by Brian Hodges

Excellent show. I shopped at POPMART at the second show in Toronto, and this one was better, mostly cos my seats were 10x better (thank you propaganda!)

wow, the night was so amazing. everyone was in top form.

the evening had a bit of a poignant feel to it, as it was a couple of days after we all learned about michael hutchence. you could tell bono was still reeling from it. his dedications to michael were very moving and heartfelt.

the real bonus was that my friend and i got to meet larry and bono! we waited for 2 hours outside of the loading docks after the show and finally around 1am, four town cars pulled in. after about 10 minutes, one of the cars comes out and stops right in front of the gate we were standing behind. and who pops out, but larry (my favorite)!! i know he's not one for crowd situations, so i didn't expect anything more than a wave, but after a few words with a roadie, he starts walking right towards us and me specifically!

he approached me and immediately, the guy on my right shoved a poster in his face to sign. larry dutifully signed it and then looked at me. i handed him my POP CD cover.

"Do you have a pen?" he asked me.

my mind suddenly drew a blank, even though i had one in my pocket.

"uh..uh..." i, in a moment of panic, grabbed the pen out of the guy-next-to-me's hand. i handed it to larry (aah! the best drummer in the world touched my hand!)

as he was signing, i said, "that was such an awesome show tonight, Larry."

he looked at me with a real genuine expression on his face:"Thank you."

then he handed my CD back to me. the crowd suddenly woke up and started pushing forward. i got pinned up against the waist-high gate, immobilizing my arms. i was trying to push back and free myself, but it was no use. larry was signing like a madman, and looked up, noticing the chaos. he stopped and told everybody to back up. what a superhero.

he only stayed around for another minute or so, then left. next, edge's car came on through, but he didn't stop; only waving from the backseat. as i watched edge's car drive off, i turned around, and suddenly bono was standing there!

what a trooper. he started at one end of the crowd and tried to shake hands, sign, and talk to everyone--actual conversations too. at this point, my friend and i ended up at the back of the mob, and i started getting worried that he wasn't going to be able to get to everyone--including us. so, my friend and i went down to the end of the the crowd right up the gate. after a while, bono finally made his way down to us.

"Bono, that was such a great show," i said, as he scribbled on my CD cover.

"Thanks," he said, handing it back to me.

"Bono," my friend said, "thanks for including me in your ZOOTV tv special." (they included my friend's confessional in their tv special: "I smoked pot in college, but I didn't inhale" followed by a clip of them talking to bill clinton)

Bono wasn't sure what he was talking about, so my friend quickly explained. "Oh yeah," Bono said, laughing.

He then looked back at me with a curious look on his face. He reached out with his pen towards my chest. I wasn't sure what he was doing at first, but I realized I was holding the CD jewel case next to my chest. he scribbled his name on it, so i ended up getting his autograph twice! (guess he forgot he'd already signed for me once). he, then, signed a girl's passport saying he was going to give her an irish visa. he signed his name, then drew a little shamrock. very funny.

he left, and we waited a bit for adam to show up. he didn't, so we left, since my friend had to drive back to austin.

that night was certainly one of the best of my life.

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