by Rachel

I know it has been a few days since the Lexington show but I needed a few days
to gather my thoughts, look at my pictures, and to convince myself that this
really happened.

My sister, her husband, and I started off for the concert at 5am from
Chattanooga,TN. When we finally reached Rupp Arena at 10am and saw that the line
only held about 27 people we screamed with excitement. Or at least my sister and
I did.

I immedatley jumped out of the car, which had the infamous heart encased
suitcase painted on the back windshield, and ran to get my spot in line. We
ended up being 30, 31, and 32 people in line. Luckly the blistering sun was kept
away from the people who were on the ramp, and against the building until around
3pm, and then the sun come out shining 'like a burning star falling from the
sky.' And then it got really hot.

Bono came out to greet the fans right before we recieved our wristbands. So no
one was thinking about the heat while we were looking at him. Of course there
was a baracade seperating him from his hot, sweaty fans, but we still got to
snap pictures of him as he waved and said, "Thanks for coming out and waiting in
line for u2", or something to that affect.

By 4pm we had recieved our neon green wristbands, and we had had the once in a
life-time chance sighting of Bono, so we knew nothing else was going to happen
until 6pm when we could go in.

I have to say the last 2 hours were the longest. The whole line migrated to the
other side of the ramp to sit in the small sliver of shade. While the heat was
begining to get to all of us my brother-in-law was thoughtful enough to start a
chorus of 'You Are My Sunshine', and we all seemed to get a sigh of comic relief
from him then on.

The managers had came out early that morning asking us how we thought they
should let the g.a. people in, we gave them our sugestions and they worked on it
from there. At 6pm the doors opened and instead of a roaring river of people
pusing their way through it was more like a trickling stream of 1 or 2 people at
a time. The security, I have to say, was very tedious and somewhat annoying, but
very well apperciated.

The 3 of us snagged a spot inside the heart about 3 or 4 people from the inside tip,
then waited another hour and a half. Durring this time my hyper brother-in-law
took a breif nap. Inside the heart there was a whole lot more space to move
around than I thought there would be. I was only 'bumped' once or twice durring
the entire concert!

PJ Harvey came on and rocked. I didn't know any of her stuff but she was great.
And it turns out that my brother-in-law and I had seen her earlier that day in
the parking lot!

Finally at about 8:45pm U2 came onto stage. House lights blaring, in their eyes
and in ours. Opening with Elevation and ROCKING the whole way through. I saw
them in Atlanta March 30th in reserved seats, but being inside the heart was a
whole different experience. I was able to see all 4 of them and all of their
facial expressions. I also noticed a lot of little things that I wasn't able to
sitting in reserved seats in Atlanta. Like The Edge's glittery gutiar strap is
beaded! Durring New York I think Bono was having a little microphone difficulty,
but since he was 2 feet in front of me I could still hear him!

Although I was touched by them mentally, spiriatually, and emotionally, I was
never touched by any of them physically. I did make eye contact with them, got
smiles, and a couple of waves. Plus we got some really good pictures from the 7
rolls of film that we took.

The highlights of the night for me were:

Elevation: 'I'm a wildcat. I'm a wildcat...'

Until the End of the World: 'Never trust a rock singer.' And the whole
Cat&Mouse/Bull Fighting between The Edge and Bono when Bono finally ended up on
his back kicking The Edge's gutiar then hitting it with his hand and then
scraping it with his moicrophone.

New York: When Bono was acting like a horse rider in front of the skim in front
of me, (or maybe he was just slapping his butt?)

Sunday Bloody Sunday: The whole thing with the Irish Flag.

The Band Introduction: Espically Edge's "He could be flying a rocket ship, but
no, he wants to come to Kentucky and ride a horse.

In A Little While/Desire/Stay: They took my breath away. When Bono snuck out the
harmonica at the end of Desire, and then when the audience sang back up for Bono
while Edge walked back to the stage at the end of Stay.

Bad/40 and then going into Streets(my favorite song that was played that night):
Those three songs were quite possibly the most moving songs of the night.

When Streets was Over: Bono was standing on the tip of the heart with the arena
lit up and the I could see all 1,600 people's bare arms pumping in the air.

Mysterious Ways: When Bono took a little rest on one of the single screens
behind the rest of the band.

Pride: After the song ended and U2 walked off stage, the whole audience started
singing 'woah oh oh oh woah oh oh,' and the boys came back on stage.

One: Bono sang "Did you come here to play Jesus?/I did!"

Walk On: "To The Almighty! To The Almighty!..."

The whole day was perfect, amazing to say the least. Once again I found my self
crying a sea of tears, (the other time in Atlanta.) Once again I was amazed by
how awesome these 4 boys from Ireland are. And once again I was in a state of
awe by the fact that for 2 hours and some odd minutes all 1,600 of us in that
small arena were on the same page. I've never understood how anyone could cry at
a concert. But, I found myself doing just that, and at a rock concert to say the
least. But, I suppose crying is the least I could do in the presence of U2, The
Best Band In The World.

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