U2 360 tour

Hi. Rich here for one of my rare appearances as a poster on the family blog.

So on October 20 my buddy Doug and I had the opportunity to attend the U2 concert held at University of Phoenix Stadium. Doug had called me the Thursday prior and asked if I might be interested in going. "Cool," I thought, I'd never been to a U2 concert before, despite really liking their music for as long as I can remember.

We decided that in order to avoid as much traffic and parking woes as possible (also in an attempt to avoid the $20 parking fee) we would arrive several hours early and find a place to grab an early dinner before the show. Finding free parking was actually quite easy, although it required about a 3/4 mile walk to the stadium. We parked in the parking lot of the adjacent Westgate shopping center, where we also tried to find a place to eat. When we got there around 4 (the opening act was scheduled to start at 7) and found that all of the restaurants in the main part of Westgate already had lines out the door and around the corner. We walked towards the movie theaters where we saw a Johnny Rockets without much of a line. There were only two people ahead of us, so we were seated rather quickly despite being told food would take nearly 40 minutes to be served. Not too long after we were seated we noticed the line outside Rockets become quite long. Soon thereafter, a lady approached us and asked us if we were attending the U2 concert. We answered in the affermative and she offered to buy our dinners if we would let her and her daughter join us at our table. Being towards the back of the long line, they were afraid they may miss the beginning of the concert. We agreed and our dinner was paid for. Sweet!

The Black Eyed Peas were the opening act, and they were actually quite good. I've never really been a fan of their music, but they were very entertaining and put on a good show. I'm surprised that a group as big as U2 even need to have an opening act. The only other concerts I've been to in the past several years were a pair of Rush concerts, and they never used an opening act.

Doug and Rich before the show

U2 were in top form for the concert. They started the concert with several songs from their new album before getting into some of their older hits. The stage was enormous. I read somewhere to that it was the biggest stage ever used. It certainly filled up UoP Stadium. The top of the spire nearly touched the roof. The lighting they used throughout the show made the stage look really cool and added a nice effect to the show. We sat in the cheap seats (our tickets only cost $30, plus Tickmaster fees of nearly $15 - 50% of the ticket price!!!) but the show was excellent and we had no problem seeing the concert.

I need a camera with a better zoom!!!