My impressions of U2 in Chicago.

(Spoiler alert: this post mentions songs U2 are performing on their 360 Tour. If you are trying to avoid hearing about the setlist, you might want to skip the last few paragraphs.)
I had made plans months back to see this show, the opening night of the North American leg of U2's 360 Tour, but sold my ticket once I started thinking about all of my travel obligations this fall (which include going to see U2 in Raleigh, so it's not like I would miss them entirely). Then about a week before the show, I heard the ticket was up for grabs again. I thought, well, if it's going to go to all of that trouble to find its way back to me, who am I to stand in the way of Destiny? So I made some hotel reservations, talked to a Chicago-based friend about meeting her for dinner, and trundled up the highway.
Once I arrived--my first driving experience in Chicago, by the way, though it hardly counts because I basically exited Lake Shore Drive into a parking lot--I could see the top of the Claw, U2's massive stage set, peeking out over the stands of Soldier Field. I could also see the folks in the general admission line starting to go in. One friend had gotten there early that morning and reported 500 people in line at 6:15 am. (U2 hit the stage about fifteen hours after that.)
My Chicago friend and I had dinner at Valencia. We'd been searching for a place to eat and took the recommendation of a passing Chicagoan--she did not steer us wrong. We had gazpacho, I had sea bass with crabmeat and saffron butter, she had mussels drizzled with yumminess. Valencia also served pomegranate martinis, but I figured it wouldn't be smart to indulge in one of those. All in all, a lovely way to celebrate making it to Chicago.
We said our goodbyes, I joined the throng streaming into the stadium, and then I was in. I had a general admission ticket, but my first look at the Claw in all its glory was from up in the stands. I've heard folks say that you have to see it in person to appreciate the scale of this setup, and it's true. I'd seen lots of pictures but I was still well and truly gobsmacked. The legs stretched from one of the field to the other--a football field!
I'm gonna go off on a tangent here for a sec but stay with me. I've got a recording of a fake folk song, a parody of the genre, about the custom of hunting the wren. In the course of it one singer asks why anyone would hunt such a small bird: "It won't need much stuffing/I don't see the sense."
"Of course it's not big though," the other singer responds. "It's one of the salient features of wrens."
I bring this up because this week the Washington Post had a piece about this tour which basically criticized U2 for being ambitious. Reading it I found myself singing, "It's one of the salient features..." I mean, come on. Has the Post been paying any attention over the last 33 years?
One thing I will say for the article, however--the writer did manage to capture the Claw's unique presence: "When the band performs beneath this hulking piece of technology, it appears as if planet Earth has decided to sacrifice its highest-grossing Irish rock troupe to our new alien overlords."
As for the concert itself--I was near the "back" of the field (with a setup like this, it's hard to talk seriously about back or front) both because I wasn't on the field until opening act Snow Patrol were gone and because I wasn't interested in being in the crush of bodies at the "front."
When U2 took the stage and the screen high above us flickered to life, I was disoriented in a way I haven't heard anyone comment on as yet. Remember--I was in a football stadium, a filled football stadium, three-quarters of the way down the field or more, several thousand people in front of me, sky overhead. But the sound was crisp and clear and perfect, like I was in Sheldon Concert Hall, except way way louder.
I had known on an intellectual level that the whole point of designing the Claw was to get the speakers out of the way of everyone's sightlines. Now I took a good look at them. I counted eighteen speakers in a column, six columns across, two arrays like that (one on each side) between each leg. And the screen in the middle. The very convincing illusion provided by this mustered woofing and tweeting power is that it's the 50 foot tall Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry making all the noise, not their tiny counterparts far beneath. This messed with my head.
There's a very high percentage of songs performed from the three most recent albums. Once I realized this, I also realized that none of them have been played in a US stadium before--or indeed in a show specifically designed as a stadium show. And speaking of hearing things in a new way--I also realized I hadn't seen U2 live since moving to Cincinnati. My life is so, so different now; the connections I'm making to the songs are different. Not better or worse, just different. It was not something I consciously realized until I had put the "U2 concert" marker down on this part of my life.
It was an enthusiastic crowd--hey, it's Chicago, one of the top two places in the US to see U2, in my opinion--but it was still fun to watch the waves of "Huh?" roll through it when the band launched into a dance remix of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight." People were dancing by the end, though.
During "Ultraviolet," I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned, expecting maybe one of the folks I knew who were attending the show. No--it was a guy I didn't know. "I love this song!" he said. I have him a thumbs up. There are worse encounters one can have with a random drunk guy.
There is much more I can talk about, but there is also being home, and sleep.