Wow .... still I get a smile from ear to ear when I think back to the two nights that U2 rocked Nou Camp in Barcelona,the first night me and my parents were bang in the middle of the field, right on the kick off spot and what we saw and heard from there was truely mindblowing !
The boys have created this giant spaceship that has the most amazing screen you have ever seen !
then there is the innercircle, surrounded by a catwalk, that is connected to the mainstage via two moving bridges, yep, moving ..... and offcourse, as they are almost in the center of the field, there is people everywhere around them , and us .... which is unbelievable!
Nou Camp with 100.000 souls, all standing up, clapping, singing, jumping ...
I literally had several times where I watched the crowd, as opposed to the boys in action ....
so, first night I was further from the stage, which meant we got teh full effect of the audiovisual spectacle they had come up with ... and I mean full !!! I am used to quite some soundsystems, but this one .. it blows all of m away ! The second night I only had one person between me and the band ... yep, only one, and it happened to be the girl that got pulled up on stage ! I knew her as we had swapped tickets earlier that day, and met a few days before .. she was one of those in the line in fr4ont of the entrance 48 hours before the start .. yep ... 48 hours .... but as it was well organised, they had a list with names and numbers etc, so everyone could leave the line every now and then, for a meal, or a shower etc .. I actually had lined up around 13.00pm on teh day of teh concert ... very late I know .. but other things needed done first ... I was nr 926 in line, and that meant I would make it into the inner circle ! So in I went .. and as I entered the inner part, with the biggest smile ever on my face ,.. I saw empty places everywhere as people had started sitting down on the floor, and as most are in small groups, this means there is room for individuals ... and all I did was ask If it would be ok to move to the next empty spot .. and so I ended up all the way in front, right next to the peeps I met outside .. Ian and John from australia, and melissa from venezuela, and eduardo from spain etc etc .... you should have seen their faces when they saw me right behind them .. all they could do was congratulate me in full awe .... here we were ... nrś 6, 7 and 8 and 926 ...at the rail ... ready for some singing and jumping while having the boys at 2 meters from us ..
This position did mean we hardly got to see the screen .. but who cares when you get the energy of 100.000 people towards you .... I will never forget that ! The first night the band was struggling a bit with some aspects, logical as it had been 5 years since they played like this, the 2nd night they were tight as anything, the energy and joy was infecting everyone there, resulting in a crowd that at times, did not let bono make his speeches ...they were all singing olleee olleee ole oleeee at the top of their voices, and the boys enjoyed it bigtime ! We got the first ever performance live of electrical storm, we got partygirl, were melissa got pulled up, and desire ... as different songs from the first night .. also, they were shooting a video for the new single, Iĺl go crazy if I dont go crazy tonight, and the girl that got pulled up, is quite pleasing to the eye, so she surely got filmed, and if they filmed her, I am on it too .... ha ha ... watch me on MTV this summer .. or it might end up as a video for the new blackberry commercial, we dont know yet ....
It was midblowing, having been on the field in amsterdam with the vertigo tour for the first time, this ,was again, something else .. I heard they are even crazier in milan, starting the line 4 - even 5 days before hand .. I guess I will see soon enough, tomorrow I will go to milan, where I will stay till the 10th
And last thingie .. today I am in the in-out hostel in barcelona, right at the outskirts, in teh hills, in a nature park ! it is run by handicapped people, and it is a non profit organisation, so it feels great here .. free internet, great beds (dont need those as I will sleep outside again, right next to the swimming pools and soccer pitch, I now know where the sun comes up, so It wont wake me this time .. actually .. yep, u2 again ... but this morning the boy that made me my coffee (Ivan) turned out to have been to the actuial dress rehearsal that U2 gave in Nou camp the night before they opened the tour .. they invited 300 people, all connected to the special olympics ... and my waiter was one of them .. what are the chances .... ???
It all has to be like this ..... and it feels great !
Except for the sunburn and the blisters ..... but hey ....
ciao ciao
