U2

Amy, Pete, Ian and I went to see U2 at Gillette Stadium on Monday night. I haven't seen U2 since the late 80s and boy, have their shows changed! Of course, I know, it goes without saying. They can fill a stadium of that size and they can afford to have a crazy expensive stage set-up. Their performance, however, is still as great as ever. I'm not the world's biggest U2 fan, but I'll see them live anytime somebody wants to spring for the tickets!

Attending this concert came out of Ian going to see a U2 3-D at the IMAX theater of The New England Aquarium with Amy, Jeff and Lauren. After the movie Ian said to Amy "Now I have to see them live." To which Amy replied "Next time they come, I'll get tickets!" And get tickets she did! She even joined the U2 website so that she could take advantage of presale purchasing. She bought the tickets about 4 or 5 months ago and it was a topic of conversation all summer.

The big night finally arrived and we headed out to Foxboro. The campus of Gillette is HUGE! They have the whole Patriot Place thing going on as well as ample parking. The parking, however, is not free! You must pay $40. to park, which might not have been so bad had we been able to exit the lot after the show in a timely fashion. But no, TWO HOURS just to get out onto route 1. This was one of only two complaints I had with the evening.

Once we got in and found our seats, this is what we were looking at. It's a space ship that took on a life of its own once the show started.

A closer view so you can see just how big the thing was. YIKES! There are a couple of bridges from the main stage out to the ring that moved all the way around.

Ian and I.

Amy and Pete very excited for the show to start.

Bono up on the expandable screen, 360 degrees of it. That thing was crazy! It hung down from the underside of the spaceship and could be stretched down to the floor!

http://www.youtube.com/user/pennycariolo#play/all/uploads-all/0/spcMKPZZvJw

This link takes you to a video of the song With or Without You. I didn't get the whole song because of my second complaint of the night. This was the second to last song of the evening, they were about 2/3 through it and some venue staff guy comes up behind me, taps me on the shoulder and tells me if I don't "turn it off and put it away", he'll confiscate my camera. There were at least four other people right in front of me doing the exact same thing, but because I was at the top of the row, I get the shit. If you watch the whole video, you can hear him saying it at the very end.

All in all, I'd have to say it was a GREAT show and I'm so glad we went.

Thanks Amy and Pete!!!

WALK 'N ROLL

In the morning, after dropping Ian at the train, I go for a "power" walk. Swinging arms, handweights, headphones, the whole nine yards. For the longest time I listened to disco because back in the day of aerobics classes that's what we worked out to. Recently though, I've needed something more motivational. After seeing Motley Crue last month, I decided that Metal would do the job.



I have downloaded into my mp3 player Motley Crue, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple and Motorhead, so far, and those 70 songs took about 4 hours. I still have many, many more songs to go through in our iTunes library. The reason it takes so long to load them in is that I have to listen to each one to see if it has the proper speed to keep me going fast enough.

When I hear the opening guitar on It's a Long Way to the Top or the riff at the beginning of Dr. Feelgood, I can feel the endorphins kick in and it makes me walk harder! It takes all I have to keep from headbanging while I'm walking down the street.