by Juan Sepúlveda

“Blessings are not just for the ones who kneel... luckily” (Bono).

Sorry for the long story, but I just have to share this with whoever has the patience to read it, this was just such and inspiring story, so here it is:

The circumstances under which my girlfriend and I were able to attend Saturday night’s concert were, to say the least, extraordinary. We could experience a feeling even more thrilling than the guy that played “Angel of Harlem” with U2, or the girl that went onstage with Bono while the band performed “With or Without You”.

We came all the way down from Monterrey México, on a fourteen hour bus journey with only one hope, to see the greatest band in the world perform live, there was only one problem: we did not have tickets with us. We had purchased a tour package (bus and concert ticket) from some broker in my home town, but on Friday morning this guy called me and said that he had cancelled the tour. I convinced him to respect our tickets and that we would find a way to get to Dallas, he did not have the “paper” tickets, but he had them on “will call”, so finally he called me and said that U2 would release a couple of hundred tickets two hours before the show, “just get there by four o’ clock and wait at the box office”, he said, and that if we could not get them that way he told us not to worry, because he gave our names to a girl that was one of the organizers of the concert (form a company called “Clear Channel”), and she would save our tickets for us, all we had to do was to ask for her.

So we trusted this guy and made the trip, after getting out of the bus and rushing to get a car rental and a hotel, we were standing in line at the box office at 4 PM, there were less than 25 people before us so if what the broker said was true we would be able to get the tickets, obviously we were not the only ones hoping for this to happen, as time went by there were about two hundred people in two lines. We waited an hour, two hours,,,,,,,,, suddenly it was 7 o’ clock and no tickets had been released, by this time we had already asked a couple dozen staff people about the girl from “Clear Channel” and nobody seemed to know who she was, except for this kind woman who tried to locate her, but she did not succeed. At 7:30 they sold tickets to the first girl standing in one of the lines, but then they stopped, by then I left my girlfriend in line and started to try to find someone with extra tickets all around the building with no success, the scalpers’ prices were ridiculously high, so that was not an option. By 8:30 they sold tickets to about three or four more people in line, and after that they closed and told us that there were no more tickets, needless to say, as everyone else in line, we were extremely frustrated, my girl was nearly crying, and the sad ticket seekers just fled away.

But then the miracle happened, my girlfriend insisted that I told our story one more time to the person at the “VIP/BAND” line, so I did, there was a different person this time, we showed her our visas to see if by any chance our names were on the list, but they were not, so this very kind woman who we’ll never be able to thank enough started talking to someone out of our sight, she was clearly trying to get us tickets, finally she said “there is a chance that we could get you two tickets”, after what it seemed an eternity another woman came up with two tickets and she said: “they’re one hundred and eighty six dollars”, "for both?" I asked, “no each one” she said, My girlfriend and I looked at each other knowing that we would starve the next day and that we could forget about going shopping to the “Grapevine Outlet”, but we did not think it twice, we handed the money to her, and then she made it seem as if she was putting the money in the register, then rolled the money, hid it under the tickets and winked at us, at that point I just didn’t get it, I was in shock just to see the tickets within my reach, and was just holding the tickets but not the money I was
thinking “well,,,,,,,, give us the change and that’s it”, but then she said, “Nooooo!,,,,,,,,,,, take the cash, take the tickets, and just go!,,,,,,, go! go!”.

So my girlfriend threw the money in her bag, and we rushed to the entrance, up to section 120, we opened the black curtain and Bono appeared right in front of us, walking on our side of the ellipse, saluting us, screaming “Hello, Hello”, what a welcome!, we were jumping, screaming, just ecstatic,,,,,,,, it was the second song of the evening, we started rushing down the stairs, couldn’t find the row, kept going down, seemed like Bono and The Edge were at hand reach, it was row K seats 17 and 18, they were taken already by three people but since they knew those weren’t their seats they quickly moved.

Then the band played the set list in nearly the exact order I had nearly memorized from watching the reviews on this page, Elevation, The Electric Co., Beautiful Day (Outstanding performance), I Still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, and it went on and on ,,,,,,,,,,

Then Bono dedicated the song “Miracle Drug” to all the doctors and nurses, and since my girlfriend is a Doctor she was thrilled, she screamed “Gracias Bono!”, what a song!, it’s one of my favorites, then in another highlight of the evening there was an outstanding ovation for the band right after they played “Streets”,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, then the first encore,,,,,,,,,,, the guy that went on stage and made U2 play “Angel of Harlem” for the first time in the entire tour ,,,,,,,,,,, the second encore with Yahweh (amazing closing) and finally “40”,,,,,,,,,,,

Even though we had stood in line for five hours before the concert, we never sat down, we sang, we jumped, we screamed, it was just so memorable!, exactly what you could expect from watching U2 live, not to mention the thrill was just exponentially increased by the fact that we had nearly lost hope of getting in , what an evening!, what an experience!, thank you Lady at the box office!, Thanks U2!,,,,,,,,,,,, for making this happen, our first U2 concert and hopefully there'll be many more.

I’m not sure if the band’s staff has instructions from U2 for making these kind of exceptions, I’m sure this is not common at all, but this situation made the concert one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences we’ve had in our lives ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The next day, more relaxed, we took a closer look at the tickets and we realized that they read, by the price zone: “BAND$”, so it’s as if we had been U2’s special guests. Blessings are not just for the ones who kneel.... luckily!

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