by Jeff Corley

This was my first U2 concert. I remember a few weeks before spending hours on the phone trying to get through to Ticketmaster, but to no avail. Sold out. My roommate and I decided to go down from Texas A&M to Houston the day of the show and see if we could get tickets. To our surprise, the arena was selling some "obstructed view" seats that they had held back for the day of the show. Our seats were behind the stage.
I remember when the Pixies were on that I was pretty underwhelmed. The sound was bad, and it seemed like the Pixies were sitting on stools or something. Boring! Things changed dramatically as the lights went down for U2's entrance. If you've ever been to a U2 show, you know what I'm talking about. There's some kind of electricity generated by the crowd's anticipation. It gave me chill bumps. We saw the band actually come out from under the arena and walk under the stage. As the band launched into "Zoo Station", Bono walked erratically across the stage with his arms up. He jerked to the rhythm of Edge's guitar intro.
Highlights from the show included Adam walking back and acknowledging those of us behind the stage, and Bono also coming back with a champagne bottle during "Trying to Throw Your Arms...". He actually threw his towel to a crowd of about a dozen girls to the left of us, and they dove into each other trying to win the souvenier. We were also on the TV screens at one point when the camera man walked back to us. The mirrorball trabant floating over the remote stage was also classic. I've seen U2 five times since, but I will always remember that concert as the best, because I had waited so long to see them and had to go through a lot to get there. And it was worth it!

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