oh boy, U2

This month was my 35th birthday. I didn’t feel it so much as I have in the past, but I am enjoying being this age… it is a responsible age but all the really playful things in life start becoming good wine, finally. My big bday present was seeing U2. Two nights ago D and I went to the show in Dallas. It was… I’m speechless… so beautiful. They are a band that delivers on so many levels–they are tight, amazing musicians, everything sounds better than you can imagine, the show travels with you, and if you have to scrape the money to go see them somewhere I highly recommend it.

For me, seeing them was a life experience. I remember going out to spend hard-earned money on a cassette of Joshua Tree in high school and listening to it obsessively. They were spiritually and creatively a breakthrough for me… but how beautiful it was to see them at last after all these years and yet they are better than ever. Bono is like a priest, he is delivering his heart and his passion and you don’t feel like you are sitting there watching rock stars. In this big stadium, you feel as if you are being invited yourself into this space that everyone wants to belong to–the space of transcendance and beauty. I read an interview where Bono said that they always perform “Where The Streets Have No Name” because it is THE song that takes things to another level and no show would be complete without it, and he’s right. When they launched into it, I could really feel the whole crowd around me being taken somewhere. We all wanna go there, right? The place where there are no walls, where we are loved beyond our wildest dreams. This is the only band I know that really takes you there, no matter where you are at, and lets you touch that eternal place. It’s heaven, really.

Which is why it’s so sad when it’s all over. Who wants to leave heaven?

Anyway, I have enormous respect for them as a band–they have really given their gift out, and resisted coming under the spell of entertainment. They use their bigness to bring everyone to the party.

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