by Dawn S.

Dawn’s Review: After having been at the Philly concert on 10/16, I had planned on waiting until December to see U2 in concert again. But, the fact that they would be playing in Pittsburgh on the upcoming Saturday - only a short 2 ½ hour drive from my home - was always in the back of my mind. I kept checking and re-checking the Ticketmaster website, hoping for that ticket drop that was happening before every show. By Friday, nothing had emerged and I started to resign myself to missing the show. I was so bummed out that I was going to miss this opportunity. Then, on Saturday, the day of the show, I tried one more time about 3:30 PM… A pair of great seats popped up! I called my husband into the room. There was no way we both could go to the concert – We have two young children and no babysitter available at the last minute. I had been planning to take my 9-year-old son Matthew to the Cleveland concert so we quickly decided that I would take him to the concert that night instead (all while the 2-minute hold on the seats was ticking away on the clock)! We didn’t have to ask Matthew twice – He just celebrated his 9th birthday the Wednesday before the concert and this would be an awesome birthday gift! So we took the tickets and started running around getting ready to leave. We were ready to go but the .pdf file with the tickets attached still hadn’t arrived from Ticketmaster. After calling Ticketmaster customer service and making a nice girl named Tasha stay on the line with me until the e-mail came through, we got our tickets, printed them out, and hit the road! The weather was rainy and foggy but the drive went smoothly and we pulled into the Marriott parking garage across from the arena at 7:40 PM. We found our seats and they were pretty good. We were in the first row of the lower level just past the end of the ellipse, but our view of the stage was partially blocked by the people standing in the GA section on the floor. As it got closer to the time for U2 to take the stage, we noticed a number of other seats that were still empty. I asked one of the event staff guys if we were allowed to move to empty seats that were closer to the stage. He said that it would be okay because those seats were probably not all sold out. They just put them on sale that day after they were sure they had room for those sections. We moved up a couple of rows higher so we’d be above the heads of the people on the floor and down about two sections closer to the stage. The seats we ended up in were AMAZING! We were about 20 feet from the ellipse on The Edge’s side and had an incredible view of the stage. And, it was a fantastic show!!! I had no complaints about the Philly concert earlier that week, but this was even better. The band and the crowd seemed more relaxed and playful and the more intimate size of Mellon Arena brought everyone closer together. The set list was almost identical to the show I saw in Philly but the minor changes (I Will Follow instead of The Ocean and Party Girl added to the encore) really kept the energy of the crowd going and took the show to another level. Now here’s Matthew’s review of his first U2 concert… “I was really pumped about our seats because we were so close to The Edge. He’s my favorite person in the band. (Mom said to say, “He was on fire!”) I really liked the songs they chose for the concert. Some of my favorite parts were: -Elevation because the crowd was so pumped up and I liked singing the woo-hoo parts. -Miracle Drug because I know almost every word of the song and I laughed when Bono said The Edge is from the future. -Love and Peace when Bono was smashing on the drum at the end of the song. -Miss Sarajevo because I thought it was amazing when Bono sang the opera part in Italian. -When everyone turned on their cell phones before One. It looked like a tidal wave of lights. (Mom adds that she is impressed with Matthew’s creative description of the cell phone thing!) -When the guy from the audience came up on stage to play Party Girl with the band. He did a great job and I hope that someday I can be on stage playing guitar with my hero, The Edge. The concert was absolutely amazing and I am already trying to talk my mom into taking me again in December!” Dawn back again… It WAS absolutely amazing and we had a great time. It was so special sharing this experience with my son and watching the concert through his eyes. I am so glad that we did the crazy, spontaneous thing by grabbing those last-minute tickets. It was an evening neither Matthew nor I will ever forget. Can’t wait to see them again in Cleveland in December!

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