Vertigo

So last night was the U2 concert: Vertigo.

Man, it just totally ROCKED!!!!!!!

It was the BEST concert ever, I was so completely blown away by it and I hardly have the words to describe it!!
The best part of all was that we were among the first 4000 to be admitted into the stadium, which means we got into the special roped-off area right by the stage. We called it the "holding pen" because it was caged off and we all got "branded" with green stamps on our necks so that we could go in and out to get food, use the toilets, meet people etc. I know, totally awesome!

It wasn't even part of our plan to get there early. But we arrived at 3.30pm. The gates were due to open at 5pm, so around 4pm we started getting into line outside gate A. While we were waiting, I looked ahead and thought "there are not that many people in front of us, perhaps we will be part of the first 4000". Bonus! Then I noticed an area off to the side where some people were being sent through a different gate and then ushered into a HUGE tent. I told Rob to go and find out what they were doing. He wouldn't go, so I kept on nagging him, lol. Eventually he went over and a few seconds later he was motioning at us to follow him. We started walking towards the big tent and he said inside were the "first 4000" people!!! They let us go in because we asked! They weren't advertising what was happening and it was just a matter of "you ask, you get". But we knew there was still no guarantee that we would be one of the 4000, because they were just roughly counting and the "official" counting would be done down on the field (with handheld counter thingies). So we tried our luck and waited inside the tent for 45 min. Then finally we were allowed into the stadium. It was a mad rush for the front, and we made it!!! About 10 seconds after we got there, they closed it off and said "sorry, no more". We were SO lucky!! Seriously, we were just about doing backflips when we realised we had made it, and that we would be able to go in and out all evening thanks to the green stamps!

We were SO CLOSE to the stage! Especially the runways that jutted out into the crowd. When Bono and The Edge were standing on them, they were literally only a few metres away from us! We could see the entire stage perfectly, we had TONS of room around us and nothing behind us except 2 fences and some burly security guards ... and then row upon row of crushed people!
The show itself was OUT OF THIS WORLD. They did so many awesome songs! Obviously quite a few from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, but they also did a few from All That You Can't Leave Behind and then heaps of older ones from The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, etc. Of course they did "One Tree Hill" as the final encore, which was just awesome! The stage was SO impressive, and the lighting and screens were just amazing.

Man, I just can't stop talking about it!! My sister took heaps of photos on her mobile phone but obviously we didn't have our cameras. But it was the show of a lifetime. Just an awesome, awesome night!! It was a long day, with lots of standing and I wasn't feeling too well, but it was worth it all. We got home at 1.30am but since the kids were sleeping over at my parents' place we were able to sleep in - bliss! I'm feeling shattered now but I'll be off to bed shortly. We've been playing our U2 CDs all day ... I guess we've got it in our blood at the mo ;-)