“I don’t know why the train is so crowded at this time of the day”, said a woman talking over the phone, on a Fremont-bound train in Oakland, on June 7, 2011. Indeed, it was a packed train at 4.00 in the evening, quite out of the ordinary in San Francisco’s BART system.
“It’s the U2 concert, lady”, someone shouted to the woman, still on the phone but with a look of amused realisation on her face. The train was full of people of all ages and colour, wearing old U2 t-shirts and other paraphernalia that alluded to a rock concert that was to take place later in the evening at the Oakland Coliseum – a massive stadium that can hold more than 70 thousand persons – where a makeshift rocket launching pad and high-tech platform held centre-stage.
The coliseum began filling in early. My ticket placed me on top of the stadium, behind the main stage. From there, the world looked small and the sky, just out of reach. The field in front of the stage had huge Irish flags and the multi-coloured flags for peace. Around me, the crowd was a motley group of young Berkeley students and hotel workers who had travelled all the way from Minnesota. They whipped out a Brazilian flag, eliciting jeers from the Mexicans behind us. The young Brazilian men did not care, they were more interested in the fact that one of the girls from Berkeley was from Sao Paolo. Melodious banter, in Portuguese and Spanish, flowed between the Brazilians and the slightly inebriated Mexicans. Just then, the show started and from out of the blue, we were all doing a Mexican wave that went around the stadium to welcome Lenny Kravitz, who opened the show. Lenny was competent as he went through his set. “You are waiting for the best band in the world and these guys are my friends”, he said to an expectant crowd as he left backstage.
U2 elicits passionate responses from people. Their fans love them and their critics are equally fervent about their reasons for disliking the band. Much of it has to do with singer Bono (real name, Paul Hewson) and his penchant for flagging concerns for the people of Africa. His detractors feel that he trivialises issues and wades into the contentious political pool of state-politics in Africa, with a naiveté that is reminiscent of ill-informed missionaries, who by their endorsement of certain causes, end up doing more damage. Others, who see themselves as musical purists, claim that U2 is a band that is way past its prime and whose best days were behind them, after their ‘The Joshua Tree’ album (1987) and ‘Rattle and Hum’ tour/film (1988). However, these debates were far from the minds of the approximately 70 thousand persons, doing one massive wave after another, in anticipation of the four men from Dublin. Then, as if on cue, Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton, walked into a roaring, hysterically screaming crowd of fans.
For close to two hours, Bono and his band played with peoples’ emotions. They sang old songs and on the largest television screen in the world, they spoke to astronaut Mark Kelly, who aboard his space station asked Bono to tell his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford (who was shot in the head on January 8, 2011) that he loved her. Bono said that he would, and launched into a rendition of the U2 song “Beautiful Day”. My Latin neighbours had not sat on the seats ever since the band began to play, were singing along and linking arms. Bono joked and wooed the crowd and in a flash, I understood what stardom was all about. It was about performing for thousands of people and appearing to speak to all of them, one by one, individually and driving them insane with emotional turmoil and joy. At some point, Dame Aung Sang Suu Kyi appeared on the screen and reminded the audience about the political prisoners still in Burmese jails, while a phalanx of volunteers went around the stage to place Amnesty International lamps.
My Brazilian neighbours were crying. I was too. They said: “Irmão, we are with your people!” mistaking my earlier descriptions of Assam to be Burma. For once, geographical mistakes did not matter. For that evening, it felt perfectly harmonious to be among a host U2 fans who cared about the world and who were gathered there in celebration of good old rock and roll (with lots of soul).
“It’s the U2 concert, lady”, someone shouted to the woman, still on the phone but with a look of amused realisation on her face. The train was full of people of all ages and colour, wearing old U2 t-shirts and other paraphernalia that alluded to a rock concert that was to take place later in the evening at the Oakland Coliseum – a massive stadium that can hold more than 70 thousand persons – where a makeshift rocket launching pad and high-tech platform held centre-stage.
The coliseum began filling in early. My ticket placed me on top of the stadium, behind the main stage. From there, the world looked small and the sky, just out of reach. The field in front of the stage had huge Irish flags and the multi-coloured flags for peace. Around me, the crowd was a motley group of young Berkeley students and hotel workers who had travelled all the way from Minnesota. They whipped out a Brazilian flag, eliciting jeers from the Mexicans behind us. The young Brazilian men did not care, they were more interested in the fact that one of the girls from Berkeley was from Sao Paolo. Melodious banter, in Portuguese and Spanish, flowed between the Brazilians and the slightly inebriated Mexicans. Just then, the show started and from out of the blue, we were all doing a Mexican wave that went around the stadium to welcome Lenny Kravitz, who opened the show. Lenny was competent as he went through his set. “You are waiting for the best band in the world and these guys are my friends”, he said to an expectant crowd as he left backstage.
U2 elicits passionate responses from people. Their fans love them and their critics are equally fervent about their reasons for disliking the band. Much of it has to do with singer Bono (real name, Paul Hewson) and his penchant for flagging concerns for the people of Africa. His detractors feel that he trivialises issues and wades into the contentious political pool of state-politics in Africa, with a naiveté that is reminiscent of ill-informed missionaries, who by their endorsement of certain causes, end up doing more damage. Others, who see themselves as musical purists, claim that U2 is a band that is way past its prime and whose best days were behind them, after their ‘The Joshua Tree’ album (1987) and ‘Rattle and Hum’ tour/film (1988). However, these debates were far from the minds of the approximately 70 thousand persons, doing one massive wave after another, in anticipation of the four men from Dublin. Then, as if on cue, Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton, walked into a roaring, hysterically screaming crowd of fans.
For close to two hours, Bono and his band played with peoples’ emotions. They sang old songs and on the largest television screen in the world, they spoke to astronaut Mark Kelly, who aboard his space station asked Bono to tell his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford (who was shot in the head on January 8, 2011) that he loved her. Bono said that he would, and launched into a rendition of the U2 song “Beautiful Day”. My Latin neighbours had not sat on the seats ever since the band began to play, were singing along and linking arms. Bono joked and wooed the crowd and in a flash, I understood what stardom was all about. It was about performing for thousands of people and appearing to speak to all of them, one by one, individually and driving them insane with emotional turmoil and joy. At some point, Dame Aung Sang Suu Kyi appeared on the screen and reminded the audience about the political prisoners still in Burmese jails, while a phalanx of volunteers went around the stage to place Amnesty International lamps.
My Brazilian neighbours were crying. I was too. They said: “Irmão, we are with your people!” mistaking my earlier descriptions of Assam to be Burma. For once, geographical mistakes did not matter. For that evening, it felt perfectly harmonious to be among a host U2 fans who cared about the world and who were gathered there in celebration of good old rock and roll (with lots of soul).
Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
xonzoi.barbora@gmail.com
