Oh, You Look So Beautiful Tonight...

So good. I am still exhausted from the show last night, but it was great. Good music. Good stage. Good times.
Alicia met me at my office, and we headed over to dinner at BeerWorks (FYI-- the lobster roll sucks). I sat in my chair, occasionally bursting into a mantra of "BonoBonoBonoBonoTheEdgeBonoBono" and drinking as much beer as possible before I headed over to the GardenCenter which engages in the violation of human rights by not allowing people under the age of 25 with an out-of-state ID to buy beer. I wonder if Bono knows about this violation of my basic human rights. We all deserve to be drunk if we want to be.
After we ogled the bartender who bore a strong resemblance to Detective Stabler on Law and Order: SVU, we headed over to the GardenCenter to buy our concert swag and catch the opening act, which was Gavin Rossdale's new band Institute. Which was good, especially when they played "Machine Head" and "The Chemicals Between Us." Gavin took a few spins around the oval-shaped stage while he sang, and then mercifully exited to make way for U2.
The crowd began to file in around nine. On one side of Alicia and I was a group of two couples. Next to Alicia, a guy in his late 40s or early 50s sat before the show. He seemed mellow enough.
Then two older guys, maybe in their late 50s, came up. One of them in his flannel jacket and Dickies pants asked me where his seats were. Of course, his was next to me, which I told him.
"I was hopin' to sit next to you!" He exclaimed, nudging me a bit too close to my boob for comfort.
"Of course it's not two single guys in their twenties who sit next to us, oh no, it's the old guys," Alicia said.
The lights came down, and the crowd went nuts as Bono, the Edge, Larry and Adam took the stage. They launched into "City of Blinding Lights" and "Vertigo" and we all screamed our fool heads off. The guy next to Alicia danced stiffly, but moved around enough to bump into her several times. I stood close to her, trying to avoid contact or conversation with the guy next to me.
Of course, they played "Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own," which, while technically a song Bono wrote for his father, reminds me of the Whatever, especially the lines "I don't need to hear you say that if we weren't so alike you'd like me a whole lot more." But, that was about the only sad moment I had. The rest of the time was spent watching Bono run around the oval, dance with Santa Claus and Elvis, chase the Edge around (it's amazing the Edge can play guitar AND run at the same time) and listening to Bono preach against poverty, war and AIDS.
It's interesting how bands that have been around for so long have such a cross-section of ways to experience one of their shows. When I saw Gwen Stefani, it was a fairly homogeneous crowd, with most people over the age of 30 there with a kid. Nine Inch Nails had a little bit more of a mix too. But acts like Sting and U2 have people who've been fans for twenty or more years, like the guys next to us, and people like Alicia and I who were in diapers when U2 was playing the small clubs in Boston. I don't think we enjoyed the show any less than these guys did (well, maybe, but only because they didn't respect personal space) but we don't have the memories of owning Joshua Tree on vinyl or anything. There's also the uncomfortable epiphany that someday we'll be at a show, watching Gwen Stefani prance around as best she can on her old feet, with people around us who were in diapers when she did her first solo tour.