want to see U2 in concert.
One of my life goals
Are they coming to your area? I hope you can see them, they are the best live band anywhere! I know of many people who got tickets the way we did and of no one who showed up and couldn't get tickets, so I'd say give it a shot! It sure beats paying $500 a ticket on eBay!
Just a heads up: At one point Bono wears a blindfold with a star of david-"is"-the islamic moon symbol-"is"-a cross. That met with a puzzled buzz until he explained that they are all sons of Abraham. I know he doesn't literelly believe that they are all the same (I remember him sending Noel Gallagher of Oasis a copy of Phillip Yacey's "What's So Amazing About Grace") so it was kind of an ambiguous gesture to make. Even with the explanation it was one of the stranger moments of the concert.
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