Our U2 Experience | Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA

It was my high school boyfriend that handed me my first copy of The Joshua Tree at age 15. I knew of U2, but I didn't know U2, he said. There was a distinct difference, and he wouldn't let me go through life without at least listening to what he considered to be the "greatest album ever made." I listened, and for the first time felt Bono belt out "In God's Country" through my teenage bedroom. A year later, another friend handed me the Best of 1990-2000 album, and  "Summer Rain" became the soundtrack of my Junior year as I drove through my single stoplight town, past corn and potato fields, and out into the open country. It was the year I performed a solo to "With or Without You" for my dance studio that I studied with, and as I moved to college, "Beautiful Day" filled the radio stations and brought U2 officially back to stardom. My roommate had to beg me to stop playing "Wild Honey" in our dorm room. A few years later, "Vertigo" crossed the airwaves for the first time while I sat in an internet cafe in Granada, Spain. A few weeks later, Jeff sent me a package with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb inside and a note that read, "I love you, and you'll love this."

You might think I'm a crazy-obsessed U2 fan by this point, but in all honesty, I'm not. But if there is one thing that has become a soundtrack of my 20-odd years of life, U2's "red guitar, three cords, and the truth" would be it. My scratched and smudged U2 cd's have sat next to me while I drove to my first college summer job, when I moved out of the dorms, when I rode the trains through Europe, and when I moved into my first apartment with Jeff just after our wedding. For me, they have always been a deeply sentimental part of my life. And for guitar-loving Jeff, he has been more of the true rock fan - awe-struck over the ease with which Edge screams out his stadium worthy chords and the incredible rhythmic sync between Adam Clayton's bass line and Larry Mullen Jr's drum beats.

But we have never gotten to see them in their very best - live. So when tickets went on sale for the 360 Tour in Pasadena, we decided to go all out and go the General Admission route. I'm going to tell the full story of our experience here, but if you'd rather just see some images and videos from the concert, feel free to skip the text.

For those, who don't know what General Admission means, they are "first-come, first-serve" ground floor tickets. So basically, the earlier you get there, the closer you get to the stage. So Jeff, myself, and three of our friends woke up at 5:00am on Sunday morning, drove to up to Pasadena, and staked out our spot in the general admission line at 8am (keep in mind, we had a wedding the day before, so we're running on exhaustion and very little sleep). We really weren't sure what to expect, but when we arrived, there were already 900 people in line that had come as early at 4am (the first ones actually came at midnight, but were kicked out and forced to sleep in their cars until they returned at 4:00). But when it comes to the stage (and the fact that the Rose Bowl holds 90,000 people), 900 people actually isn't a lot, so we were pretty pleased with ourselves and set up camp for the long hot day of sitting outside the Rose Bowl. And it was HOT! We had to take turns sitting in our spot in line in the hot sun, and letting others go recover in the shade. Needless to say, we were covered in sweat and dirt in no time! It was fantastic! We definitely slept off some of the tiredness and did a lot of reading and chatting!

Here's a view of the GA line, which was actually very odd compared to others. Normally people are much more packed in, but things were apparently pretty chill at the Rose Bowl.

Security came around to give us numbers so that they could keep some sort of order with letting people in (more on this later). Mine had almost sweated off by the time the gates were opened, so I'm glad we took a picture as proof!

We also got wristbands to keep non-GA peeps off of the floor.

So about that whole, security and order thing with getting inside the stadium.... this is where things got interesting! Like I said, there were about 900 people in front of us and they had split us up into groups of 250 and were going to let the groups inside in one by one. About half an hour before the gates were suppose to open, we were just sitting and chilling and waiting like we had been doing for the past nine hours, and suddenly (we have no idea what caused this) people started running towards the gates! So we started running along with the massive stampede of concert goers, and in the midst of the chaos all of the previous numbers and groups and order basically went kapooey. We managed to get pretty close to the front, although we were probably set back a little in the grand scheme of things. It may look like a lot of people are in front of us, but behind us was about five times as many people and the crowd stretched on forever!

Here's our friends Josh and Leanne as we waited for the gates to open.

When the sudden stampede began, people basically just up and left their campsites - chairs, tents and all - and they all got trampled by the crowd in no time. So when the crowd finally came to a hault, the guys (Jeff and Leanne's husband Mike) found a cooler full of unopened cold beers. After sweating in the dry, hot sun for nine hours, they couldn't resist!! Don't judge, you totally would have done it too!

So here's a little background on the stage: its huge. It the largest traveling concert set in HISTORY. Its a 360 degree stage inside the legs of The Claw (Bono calls it the Space Shuttle, but I like The Claw) and it has a MASSIVE 360 degree screen hanging above. This is truly a full experience for everyone in the stadium. Circling the stage is a thin ramp that the U2 guys walk to by crossing two bridges that can move around the stage. As GA, you can stand inside the "inner circle" (between the outer ramp and the actual stage) or just outside the outer ramp. To get inside the circle, you had to be one of those 4am peeps. But we have read and heard that standing just outside the outer ramp is actually best spot - its not that far from the stage, the guys get spitting distance from you on the ramp, and you still have an amazing view of the screen and the whole set experience. We managed to get just five people back from the outer ramp just right of the very center. It was the absolute PERFECT spot!! You'll see why in the images below.

This was a historic night in many ways. Not only is the entire 360 Tour the largest in history, but the Rose Bowl show was recorded for the DVD (maybe we'll be on it!) and also streamed live over You Tube all over the world for the first time ever! The You Tube recording is now available online, so you can see the entire show if you'd like, and although its good, its so different from the actual experience!

Waiting for another two hours or so until the Black Eyed Peas opened the show. This is where your back and feet and general sanity make you really hope that the whole experience is actually going to be worth it...

The Black Eyed Peas were awesome, especially when Slash himself showed up and played "Sweet Child of Mine." AMAZING!

And then, it all actually happened. At this point we're going nuts. Thirteen hours of anticipation, sweat, exhaustion, and sore bodies came pouring out of us and we screamed along with every chord and note and syllable! And then the bridges starting moving toward us, and this is why we had the best spot in the house...

...when Edge came walking by... If any of the guys were on the ramps, they spent the most time right in front of us and facing us. It was AMAZING!

This is during "Magnificent" which just may be their best song yet when played live. You have to be there to really understand, but the CD version is no where close to what its like in the middle of a huge stadium with 100,000 people screaming and Bono belting his lungs out on a moving bridge right in front of you.

The screen seriously made the show incredible. Especially when it did tricks!

The best part of the entire show was when they played a remix version of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" which is on the new album, No Line on the Horizon. Our camera was dying (Gah!) so I only got small clips of video, but it gives you an idea of just how awesome our spot was. I love in the second video when Edge suddenly comes waltzing by...

To see a full version of the live performance of "I'll Go Crazy," check out this You Tube video taken from a fan in the inner circle during the show in Amsterdam. IT IS AMAZING. We first saw this video a few weeks before the Rose Bowl and it got us so pumped up, we couldn't stand to wait any longer! Even on a little point and shoot video, the whole show looks and feels incredible. Just multiply this little video by 100, and you'll feel like we did!

After the show, our bodies hurt like crazy, our knees wanted to collapse, and we couldn't feel our feet, but we didn't regret a single moment of the 19 hours we drove, stood, sat, slept, and hurried up and waited for this experience. We didn't get home to San Diego until 2:00am, so in reality we indulged 21 full hours into U2, and we still can't stop thinking about it two days later!