December 03, 2024

by Brian Boyd

This was a crazy show. They actually opened for a punkish group called Romeo Void but the crowd was so buzzed by U2 that RV was a complete afterthought. Two notable things about the show: The Student Union building at San Jose State University (not 'College' as stated)is built on rubber piers. The place was packed with punky folks (and of course me in a cowboy hat and a Hank Williams Jr t-shirt) with mohawks and dog collars. The crowd was pogoing so intensely that the amps on the stage were rocking and on the verge of falling off the stage so fans got on the stage and held them up so the show could keep going. Oddly, my wife (who I didn't know was one of the mohawked and dog collared folks...we married 22 years later!)was at the show and remembered being freaked out by the floor thinking there was an earthquake. I don't know if the setlist here came from a tape or not but I distinctly remember that they played a couple of songs more than once. I know that 'I Will Follow' was played at least twice. Once in the regular set and again during the encore. We thought that maybe they played all they knew but the crowd wanted more.

The second interesting thing was that I got interview U2 in a very Spinal Tap-esque scene. My good friend Christine and I were Journalism majors and writing for a small off campus paper. She was told there would be a press conference after the show so U2 could beat the drum for 'Boy'. After the show, we went into a storage room in the Student Union and there they were. And there we were. We were the only ones who showed up. The band could not have been nicer. I remember that Bono had a small tape player. I asked him what was on it. He said that he hums into it to remember songs he was writing because he didn't read or write music. When asked what they thought of America, I remember them laughing that they expected Ronald McDonald to greet them at the airport. Oddly, I owe this whole experience to Sting. Christine was always trying to get me to see and interview emerging bands. A couple of years earlier, one of them was The Police. I didn't go and regretted it which is why I went with her to the U2 show!

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