by Christine Stewart

That night was remarkably cold -- for Florida. A brisk wind whipped through Tampa Stadium, a venue not known for its comfort anyway, at least not in the upper tiers. From our not-quite-nosebleed seats, we could barely make out the band on the distant, rather empty stage. (My brother’s valiant attempt to camp out for general admission tickets was thwarted by the ticket vendor’s refusal to follow the basic first-come-first-served rule. Ah, well, Brian, you tried.) Honestly, we had to take it on faith that the small, dark forms moving about on stage were actually Bono et al.

So there we stood, huddling together in the stands, shivering in the wind, squinting at a far-off stage... and having the time of our lives.

From the moment U2 took the stage (okay, even before that -- great opening acts) we were jumping and cheering and singing along with 50,000 of our new best friends. There was enough of the new material and old to please us all. Even the songs we thought we were getting a little tired of hearing sounded big, rich, and newly rousing. We marched in place and shouted to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and clenched our fists and wailed along with “Pride” hoping each song wasn’t the last.

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