Concert

I'm not much of one for concerts. In fact I've only been to 4 in my life: A Beatles tribute band with my parents when I was in middle school (awkward), Michael Franti & Spearhead last winter (awesome), Dropkick Murphey's this past fall (my ears still hurt), and one this past weekend. A lot of my friends like going to concerts, probably because they're from places where cool bands like to play, like New York, Boston, or California. If I was a from a place where Dave Matthews plays every year, I'd probably have gone too. Unfortunately the only big names that ever seemed to play in Oklahoma were Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Faith Hill, and the like.

Until this past weekend. In a scheduling decision that still baffles me, the Black Eyed Peas were opening for U2 (U fucking 2!) at OU's football stadium on October 18th. Both of these bands are on my relatively short list of bands I would be willing to see in concert, so of course I went and also made a special trip to Colorado to bring Mar along too. My parents, as providers of the tickets, were also present, a situation that actually wasn't as awkward as you might think provided that I didn't look at them while I was dancing and singing along to 'My Humps'.

BEP especially played a lot lip service to their presence in my home town, with Wil.i.am frequently uttering phrases such "What's up [pause] Oklahoma!" and "it's so great to be here in [pause] Oklahoma" as if he himself couldn't quite understand what he was doing in this state. U2 was a little smoother in their location mention, referencing their 1983 concert at OU's basketball arena a mile down the road. "It took us 26 years to make it that last mile" Bono said at one point, which sounded sweet at the time, like we were all part of U2's odyssey as a rock band, but could also be interpreted as 'it took us 26 years before we were willing to come back'.

Poking fun at my heritage aside, this was an amazing concert. The crowd of 60,000 was rowdy and knew the lyrics when asked to sing along, and both bands flat out rocked. I was a little worried about how the BEP's would sound given the heavy use of computer sound effects in their music, but they sounded great, getting me jumping up and down and yelling the lyrics as they sang "I gotta feeling', and setting most of the girls (especially including Mar) in the stadium screaming as Fergie let the guys rest and sang "Big Girls Don't Cry".

Of special note was the stage, which cost over $30 million, looks like space ship, and it nicknamed 'The Claw'. After U2's opening song, Bono paused and greeted the crowd saying "how do you like our Mothership?". U2 clearly has played a lot of concerts on this stage, and knew extremely well how to use all the features of the stage's ability to play in the round to make it feel like each section in the stadium was close up to the band and being played to specifically. My favorite two songs that U2 played were probably "Beautiful Day", which allowed to Bono to fully utilize his emotional, arms-spread-to-the-sky style of singing (that and the stage turned blue! See below), and "Sunday Bloody Sunday", which is simply one of the best songs ever and was amazing to hear live.

Finally for those of you interested in seeing what this concert is like, their performance at the Rose Bowl this Sunday is being streamed live on youtube and U2.com.