U2 Joshua Tree Tour 2017

     I would like to start this post by saying that, in my opinion, in this life there are only two types of people: those who love U2 and those who haven't heard them yet. I have had the honor of meeting the exceptions and am happy to see that despite such an overwhelmingly severe genetic defect in what is clearly their auditory system as well as other debilities of which I have named Mal Parido( pull out the Spanish dictionaries) Disease, these individuals have managed to overcome so much and have mostly learned to walk and chew their own food adequately as well as master a, if somewhat limited, language with sentences such as "I hate U2." To these individuals and those that helped them overcome their deficiencies, I have nothing but praise and let me write this short and concise so you can understand;

Good. For. You.  

#blessthem  #fightforacure #malparido

Now let me move on.

     The smartest thing a young Larry Mullins ever did was put an add in his school's bulletin board looking for bandmates to join the Larry Mullins band. Several name changes later, in 1983, U2 released an album called Boy which converted me into a lifelong fan. Someone had given me a cassette tape (kids, google that) which I warped while playing repeatedly in my car, room and walkman (look that up too.)I was a thirteen year old Freshman in a Miami highschool. The 80's in Miami was a lifestyle of pure excess. Greed was good so they said on the movie Wallstreet and the drug trade made Miami boom with too much money,possessions and people. Prince was telling me to party like it was 1999 and Duran Duran was hungry like the wolf, whatever that meant. It was all too superficial and I felt unsure, unsafe and unhappy but didn't quite know what I was trying to say or how to change it. That was until I heard "Drowning Man"

Hold on, hold on tightly

Hold on and don't let go

Of my love

The storms will pass

It won't be long now

The storms will pass 

But my love lasts forever

and then "40" 

I waited patiently for the Lord

He inclined and heard my cry

He brought me up out or the pit

Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song

How long to sing this song

    I went to a Catholic high school but it took a band from Dublin singing a song based on Psalm 40 to let me understand God had my back. And they did it with some totally kicking beats. With a spiritual subtext and deep lyrical meaning in their music, I often wondered how they were surviving with bands like Wang Chung and Flock of Seagulls saturating the radio but I know now that their message was universal, it touched a nerve in almost anyone who heard it. Not a call to arms but a call to respect, tolerate and love one another.

     Four years later, I was more certain of who I was and, am happy to say, had found my clic of lifelong friends that sang out loud with me throughout high school when life was good and held my hand when it went south and I could almost be assured things would always have a way of going south in my home. In 1986, my eldest brother was diagnosed with AIDS and my father died suddenly from a heart attack. I was sixteen and was made to feel ashamed about expressing my fears and needs about these  tragedies. U2 came out with Joshua Tree and again I found a voice. 

"Running to Stand Still"

You got to cry without weeping

Talk without speaking

Scream without raising your voice

You know I took the poison from the poison stream 

Then I floated out of here

 "Where the Streets Have No Name"

I want to run, I want to hide

I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside

I want to reach out and touch the flame

Where the streets have no name

     I wasn't alone in loving this band. Though they got less airplay then Madonna their concerts were sold out. They touched a cord with most everyone who heard them. They had songs with meat on them that stood the test of time. I can't tell you how many times I could listen to the same song and find different meaning for what it represented in, not only, my life but in the global climate. 

     In 1992, I convinced three of my gross anatomy lab partners to take a bus to Houston the night before a microbiology final in order to watch U2 Achtung Baby "ZOO TV" Tour. My power of persuasion might have been pretty good but, the truth is, most people who know the band will do just about anything to see them. I even managed to sneak to the front row and had The Edge sweat on me and Bono touch my fingertips. Most fun was to see myself 20feet tall on a jumbo screen as the camera panned out over the crowd. I'm sure I was saying something cool like,"I love you Larry!" knowing he would surely hear my cries and do something crazy like marry me. (It never hurts to try was my thought)On the long bus ride home we talked about how the band touched us and where we first heard them but my favorite part was grossing out all the non medical student passengers as we quizzed ourselves on all of the different sexually transmitted diseases. To ask out loud to the bus, "What does Trichomonas discharge look like?" and have most of the bus answer in unison was just another one of the priceless moments you got in life that still brings a smile to my face. I'm happy to say we all passed. (the medical students not the bus of U2 fans)

In September 2001, America suffered a devastating tragedy and I watched it happen on the TV as I held the nurse's hand who was drawing my pre-op labs for the upcoming delivery of my first son into this world. Only a few months earlier I was at the Elevation Tour with my husband and best friends Berta and Juan. I was pregnant with Golden listening to "Beautiful Day" thinking life can't get any better and how I hoped this moment would last forever. 

It's a beautiful day 

The sky falls and you feel like

It's a beautiful day

Don't let it get away

Little did I know that shortly after 9/11 would transpire leaving me  scared and shaken as to what kind of world I was bringing my child into.  I felt "Peace on Earth" was more appropriate for how we were all feeling with lyrics like:

Heaven on Earth, we need it now

I'm sick of all this hanging around

Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain

I'm sick of hearing again and again

That there's going to be peace on earth

Jesus can you take the time to throw a drowning man a line

    Two years later my brother Peter, who had survived HIV, AIDS and cancer, died unexpectedly and alone in his apartment. I was pregnant and about a month away from delivering my daughter Eva and again I felt such a strong combination of life's happiest and saddest moments colliding so hard in my heart it brought me to my knees. But that's life right? Highs and lows and it's what we learn in the lows that matter the most. 

Hello Larry! Can you hear me screaming?

     That's not to say that U2 wasn't the soundtrack to many a spirited party and definitely a part of so many ill conceived plans of my youth that turned into one of those memorable nights you would talk about for years to come. The second their anthems would come on in the car, at a party or alone in my room, things just went up a notch. Songs like Elevation, Vertigo, New Years Day and the less known Trash, Trampoline and The Party Girl were always on the soundtrack of most of the stories that start with, "Remember that time when..."
       

     So when you hear U2 is having a thirty year reunion tour of the Joshua Tree in Miami, you do what you have to do to get yourself tickets and who better to share the moment with you then your friends of thirty years who were at the last U2 concert with you. I drove nine hours with six kids and would do it again in a heartbeat for this chance because like most great nights, it was lightning in a bottle. 

     The concert was an audible journal of my life so far with one outstanding song after the next and although it's been thirty years of changes between us at that moment it was good to see that nothing really had changed. I'm still the same adventure seeking, life loving girl I was back then but now I can say that I'm  a better, more confident person. There has been a crap load of bad times these past thirty years but even though I find that I still sing How long must I sing this song? when I see all of the injustices going on in the world, I can now say that when I sing

 I still haven't found what I'm looking for

the truth is, I have; thanks to strong friendships, a loving husband, amazing children and most importantly, a loving Heavenly Father.

The difference from this concert and the one in 2001 was simple; when I heard "Beautiful Day" I appreciated that sometimes that's all the certainty we can get. One gloriously good day to hold on to until the next rolls around and I'm okay with that now. I'm as ready as one can be for what's next. 

Thanks for this Mr. Guerra

Best concert going gang you could ask for

     I could only hope that U2 could go on making music for my children for thirty years more to come. When I listen to the radio or see these new artists on the TV I wonder who the U2 for my children's generation will be. All I seem to see is a lot of twerking, skin, and foul language to cover up songs that couldn't stand the test of time for a week let alone a generation. To steal the line from Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's mostly tales told by idiots full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

To end, I'd like to thank Adam Clayton, Paul Hewson(Bono), Dave Evans (The Edge) and Larry Mullen for knocking it out of the ball park again and again for this girl. It was truly a beautiful day.