Headed back home, changed, ate a late lunch, etc. and then headed over to Roppongi Hills at 5:30ish. I was planning on going to Super Deluxe for Pecha Kucha, as I mentioned yesterday, so I took Peter's laptop to continue working on my entry for the digital art thingy, and settled into the Starbucks just down the hill (it had a plug, my only criteria for coffee shops these days), to work for a couple of hours before heading to the club. I was just about finished my frappacino, and starting to wonder if this whole crazy project is going to work (I guess we'll soon see!) when Peter called me...Would it be possible for me to get drop everything and get straight on a train to go see U2 with Jordon in an hour?
Ummmm YES!
Packed everything up and scooted out of there while waiting for instructions on how to get to Saitama Super Arena which is absolutely massive! (up to 37, 000 people) Thanks to Nahoko for emailing my keitai with directions several times! Unfortunately, Peter found out about the extra tickets only about 45 minutes before the concert was supposed to start (they were already en route, planning to use these tickets for themselves), and it took me about an hour and 20 minutes to get there! Luckily, there was no opening act (I don't think!), and they started an hour after it said, so by the time Jordon and I sprinted in there, we'd only missed one song (Vertigo, which is too bad as it was the Vertigo tour), but we got to our standing area during the second or third song, so not too bad!
There were a LOT! of people there!!!! Pretty amazing... Fantastic atmosphere, and a great crowd, everyone was REALLY into it! Bono is a fantastic preformer (and has an amazing voice!) and had no problem engaging the crowd, obviously! They played a pretty big variety of songs (I'm terrible with names, sorry!) and also included one never before played (anywhere in the world) song, which was pretty cool!
(loooots of people!)I couldn't really see the stage too well, being not exactly tall, but they had the big screens, so we could watch on that, and then the screen behind the stage was pretty cool as well - They didn't use it a ton, but it definitely went well with the show without over powering the music. They did a cool thing where they asked the audience to all get out thier keitais and make a 'Christmas Tree' - pretty incredible number of lights from that, pretty sweet!
Having the power outside of music that he does, and championing his causes, Bono also took some time out of the concert to impart his plea for change in the world. Interesting in that when they read out the first five points of the Declaration of Human Rights, they had it translated into Japanese on screen...which makes sense, but I also wonder how many people had any idea about what the lyrics were tonight... With a band like U2, you'd think that might be vaguely important, but I guess when the music is good, it really doesn't matter!
(there's a Bono in there somewhere!)I'm not really sure what else to say about it...the energy from a big concert is amazing, but you really have to be there to get involved with the crowd, feel the music thumping through you and get lost in the atmosphere. It must be incredible to be someone like Bono/U2 and have that happen at your feet night after night. What a rush to weild that much power and create so much excitement and enthusiasm!
As we left, with 30 000+ other people, there was some pretty entertaining crowd control - everyone HAD to go in the same direction down the sidewalk, and anyone who tried to start heading the other direction was forcibly herded back into the cue... One girl who was walking on the other side of the street (and possibly not even at the concert), got chased down by a policeman, and then shoved into our throng of people... I saw her trying to get away, but the policeman was phyically shoving her into the mass of people... It was tempting to break rank, but we only rebelled by walking on the wrong side of the curb, though we stayed with the general river of humanity.
(sorry about the photo quality in general - just with the keitai in the dark, maybe Peter and Hitomi can get some better shots from their vantage point tomorrow....)Afterwards we tried to grab some food (easier said than done!) and after being kicked out of Royal Host because they were about to close, we gave up and headed home, it would have been tight to get food anyway with the stupid earliness of last train...
Ummm yea, that's about it - it was great though, thanks to Peter for making it happen for us at the last minute! As for Peter and Hitomi, they'll be heading off to Saitama tommorow, for the special VIP event they managed to score tickets to, including some kind of dinner (not sure if the band is directly involved, but I'm sure we'll hear about it tommorow night!)
When I got home I had to sing for my supper and call the metpod line and leave some kind of review or something of the concert... Which was no problem, but I had no idea what to say! I ended up leaving two fairly lame reports on their answering machine... Possibly one will make it to the metpod, but don't get too excited!... I really don't mind public speaking at all, but I'm not so good on the completely spur of the moment soundbite thing - I could never do live air stuff - there would be all sorts of umms, ahhhs, and dead air!
Anyway, a great night and a total surprise, we really thought there were no extra tickets to be had, so a pretty cool call to get less than an hour from showtime!
D
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